Question
My partner drinks heavily every night and I believe he drinks more on his way home, he can have more than 2 bottles of wine plus bear, and I find hidden empty bottles... He is distracted and cold, often with bad stomach, when sober - very rarely. I have told him that I can't deal with this anymore - i feel disgusted by the way the bedroom smells in the morning - and asked him to separate until he is sober for a month. I told him we can continue to live together - as housemates - we have a 4 year old son who adores his father, and my partner is in fact a good dad - but always in debt and spending all his money on drinking and porn sites - which he tries to hide but can't. He was hurt and just tries to find other reasons, says I feel superior to him and look down on him. I want to help him but I really don't know what to do or what else to try. I only realized he had a drink problem this year, I always thought it was the circumstances before: his work, his mates, other problems...
I feel bad but I don't want to be intimate with him anymore or even kiss him, and I am very confused about what to do. If I leave him - ask him to move out - he will probably drink himself to death...
Please advise, any thoughts greatly appreciated.
Thank you
Maria
Answer
Maria,
Often when someone has a drinking
problem they also have low
self-esteem and it is hard for
them to see that they need
help. Their false pride causes
them to build defenses against
anyone that tries to help.
As you said he thinks you
are acting superior by pointing
out his flaws.
You might start by saying that
all humans have good and bad
characteristics but that
doesn't stop us from improving
areas of our life that are
questionable or causing us problems
in our relationships.
I also suggest you try not to
hide his problem but don't
try to control him either.
Alcoholism is an illness and
as it progresses a person
suffers mental, emotional,
physical and spiritual illness.
This can account for attraction
to things like porn or lower companions.
If he is to recover it will depend
on him and his desire to change.
You can do little but take care of
yourself and don't get caught up
in trying to force him to change.
When a person is addicted to alcohol
they will not stop by threats to
leave or any other ultimatim you
make. He has lost the power of choice.
He needs help from either counselling
and treatment or Alcoholics Anonymous
at this point.
Alcohol counsellors can inform you about
interventions involving family
or friends in confronting him
with rehab/treatment.
Often when someone won't look for
help the negative consequences of their
drinking is the only thing that
wakes them up.
For instance, I did not seriously
attend AA until my wife and kids
left me. At that point I realized
I could not make it on my own.
I had to seek help or die and
my wife was not consoling or
helping me at all.
This saved my life as I always kept
drinking as long as I could fall
back on her company.
Sometimes it is rising against
our problems that gives us
the strength to overcome them.
If we always have someone to depend
on we get weaker.
Alcoholics should only be helped
when it contributes to their
getting sober.
You can use that as a guide in
dealing with his behaviour and
desires.
Ask yourself, will this help him
to lay around drinking or
will it encourage him to try
for better things like sobriety.
Being helpful is sometimes not
doing anything at all.
It allows him to pick himself
up and be responsible for himself.
If you do these tests below
as if you were him it will give
you some insite:
Links to tests:
http://www.alcoholscreening.org/
http://counsellingresource.com/quizzes/alcohol-mast/index.html
http://alcoholism.about.com/library/blalcoholquiz.htm
http://www.pamf.org/teen/risk/alcohol/quiz.html
Take care of yourself.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
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Hello, my wife died in my arms from the effects of alcohol at the age of 43. Alcohol problems creep up on you and if you ignore the symptoms you may well be placing your life in danger. My wife's deterioration over a period of about 6 years was the stuff of nightmares. The effects on my wife’s body were awful and she became virtually unrecognizable. Finger nails and toenails just fell away. Her skin was coming away from her body and falling on to the floor she was covered in sores and I had to cover her in grease every night. Can you imagine being covered in grease and then putting your clothes over this.
ReplyDeleteIs your wife or husband or partner craving for alcohol and drinking far too much?
What a familiar tale this is. I married Marion in 1979 at that that time I was in business as an office equipment company in the United Kingdom. Marion was from a banking background and was very good with figures and seeing that we got paid on time. How lucky was I, here I have a potential partner in life who has worked for a major British Bank and who is very good at finance. WOW well lucky me and I said to her would you like to be the company secretary and she agreed.
So let’s think about this my wife has great monetary skills and she has joined my company. All sounds great so far, yes.
When my wife joined my company she soon found out that she had much more freedom than she ever dreamed of. I can remember in the first few weeks there we were on the beach soaking up the sunshine and Marion turned to me and said “if they could see me now” here I am on the beach doing nothing but relaxing while they are all in the bank working away.
My wife and I worked very well together and although many people say that working with your spouse is maybe not a good idea let me tell you that working with Marion was absolutely great and I loved every minute spent with her. This was the perfect situation we loved each other intensely and we lived for one another.
At the time that Marion and I got together I lived over the business, Yes it was a flat albeit rather small and we lived there, hmm talk about living on the job but it worked OK. This was 1989 and the business had only started in 1984 so expenses were still being kept to a minimum. It takes a while to start a business and a lot more time to make it successful as you will probably know.
Then came the business lunches at the hotel across the road, now how cool is that. Marion soon found out that she could have whatever she wanted and of course this included alcohol. Not alone were these meals at dinnertime but also after work from 6-00pm for as long as we liked and beyond midnight.
I have always taken alcohol moderately but Marion’s intake of alcohol was increasing and I did not notice this at the time. So the years passed and we purchased our house together which was a small bungalow in South East England.
As the Internet developed we found that working from home was a real possibility after all why pay for premises when you do not need them. So OK we instantly saved money and a lot of it because we could now show our products on the Internet. Sounds great so far yes.
Well no because my wife’s drinking was now being done at home and she was now drinking far more than she should. She was out of my site for long periods and was constantly asking me to bring alcoholic drinks home. At first I thought well she seems OK but after a while she was not alright as the drinking increased and the food intake stopped.
Watch for the tell tale signs and do not ignore them as I did.
A painful story.
If you want to read more you can always visit my website
http://www.alcoholicpartner.com