Alcoholism Support Group
Alcoholism is the continued consumption of alcoholic beverages, even when it is negatively affecting your health, work, relationships and life. If you think alcohol is causing you to lose control, it's time to seek help. Our group is a safe place to vent, check in, get back up if you fall, and reach sobriety.
First time post - feeling strangely naked.
My wife is an alcoholic and has been for around three or four years - it was pretty gradual so its hard to say exactly. She functions pretty well, but is drinking more and more - she thinks secretly, but she's lousy at hiding drink, and so obviously drunk when she thinks she's being covert. It would be funny if it were not so annoying. What hurts most is she knows I know she's drinking, knows I know she's lying about just about everything, and has no compunction about stealing from me, and in the sneakiest possible ways - so inventive. She must have stolen £10,000 in three years either helping herself to my bank account, or running up credit cards until it gets silly, and I end up paying them off.
She's come to such an accomodation with lying she no longer tells the truth even if nothing is at stake, and has no need to lie - its just her default position. Today she came in from walking the dogs (with whom she is as dutiful and loyal as anyone, drunk or sober), and put a bottle of wine down on the counter proudly proclaiming she only got one bottle today - its work tomorrow! So, how come she's slurring her speech and cursing at the hi-fi when it wont do what she wants, and yet the bottle isn't opened yet? Well, two empty cider tins and another bottle of wine in the bedroom answer that question.
I've done all the stuff you think you're the first ever to do - shouting, threatening, drinking with her, telling her we're finished, begging her to see sense, comforting her - everything i can think of, and recently I have begun to start thinking through how to split up with as little mess as possible - she would be monstrous if she really thought it was happening. I've wondered if I should quietly put my important possessions in storage without saying anything, so that when she goes crazy and wrecks everything (she's done this before) there is less collateral damage. Your mind goes into overdrive thinking it all through.
I ask myself why I havent just walked away up to now, and I think its because I do care a great deal about her, and I worry she would end up on the street quite quickly. Of course, at first she'd have half of the proceeds of splitting to live off, or get a new place with - but she's pathetic with money and has no concept of budgetting. It makes me worry she'd be homelss or dead in five years.
And now she's hit me with the sucker punch - she's been diagnosed with breast cancer. We're waiting for the verdict on the best course of treatment, but of course its making her drink even more, despite me pointing out the drink may have caused the cancer. I am wracked with grief that she may die, but depressed that she may live - how heartless does that sound? I can't leave her now - not when she is ill and will need someone to look after her. And if she lives, and gets well, she'll still drink and I'll be trapped, too afraid of the guilt to leave.
A few weeks ago, I felt depressed and suicidal and, comically it seems to me now, bought a kit from Europe to do myself in with helium gas - you'd be amazed how easy it is. Somewhere in there, there's a great joke about "Brexit". Anyway, it was £400; got it delivered to Argos of all places (sorry Argos, its no fault of yours), so I could collect it privately. When I collected it, I opened the package and immediately knew I didn't seriously want to die - I was too f****g angry at the rubbish they send you while parting you from £400!! You dont even get the helium! Oh no, you have to go a kids balloon shop or something for that, and to top it all, I later spotted the same kit from Australia for only $200Aus. In a strange way, it did me good - I sat in the car, gazing at this nonsense and cursing and moaning about what a jackass I am. Its something that's given me a laugh a few times, but also something I cold easily weep over when I think of what put me in that frame of mind to begin with. Thankfully, that little episode of black comedy has stopped me being scared of those thoughts, as I've learned I am only morbidly curious, not serious.
I do wonder if I am her problem really. I can outdrink her anytime, and I love a drink - in fact I'm always a bit suspicious of people who don't like a drink. Indeed on a weekend, I might easily drink more than her in a sitting. But whereas she has no off switch, I can just choose to drink or not to drink as my mood, and the circumstances dictate - OK, its a lot to do with being too idle to go get it - I dont think I've ever wanted a drink enough to make the effort to go buy some, but I would drop it in the trolley if I'm doing the weekly shop. She'd walk over broken glass in her bare feet to suck a barmaids apron!. Its a worry though - while I would characterise myself as a binge drinker, more than an alcoholic; I can't help but wonder where that line is when you stop sucking out of the bottle and it starts sucking out of you - I'm paraphrasing a line from "One flew over the cuckoos nest". A big concern for me is are we creating a problem for each other - you know, me validating her drinking by also drinking, and her dragging across the line of self-control. I heard a joke recently that said "Q:What did they call binge drinking in the eighties? A:Drinking". Its kinda true I think, but drinking in the eighties was all done down the pub, but now its in front of Netflix, where there's no last orders.
As things are today, I am as happy with a coke or orange squash as I am with wine, but pour me a glass and I'll drink it - so I dont think I'm helping her, but if I do refuse a drink as I sometimes do, I get this whole sarcastic "Oh, YOURE being good arent you?" line. As though not drinking is really wierd - Oh, I just wish she'd stop drinking or go away. I love her too much to want to abandon her, but she loves the drink too much to hear me when I ask her to consider AA or some other counselling. So, now she's got this cancer, it puts a ton of concrete in my stomach, but there's a tiny far off voice in my head telling me its an escape - and that is the scariest thing I've had to face yet. I don't know who is more callous - me harbouring this guilty idea that her death might just fix everything, or her lying in the gutter looking down on me (Again, not mine - I think that's Oscar Wilde?)
So, there we have it. I don't really feel able to claim I'm a victim, or accept the role of the protagonist - just a player in a dismal situation. Looks a bit gloomy, but I try to find some light when I can.
I'm sure I've ranted on enough, so sorry everyone, sorry, sorry! If you want to call me a jackass, you may be right, or maybe you have something constructive to suggest - I suspect I havent said a single original thing in all the remarks above have I? - there must be thousand of spouses who've tottered across the same crumbling bridge wondering if there are others in the waters below trying not to drown.
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So mad at Xfinity! They're trying to charge me $115 per month for the same service I had been paying $50 the last four years. I took the equipment to UPS for shipping and cancelled my subscription today! Next door was a cookie shop called Crumbl. I had heard of it before but never went in until today. I don't need one more sugar fix, but maybe it will help with my sad) grieving heart....$15...
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check out that smoke ring. It tasted really good. I smothered it with Maulls BBQ sauce which is Local to St. Louis and one of the best I ever had.....
G.
I got sober 5 yrs; 4 months and a bit ago. My husband was and is a heavy drinker. His father died of alcoholism. He didnt recognize that his dad was alcoholic until after his dad died. He couldnt and still doesnt see me as alcoholic. I had to get sober for me, for our beautiful children, and to live the life I want to live. I didnt require his blessing or sobriety and I still don't. I guess my point is you can't will your wife sober; anymore than my husband's drinking could keep me drunk and hopeless. But you *can* and should take care of yourself. I'd recomend alanon as has been mentioned. I've gone to a few meetings and loved them. I am alcoholic so feel at home in my AA meetings but from time to time alanon helps me too as I'm also the sister of an addict, the daughter in law of a man who drank himself to death, and the grand daughter of an alcoholic so I qualify all over the place.
So get help; get healthy; and perhaps your wife will too. the cancer is a seperate issue and one she'll need to also face, but you can support her through both. However you can't heal her and you can't take her journey for her....
That's the best thing you can do imho and leave the rest to your Higher Power.
I will keep you and your wife in my thoughts and prayers,
God Bless
As a breast cancer survivor, I from experience that breast cancer can be beat. But if you need to support her, you need to be healthy so please get some support.
Good luck.
Hugs.
I've checked out Alanon locally and my nearest meeting is held at lunch time every week, which is going to be impossible to attend because of work! Luckily there are other more convenient meetings but further away, so require a little bit of planning. I think its worth it - i get very tense about not being able to fix my wife, but as you say, its an illness and i have to come to terms with the fact i do not have a magic wand.
I feel better just because of the control I've been able to apply and i feel I'm thinking clearer already. Last year I hiked from Mexico to Canada on the Pacific Crest Trail, over 2600 miles, lost a load of weight and never drank more than a beer or two a week on my resupply stops. It was great, and I am already recovering a glimpse of that feeling. Of course when I came home I discovered my wife had drunk my entire (expensive) wine collection, including about twenty bottles of wine I made my self from my own vines. That broke my heart more than anything - of course, to her, it was just free wine. Well, its a mistake i know not to make again!
Stay sober, my friend!
God Bless!
My wife is responding somewhat to my encouragement and has had a couple of days with little or no drink during this period - she's accepting the need to talk about it a little, even if she gets a bit irritable if I press her too much - I learned she is fairly receptive to trying to resist the first drink, but not so good once she's "on the way". She even admitted to me that the first day I persuaded her not to drink was the first time in over a year she could remember not drinking. For her to admit that to me is a big step for her. The great thing is, since I chose to put drink down, we don't have the blazing fights about drinking - how hypocritical was that kind of fight anyway? :-)
So, we press on - she hasn't agreed that AA might be a good idea yet, but when I told her I was talking about it online, I survived alive!
Oh, to make you laugh, when I was picking up groceries, including the wine for the Ox-cheeks, I couldn't help realizing I was applying drinkers criteria to my choice, even though I knew I wasn't drinking it - I think I cursed a bit, but with a smile on my face.