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February 2016 Moms
vjraab
member
Husband's Drinking
vjraab
member
I'm sure there is a thread about this somewhere, and if there is please save me the backlash from not posting on that thread. But I'm in desperate need of advice.
My husband is a functioning alcoholic. He will never admit to it. His drinking has caused us more fights than anything else. He told me that once he either 1) turned 40 or 2) had a child he would stop getting wasted. He turns 40 in December; our child will be here in February.
I have begged and pleaded with him to drink less for his health. I love him dearly. He is 13 years older than me; I NEED him to live a long life. But at this rate, his alcoholism will kill him.
1. Will he ever change? I don't want to raise a child to think this behavior is normal.
2. Should I speak about this with his mother? She is a doctor, and he adores her and her input. I want her advice and help on what to do, but at the same time I don't want to bother her.
I feel like I'm battling this alone. Please help. Any advice is welcome.
My husband is a functioning alcoholic. He will never admit to it. His drinking has caused us more fights than anything else. He told me that once he either 1) turned 40 or 2) had a child he would stop getting wasted. He turns 40 in December; our child will be here in February.
I have begged and pleaded with him to drink less for his health. I love him dearly. He is 13 years older than me; I NEED him to live a long life. But at this rate, his alcoholism will kill him.
1. Will he ever change? I don't want to raise a child to think this behavior is normal.
2. Should I speak about this with his mother? She is a doctor, and he adores her and her input. I want her advice and help on what to do, but at the same time I don't want to bother her.
I feel like I'm battling this alone. Please help. Any advice is welcome.
Re: Husband's Drinking
*edit for grammar
I guess I'm just scared to go to his mom, because I'm afraid that it will jeopardize the trust he has in me.
He won't admit to his drinking being an issue. He thinks that as long as he's able to provide for his family, give to charity, go to church, and love his wife that he is fine. I've mentioned AA before to him, and he laughed at me.
I want to give him til the birth of our daughter to get it together, but I worry that I'm just enabling and making excuses for him.
Alcoholism is very common in my family and it takes an army of support and pushing to help people change sometimes. Absolutely he will be FURIOUS when you go to his mother, then when he gets clean and starts earning his 30 day, 60 day, year, etc; he will be more grateful than words can imagine.
It isn't safe to leave the baby alone in his care while he's very intoxicated either, that could cause seriously backlash and damage on YOU as well.
He needs to get it together for your kid, my mom hated her dad for a very long time because of his drinking and I'd hate to see it happen to someone else.
My dad is a functioning alcoholic (sometimes not even functioning nowadays) and as his child, I resent it.
If you at least try to do something now about it you have a better chance of making not only your relationship better but him and his child's relationship better. It has negatively affected my family deeply and it is seriously not worth the pain.
I hope everything works out for you!
Surprise BFP! 06/08/15
Nadine GraceMarie 02/10/16
Diagnosed with placenta increta post delivery: emergency partial hysterectomy - cervix and ovaries still intact
Gestational surrogacy or adoption TBD
For him now it's his addiction to cigarettes. He swore to up down and sideways that the day our first child was born he would quit cold turkey. I wish it was that easy, our LO will be a year old and I still fight him on it everyday.
With any addiction you can't say you'll quit tomorrow and that be the end of it. There needs to be a 100% commitment to themselves wanting to.
We had set rules about smoking to try to help, no smoking near me, no smoking at the house. He switched to a vapor cig for a short while but while at work that's all his coworkers do... It went from only smoking the vapor to full on smoking again. Now a year later he is still not allowed to come near me or the baby if he smells like smoke.
When our LO was born he was really good and then slowly it got back to how it was. With this new LO I pray he can find it somewhere inside him to quit for us because I know it will be the death of him. He has a long family history related to drinking and smoking. His dad was only 46 when he passed from a heart attack. It scares me so much but he just laughs it off and says he's fine...
Your DH won't be happy about you speaking to his mother but if he listens to her then it's worth him being upset for your and your baby's sake.
Growing up my Dad was a high functioning alcoholic. I say high because he held down a job that was physically hard and didn't have accidents etc. After work was a whole other story and he is a horrible human being. It took me until I was an adult to properly understand the danger he put our family in and I no longer have anything to do with him. I would never want him around my child.
Having a baby is hard work, you need a support network around you and he is supposed to be a part of that. Talk to his Mom now so he can get the help he needs before your baby arrives. Yes he will probably lash out, but that's more about him being held accountable than it is you talking to him Mom.
Like pp's have suggested, AA meetings would be good for you too, they do help you understand it's an addiction, not just something they want to do and can stop. It will also help you to help him through the steps.
I'm sorry you are going through this! I went through this last year with my dad. I wouldn't call him an alcoholic, but he has degenerative disc disease in his neck, and suffered for years with it. His crappy doctor (who he no longer sees) was happy to prescribe him narcotics to treat the pain, without keeping an eye on my dad. My dad became addicted to those pills, and needed more and more to help with his pain. He started drinking beer on top of the narcotics, which made him "loopy" for lack of a better word. This went on for a year, and only got worse. The low point came when he missed my brother's wedding. We had a family "intervention" wiht him (me, my mom and brother) but he was out of it and we didn't reach him. A few weeks later, he was arrested for a DUI. He spent the night in jail, and that was his wake up call. With my mom's help, he stopped taking his pain pills, and finally we talked him into having surgery to fix his neck. Its been almost a year and he is back to is normal self. His pain is gone, he is not taking pills, and he only drinks non alcoholic beer.
My advice is to try talking to your husband (when he is sober) and tell him how you feel about his drinking. Be completely honest. Be supportive but firm. Give him options for treatment and let him know you will be by his side. Let him know what is at stake if he doesn't listen to you (you need to decide what your future will be if his drinking continues). Also be prepared to have this same talk again. And be prepared for setbacks if/when he does begin the process of ggetting sober. I would have this talk with him first before including his mother. If he blows it off, then include his mother. He must know that you are serious about this and something will change, whether it be him (with your help) or your current family situation. It is a very real possibility of him losing his family because of this. I am so sorry you are dealing with this, it is so very hard for people to watch their loved one go through this. What others have said is true though, he has to be the one to make the decision to get sober. But you should look for support as well. Good luck and I hope everything will work out!