Hello everyone, I just recently joined the group. I really will need alot of support over the next few months, so I figured I would find a forum on the internet as well as attending Alanon meetings. I am a 39yo mother of three - my kids are ages 4,8,11. My husband and I met 21 yrs ago, and will have been married for 15 yrs this coming Sept. I love my husband dearly, but we have been through a rough bunch of years. My story is long, but I will slowly tell it in bits and pieces.

The short end of it is this - he has been drinking alcohol since we were dating. Our first fight was because he had too much to drink. Although he did drink at parties, he was not an alcoholic when we were younger, but I would say he was an on again off again alcoholic over the yrs we have been married. When I married him, I knew we were meant to be together, and I was not hesitant at all taking him as my husband. It was however in the back of my mind that he had a tendency to drink too much, but I never pondered it. As the years went on, if I addressed it, he always told me "don't start" or "leave me alone" - and there were times when we were fighting an aweful lot, and I just didn't want to fight even more by bringing up the alcohol issue.

Well, this past fall it came to a head. The hard part about all of this is - he is a Functional Alcoholic, and it took a very good friend of mine to make me finally realize and accept it. He drinks everything - beer, wine, scotch....Every time we went on a date back in the fall, it would end horribly, he would be drunk, and talk down to me, get mad at me, and then we would have a silent ride home. I finally brokedown. I couldn't take it anymore. I finally realized that alot of the fighting that went on in the past was because of the alcohol. I cried more than I ever did in my entire life, because I was convinced he just didn't love me any more. That scared him half to death, and he finally realized how much he was hurting me.

So at this point in time, he already has accomplished 2 steps - he has admitted he has a problem with alcohol, and he is willing to do something about it.

There is a twist to this story - he decided to stop drinking in January. He didn't touch anything for 3 weeks. I had been sick on and off for a few weeks before that, something just wasn't right. So what happens, I end up getting a severe case of Lyme disease - BAM he went right back to drinking. (the lyme disease is a whole other story!)

Anyway, so now that I am much, much better, and we have grown so incredibly close and have forgiven eachother for everything (I am still having a problem forgetting and trusting him though), he is ready to stop.

I know the road ahead is not going to be easy, and the only problem is this - he is stopping for a year. I am so worried about this. I told him not to set a time limit, because then he will be counting the days til that year is up. And I have heard that people become even worse alcoholics when they do stuff like that. This is the one question I have right now - is this true? Because he is hoping to stop for a year, and then go back to drinking very moderately - he just can't see giving up wine forever. I dont know if this is going to work!!