Let me tell you, anything you can't go a day without having is an addiction. It doesn't matter if it is 2 beers a day. Light beer has alcohol in it, right? Here's what I would do: I'd ask him to prove to me he is not an alcoholic by going without beer for a while. If he is not addicted, he should be able to do that and prove to you that he's not an alcoholic. If he says he uses it to relax, then he would be admitting that he is self-medicating, that it DOES affect him, and that you feel that it is affecting your marriage. There are checklists on line that you can go down to see how much it is affecting things. The alcohol is making him depressed, moody, giving him empty calories, and causing him to pass out. Plain and simple. You have to decide if you want to live with an alcoholic. Do you have children? They are watching and learning.

Yes I do have children and I think about what effects this will have on them all the time. What am I to do?-- break up my home. Its frustrating. I am thinking about going to an Al-anon meeting and to do that I will have to explain where Im going because I hardly ever leave the kids. I am trying to find a way that we can coexist with him without leaving him.

Dear Faith2fight,

I have walked in your shoes. I was afraid to tell my husband that he was the reason I was going to Al Anon - I told him that it was becaue of my parents (but I lied.) It has really helped me. About the light beer, 2 of those equal a real beer, but you know that, and you know that it is a problem but I went on denying everything until the problem got so bad my kids were calling 911 when the husband was raging in a drunk fit at me. Alcoholism is progressive, you will learn this. It never gets better. He has a drinking problem, which is a nice way of saying he is an alcoholic. At Al Anon you will find lots of other people with the same stories and with children. I told my husband I will not live with a drinker and I am waiting for him to slip. Near-beer, by the way, has alcohol and is also alcohol. This is so hard for us, I really feel for you. Better a life with sobriety, for you and especially the kids.

to all,as I am reading your responses I begin to cry because I too feel the pain that I believe you are experiencing. The advise seems to be to go to alanon, but I sometimes feel to drained to go to these meetings. He has tried so many times to stop , but it only continues for a short while. WHen he doesn't drink , he is the greatest person,great father,shows his love for me and the kids , will do anything for us. If I leave him I feel like I am giving up on him . That maybe,just maybe this time he will quit for good.I am soooo confused....

Alanon will empower you and teach you to take care of yourself, then will be stronger. He needs to want to go to AA himself when the time is right.

I am planning on going to a meeting this Friday. I just hope I dont talk or find a way out of going. I really want to tell him where I am going without arguing about it. I need him to understand that I am doing this for me and not just to make him feel guilty.

I will say this, he will not quit this time for good. The only way he will is if you give him an ultimatum like - you are kicking him out and that you MEAN IT. This site and Al Anon are full of people who kept bailing out alcoholics. I am going to an Al Anon meeting tonight, the last time I did my husband was so mad at me and glared at me the whole time before I went and for a whole day after I got home. I am currently steeling myself to deal with that. I tell the kids I am going to a "RELAXATION COURSE", but my husband knows the truth. I (like most people who live with alcoholics) hate when people are mad at me but I am taking care of my own recovery - you can begin as well. I will pray for you - in Al Anon you will find support, if you don't like the dynamics of the group close to you then go to another group. BELIEVE ME - he will not quit for good just because you are hoping he will. Life with a sober person is absolute heaven compared to a passed-out drunk. I think you sense this. Have courage and go to the meeting!!!

okay.. this is silly. "light Beer" is reduced Calories... not reduced Alcohol.
The term light in light beer is usually not referring to its alcohol content, (that's how they trick you), but rather its calories. Essentially all they are doing with light beer is watering it down,slightly, while everything else remains the same. With low-calorie beers, if there is a low-alcohol content, it may only be by a little amount, for example, 3.2%, which doesn't make much of a difference. Sometimes light beer is produced by simply adding slightly more water to a full-calorie and/or full-alcohol beer. The difference is negligible.

MGS1 - you are very wise, I always read your responses, you must have had alot of experience with alcoholics. Good advice on the "light beer" thing. My (sober at the moment) husband tried bringing home .5% "near-beer" but after we talked about how there is alcohol in it, we threw it out. Step 1 is "I have no control over alcohol", I know, but the alcoholic was trying to sneak the alcohol in. No alcohol means NO ALCOHOL.

I really appreciate everyones advice. Should I start pouring the beer down the drain? I have never been so bold to do that. I can say he has never been violent before but that might set him off. Am I enabling him if I allow him to bring it home-- I just cant fight with him.

I think pouring the beer down the drain will probably just bring about a fight. If you're that determined that you aren't going to allow him to drink anymore, then I think it's time to give him an ultimatum; your beer or us. I wish I would've done that to my ex-husband. He was drinking whiskey by the bottle every day. I was your age in 2000 when my ex husband was under the influence of alcohol and he took our 10 y.o. daughter & the 12 y.o. neighbor girl out on the 4 wheeler for a ride that ended up destroying our family & sending him to prison for 15 years. He molested, sodomized, and attempted to rape that little girl. This was a man who had nothing more than a left-hand turn violation before that day. People would say, "She had to have known SOMETHING was wrong with him. She had to have seen SOME sort of signs he was capable of that." Well, I didn't, and the way things turned out with him has forever, horribly influenced our children. My daughter is almost 19 now and my son is almost 22. They are both struggling with serious addiction issues; my son worse right now than my daughter. I look back & think about what I allowed my kids to see every single day for the first 10 & 13 years of their lives. They watched their daddy self-medicate every single day. They watched him drink until he was so "happy" he could go to bed and go to sleep. They watched as he would get up during the night and wander around and end up alseep on the couch in the living room, or even a couple of times ended up in their room at night (no evidence of them ever being abused; but who knows what secrets could be buried that I don't know about?). All I know is that if I could go back, I would give him an ultimatum early on in the marriage & wouldn't let it go as far as it did - obviously. I don't talk to him much now, but in the past that is one thing he did say to me - that he wished I would've been more firm with him, that I would've given him ultimatums early on. Yet, he still accepts complete responsibility now, and he pays every day as he sits behind prison bars & he won't get out until 2012. He had a great job making well over 100K a year, we lived in a beautiful log home on 76 pristine acres that bordered a poplular state park. We had it all, and he threw it all away that morning, and you might as well have smacked me in the face with a bag of bricks. I've likened it to standing back, watching your house burn to the ground, knowing there's nothing you can do to stop it.

Don't let it get to the point of ignition. Don't let the fire start. Maybe it won't be something this horrible, but there are alot of scenarios that could play out.

Boy, I can relate to the above post. We almost got thrown out of our hotel on a vacation when my 9 year old daughter said "Mom, I think daddy's really drunk" and I said to my husband "I think you've had enough beer." He screamed at me in front of them loud enough for us to almost get thrown out of the country. WAKE UP CALL FOR ME. The ultimatum that I will leave him and take the kids was all that took him to stop drinking. So far. NOTHING ELSE DID. Be strong, do not pour out the liquor (Al Anon will tell you this.) Don't even listen to your friends and definitely not your relatives "he's not that bad." You know he IS that bad. Save yourself.