Ask Me Help Desk - The alcohloic husband

To make a long story short my husbnad is a huge alcoholic, usually drinking 18-25 beers daily, He recently just got his 3rd dui 3 weeks ago and still continues to drink, he has been in a handful out inpatient and outpatient center but still drinks, his drinking has caused many financial and emotion problems for us, He is the sole provider for our family and has very good job, I take a care of our 2 year old son and I am pregnant, I am an emotional wreck and want to pull out my hair half of the time, but I try to stay sane to raise my son, he always tells me if I leave him he will kill himself and so on. I have re enterted myself into school so when the time comes I won't have to be codependant on him, He has also devoloped a serious problem that he urinates himself when he sleeps, this has mad sleep in the same room as him impossible, I find myself at 23 years old flipping a mattress everyday and cleaning it, we have gone through 6-7 mattress in our marriage of a couple of years and it would be more if we coulod afford it, he always tells me we wants to quit and even went on antabuse 9 months ago, hell take it and then not take it for one day and drink the longest time he went sober was like 20 days and that honestly shocked me, however drinking still gets the best of him. Please help

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Originally Posted by bensmom

to make a long story short my husbnad is a huge alcoholic, usually drinking 18-25 beers daily, He recently just got his 3rd dui 3 weeks ago and still continues to drink, he has been in a handful out inpatient and outpatient center but still drinks, his drinking has caused many financial and emotion problems for us, He is the sole provider for our family and has very good job, i take a care of our 2 year old son and i am pregnant, I am an emotional wreck and want to pull out my hair half of the time, but i try to stay sane to raise my son, he always tells me if i leave him he will kill himself and so on. I have re enterted myself into school so when the time comes I wont have to be codependant on him, He has also devoloped a serious problem that he urinates himself when he sleeps, this has mad sleep in the same room as him impossible, i find myself at 23 years old flipping a mattress everyday and cleaning it, we have gone through 6-7 mattress in our marriage of a couple of years and it would be more if we coulod afford it, he always tells me we wants to quit and even went on antabuse 9 months ago, hell take it and then not take it for one day and drink the longest time he went sober was like 20 days and that honestly shocked me, however drinking still gets the best of him. please help

I have been married 11 yrs to an alcoholic and I am 56 yrs. Old and before that I had 3 children not with him, and he is the greatest person when he is not drinking, but I could not live with him if my childern were young. They are all out of the house and I am dealing with this. It does not get better I feel so isolated, because of embarrasement and abuse. Leave him and move on you have your whole life ahead of you and for your childern.

I was married to an alcoholic for many years. I know what you are going through and it's not pleasant. He is literally wrecking his health with a serious self death wish from the way he sounds now. Drinking that much every day is ruining his liver and kidneys. A third DUI will probably mean that when he gets his 4th they just might throw him in jail for a month or so. Depends on where you live as laws are different in different states. This alone should mean tremendous financial burden on your family to survive and extremely high auto insurance. If you try to go to AlAnon and attend a few meetings you will essentially be meeting yourself in just about everyone attending that meeting. You could gain a lot of insight from these people and just how they deal with a drunken wife or husband, brother, father, mother, sister. They tell you in Alanon that you should not do anything drastic for 6 months and assess your situation and see if this is truly the lifestyle you want for yourself. Being so young I would say that going back to school and getting some kind of career objective in mind for you is probably the best thing you can do for yourself right now. More than likely he won't be around much longer at the rate he's going health wise and won't be able to work. To avoid another DUI I would suggest that you act as his chauffer and take him everywhere. In the end it's MUCH, much cheaper than another DUI and him possibly plowing into another car headon and they don't make it out alive.

Your to young leave him he will bring you down be you down

The only advice I can give is for you to leave this situation and get in touch with Al-Anon. You may not be ready, but you must and leave him to his own demons. Sorry, but you must think only of you, and your safety, and well being at this time.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bensmom

to make a long story short my husbnad is a huge alcoholic, usually drinking 18-25 beers daily, He recently just got his 3rd dui 3 weeks ago and still continues to drink, he has been in a handful out inpatient and outpatient center but still drinks, his drinking has caused many financial and emotion problems for us, He is the sole provider for our family and has very good job, i take a care of our 2 year old son and i am pregnant, I am an emotional wreck and want to pull out my hair half of the time, but i try to stay sane to raise my son, he always tells me if i leave him he will kill himself and so on. I have re enterted myself into school so when the time comes I wont have to be codependant on him, He has also devoloped a serious problem that he urinates himself when he sleeps, this has mad sleep in the same room as him impossible, i find myself at 23 years old flipping a mattress everyday and cleaning it, we have gone through 6-7 mattress in our marriage of a couple of years and it would be more if we coulod afford it, he always tells me we wants to quit and even went on antabuse 9 months ago, hell take it and then not take it for one day and drink the longest time he went sober was like 20 days and that honestly shocked me, however drinking still gets the best of him. please help

If you have already been married to him a couple of years and it's already this bad, how much worse will it have to get for you to figure out that this is how it will be for the rest of your life? You have a 2 year old and one on the way that you are responsible for - safety, well being, role modeling... by staying with this drunk, you are not only teaching your child/ren that his behaviors are acceptable (which will teach them to do what he is doing), but you are also teaching them to accept behaviors like this in their partners (the way you force them to live now teaches them what normal is and they will not know the difference until much later and then feel shame about their differences later). How do you want your children to grow up? What kind of values and ideals do you want them to develop? What kind of behaviors do you want them to form? And most of all, how many tragedies that would be preventable would you like to have to try to walk them through? Alanon, CODA, ACOA, AA all have excellent support for you as you attempt to redefine your own identity as an individual beyond "wife of drunk man" and you must look into ways to remove yourself from the responsibility of mothering the man who cannot parent himself and get you and your children to safety. You are as capable of raising your children and supporting your little family as you need to be without the added challenge of guessing what surprises await you at the end of each day and while it is challenging enough trying to financially support your family, it isn't impossible and is not as hard as what you are facing now and will be in the future if you don't break loose. Good Luck!

Get out now. There are many organizations that can help you. My husband was an alcoholic for 18 years. My children were young and I, like you, had no means to support myself... so I stayed. My life was hell, and my children were always crying and wanting to know what's wrong with Dad. They are permanently damaged from it. I finally flipped and said enough, after trying everything to make him quit. I realize now that staying with him and forgiving, forgiving, forgiving only enabled him. Once he knew I was serious about leaving, he joined AA, but it was too late for our marriage... I had no feeling left. He hasn't had a drink in many years and is remarried to someone he met at AA. He's gotten his life back together. I got a great job and have rebuilt my life. Please don't stay with him. He's not going to quit as long as you stay there because he knows you won't do anything like leave him. You have to think of yourself and your children and all the damage he's doing psychologically to all of you. Those alcoholic images will stay with your children forever and will probably require counseling. You're young enough to make a new life. Don't let him make you feel sorry for him - - that's one of the tools they use to make you feel guilty. I worry for you.