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My husband has abused alcohol for as long as I’ve known him. In the beginning it didn’t seem like a big deal, as drinking to excess only came with socialisation and was the typical ‘weekend drinking’ scenario. But over the past few years his drinking has caused him to self harm, to go missing, to neglect his responsibilities and cause me stress and anxiety.
This past two weeks however we seem to have reached a low point. He’s been signed off work with exhaustion and has been pretty much drunk ever since. It was his birthday two weeks ago and I had to work, so he started drinking on Friday night and continued. His parents visited and he can’t remember. I tried to reason with him and was met with a tirade of abuse. He fell asleep on our only toilet and covered the bathroom in excrement when he fell off. And then last night I found his stash of empties, which scared me as I always told myself that would be the breaking point. The fact he’s been sneaking off to the local shop to by a cheap bottle of whiskey and hiding it in his office seems to be a signal that he’s gone from abuse to dependency. If that makes sense?
I don’t know what else to do. He still doesn’t think he has a problem and that I’m over reacting so he’s not open to counselling/rehab, not that we can afford it right now. I’m at the end after believing his lies and excuses for the best part of five years. Everything I’ve done to try and help has seemed to make things worse and I feel completely alone. This past year hasn’t been kind to me either, I lost my mum unexpectedly and suddenly in June, lost a job in October and I’ve got nothing left in me to be kind anymore when I need someone there for me too.
I feel like I’m starting to ramble now, I’ve been woken up at three in the morning pretty much every night this week so the sleep deprivation isn’t helping. Maybe I just need to vent into the ether in the hope that someone else can empathise, help or just let me know it can get better?
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The main thing is don’t think your alone, read through this forum and you will see just how widespread this is. Family and friends won’t get it, unless they have loved an addict. Alcoholism is a disease and as we learn it won’t go away. I was so nieve at the beginning of my relationship with an alcoholic. I knew he had had issue in his past but not to the full extent. After 2 years the real situation became apparent. Finding empties is a classic one I believe. I remember finding vodka bottles under the bed, top of the wardrobe, even in the public bin on my street and knowing they were his. It becomes like a cat and mouse game of Gothcha ! It’s draining and ends up effecting our mental health. After everything including £10k rehab nearly 2 years on from that it’s back at square one and Iv now removed myself emotionally from the situation. He’s gone and has been 3 weeks, It feel liberating but also very sad, as when he’s not on a bender he’s a beautiful person but I need to keep telling myself I deserve better.
I was told a couple of years ago to put myself first, at the time I was so worried about him and ignored that but I now understand what I was been told. So please look after yourself as we do matter greatly in this x
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It is very sad, the thought of been alone is very sad when you think of the positive times. I think I had started to resent the situation if I’m honest. When he came out of rehab I was very much that I would never drink again. As this was during covid nobody was going out anyway so it didn’t matter about socialising but my good friends who did know about his addiction and rehab began to keep us at a distance. Not inviting us out. We were no fun anymore clearly. Iv ended up loosing contact with most of my friends and if I’m honest it’s not nice. Then I would watch him go on his benders, been allowed to drink so to speak while Iv given everything up for him. Iv never been a big drinker but I hate what alcohol has done to my life over the last 4 years and the hurt it has caused me. Obviously it’s my ex who caused this but it’s the drink that makes him like he is. It’s a disease and it’s terrible.
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From an outsider point of view I imagine they have not invited you both out thinking they are helping as they probably think it will be a trigger for him to be out or for him to know you have gone out without him , I know it feels like you are left out but it actually sounds like they were being respectful of the issue, I’m sure if you got back in to contact with them now they would be happy to hear from you.
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I think that most of us lose our social life through their actions though as we become so wrapped up in trying to protect them, stop them, change the situation that we do eventually stop caring for ourselves and we don’t have any energy left to just enjoy ourselves, we blame ourselves and convince ourselves every action we take is the cause of their addiction so it’s easier to just stay at home and try to keep an eye on them and you won’t invite people to the home in case they notice the signs of the addiction. when thinking rationally it is only the addict who makes that decisions and we lose out.
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