Your son won’t be able to hide it from his girlfriend forever. With my son, it was his girlfriend at that time that was starting to express concerns about his drinking and at the time I wasn’t seeing it. He was living with her though, not me.
One of the hardest things, is that it is really difficult to get everyone on the same page in order to try and help them. Everyone has a very different idea of what they think is the right way. And really, the most crucial piece is them, because they are really the only ones that make the change anyway.
His sisters won’t talk to him right now, because he’s often not nice when he drinks. He thinks that’s terrible of them, he said so today. I try not to get stuck in the middle, but it happens all the time. Sometimes I wish they would so it wasn’t always on me but every person has their own limit. He alienates himself when he drinks and right now I’m the only person he connects with. It’s sad, he’s lonely and misses his family, but he just can’t be around his nieces and nephews in this state, so I get where my daughters are coming from. I just wish he had more support than me. Then there’s his grandmother (my first mother-in-law) who gave him his small inheritance early. It’s close to being used up. She knows his problems and still did it, and now it’s just enabled him for the last two years.
I’ll bet his girlfriend is going to be coming to you in no time wondering what to do….