Wives of Alcoholics Community Group
A forum of healing and help for wives of alcoholics.
I have found myself here because I have NOBODY to talk to and it is starting to greatly affect me. after spending my whole life with an alcoholic dad (was and still is), I have come to the terms that I am married to one, too. We have only been married 6 years (he’s 29, I’m 32), and I have seen signs maybe the last couple years but the last 6-12 mo have confirmed it for me. Without making this too long winded, I will give you a summary of my husbands habits. Basically, he is drinking up to an 18 pack of Coors light a NIGHT! Sometimes as less than 10, but still. He drinks every single day no matter how much he drank the night before. He always smells like beer when going to bed and sometimes even in the morning.when we are out he will get 3-4 ipas down by the time I have one glass of wine. Everything he does (parent, work on cars, hunt, wash cars, grill, etc), he has to have a beer. If he’s not working or sleeping, he’s drinking.
Am I crazy in thinking this not normal and that he has a huge problem? Because he sure makes me feel that way. Every time in the past I have brought it up he gets so angry that he sleeps on the couch and ignores me for two days. He does not get violent, mean, loud, obnoxious when he drinks, which he actually uses as ammo when I bring it up. Or one of his excuses is “I’m just a guy in my 20s, blah blah.” Deny, deny, deny. I have learned to mostly keep my mouth shut Day to day and haven’t had a talk in months. But every time I open the fridge in the morning and see there are zero beers left from his 18 pack, it’s like somebody punched me in the gut. We have two kids, he’s a great dad, and he has a great job and wonderful relationships with friends and family. And overall we have a great relationship. But when I go to bed st night and he stays up I get a sinking feeling knowing that he’s just out in the living room drinking and drinking. He will go out sometimes too, and unfortunately drink and drive home.
This habit, addiction, dependency (all of thof above?), has made him lazy, and extremely irritable that he’s generally pretty unpleasant until about 4 or 5 when he gets to drink again. Doesn’t that suck? I am supposed to be okay with that life? Does he really want a wife to be careless and complacent?
Im not sure where it all stems from. I think pressure to support his family and having a job he hates. Maybe? He would never tell me or talk about it. One night after drinking and I talked to him about how upset he was he drove home he confesses that he was a high functioning alcoholic but the next time we talked he was so mad and said “I should have never told you about that.”
It doesn’t seem to bother him when I tell him he is reminding me of my dad. That’s a whole different story. I am reminding myself of my mom, too, and it saddens and frightens me. My mom told me “never marry a man who drinks” and it’s a hard reality to face that I am here. I am plagued almost every day with worry about our future. And every day I battle keeping quiet, talking to him, or talking to somebody.
It also doesn’t affect him when I bring up the type of influence and affect his habit will have on our kids (7mo and 2.5 years). Or it does and he’s so weak and a victim of this that he can’t let himself care.
He is an emotionally strong man, and (appears) to have his crap together. He was also raised as a strong Christian, and I am wondering where that has gone? It’s not my place to judge but how can someone so rooted in Christian values struggle like this? I’m a new Christian so that’s hard for me to understand.
It feels good to get this all out. I have so much more to say but this helps. I have talked to his mom once but felt guilty doing so, so like I mentioned earlier, I have no one else to talk to. And this terrible addiction is wrecking me and driving a wedge betweeen our marriage.
Thanks for the read and the chance to get this off my chest. Any advice, tips, words of encouragement are welcome.
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Hi. This is my first post. I'm here because my husband is an addict and it's having a negative impact on our marriage and my emotional and mental well being. He's an alcoholic who is also addicted to pornography and video gaming. He spends every moment that he isn't at work or sleeping drinking beer, playing his video games, and looking at porn. He's completely pushed me out of his life. We don't...
He get mad because you are right and because he knows he has to deal with whatever it is that happened.
Something traumatized him. He had to let it out.
My response will be long too….
He deflects with, “I’m just a guy in my 20s, blah blah.”
I call bullshit.
He is a husband and a father, with a new baby, no less. It is time for him to grow a pair and act like the adult he is supposed to be…ALL OF THE TIME. You are definitely not crazy.
I am one of the few people around this group who can actually say I know what it’s like to consume 18 drinks a day on a daily basis and still attempt to functioned in life (for a few years when I was in my late 20's as well). I can confirm that your (not crazy) instincts are accurate – he has a habit that is out of control and that is, indeed, alcohol addiction. Unless he weighs 500 pounds, with that level of regular consumption, it has easily progressed to full-tilt chemical dependency, and he is probably hiding a lot of his symptoms from you almost every day. Having withdrawal shakes and dry heaves every morning is a real drag, believe me.
I am going to read between the lines a little and posit that he has a “great job” “that he hates” and his steep intake escalation coincides with your 2nd child’s arrival making him feel like he is trapped for life before he even turns 30. Births (and deaths, in my case) are powerful triggers way down in the deep recesses. He is self-medicating to numbness because he doesn’t like how that feels. Does any of that sound plausible?
Your father, mother, and the ACOA dimensions of this are familiar and, sadly, pretty common. My late dad and my late father in law were both alcoholics too, so, yeah….More on that some other time.
Your husband is an extraordinary guy if he can manage the two lives he is living – the inner life of an addict and the outer life of a guy who has his shit all together. As for high functioning, you wouldn’t be here if he was high functioning. He is compensating every other arena of his life to keep the act going – at the expense of neither being your fully engaged life partner nor the father he is capable of being all of the time.
In AA alcohol is referred to as a cunning, baffling, and powerful adversary. For the alcoholic who has taken the slippery slope from drinker to alcoholic to addict, and for the recovering alcoholic tempted into relapse, it really can take control of one’s mind and one’s life. Not making excuses but, yes, a strong Christian with a healthy family background can let all of that fade to grey if they are needing that next drink more than anything else in the world. It happens.
Your children are young enough that there probably isn’t too much direct impact other than “daddy is just grumpy” type of stuff that distances them. There is a big difference between a toddler and preschooler though where family dysfunction is concerned. You are also, it appears, already self-aware that your very strained relationship with your husband mirrors your mom and dad’s relationship and that is something that isn’t lost on the kids ever. As if having two little ones isn’t burden enough, having a 3rd child (29 years old) is far too much.
So, here’s the good news…he is young and at a critical point in his life. The solid family background and strong faith make him an excellent candidate to get help and make a drastic change immediately. He can’t do that for you. It has to be for himself and totally sincere, but from everything you describe he can surely admit to himself that being miserable and living a tormented double life – a life totally at odds with his faith - is just not authentic or sustainable.
How he gets nudged over that threshold is up for grabs. Appeal from you? A family intervention? Ultimatum? Hopefully not something later and more radical like a DUI or a job loss. Don’t try to craft a logical argument – that is way above the fight-or-flight level of these problems. It probably has to be wrenching and emotional to dig down where it needs to be.
I am nearly in tears thinking about you and your young family. There is so much good ahead for you four; and so much pointless pain that will hopefully be down the (imagined) path not taken any further than right now.
FYI, my last drink was in 1997 a few weeks after my 31st birthday. My life isn’t all unicorns and rainbows but I am (still) married 23 years, have two remarkable kids who have never seen me take a sip, and my worst problems today are nothing compared to the train wreck I was 22 years ago. I hope your husband can share a similar story in a few years.
may the force be with you
PS. Coors Light? Really?