I can’t cope with my alcoholic husband any longer, please help.

[Omara]

Hi all, I have never asked for help like this before but I am running out of options. My husband of 12 years is an alchoholic and I feel I have run out of options on how to help him and how to cope myself. By day he is a charming, kind, successful man and by night he drinks until he blacks out and is tired, dark and aggressive along the way. He can’t remember the things he says and does. I have been keeping a journal of his ‘incidences’ and they are so shocking I can’t re read them. My family knows I’m in trouble and I feel so guilty for letting it go on and on but I feel trapped and powerless. I feel like I’m slowly going insane living in constant fear of his drinking and dysfunctional outbursts. It effects everything in my life as I’m constantly devastated or picking up the pieces (literally). I don’t know what else to do. I have tried banning alchohol, tipping it out, withholding funds, telling family and friends about his drunken behavior, yelling and screaming at him, kicking him out of the house, couples counseling, threatened to go to the police and even moved the family next door to my mum so she can help me/us with his alchoholism. He has tried medications, AA, psychologists, psychiatrists, abstinence, cognitive behavioral therapy. He has been saying for years that he will go to rehab but it hasn’t happened. He has no reason be be an alchoholic, no history of trauma etc just long term alcohol abuse. Am I missing something here? We love each other dearly and haven’t been able to leave him but Is this my only option???

[Sophie_M]

Hey Omara, 

Welcome to our friendly online community. We are grateful that you have reached out here today as we know it can be tough to do this for the first time. We are sorry to hear about your husband's alcohol misuse. We can understand that you would be feeling concerned. Please know that you do not have to do this alone. Many in our community have had similar experiences, hopefully, a few of them will pop by and offer you some words of wisdom.

You might be interested in the following Beyond Blue online resources:
"Talking to someone you are worried about" -
https://www.beyondblue.org.au/get-support/have-the-conversation/talking-to-someone-you-are-worried-about

"Supporting someone" -
https://www.beyondblue.org.au/the-facts/supporting-someone

In the case your husband is more willing to seek help over the phone, MensLine Australia is a free 24/7 telephone and online counselling service for men with emotional health and relationship concerns. You can contact them on 1300 78 99 78 or https://mensline.org.au/
Please feel free to keep us updated on your journey here on your thread whenever you feel up to it.

[Emo]

Hi Omara,

You are so brave for opening up like you have done here. I'm so sorry to hear what you are going through. I can relate to your story as I also have an alcoholic abusive husband. Unfortunately my husband is unwilling to get help or even acknowledge he has a problem. It's good to hear that your husband has tried to get help. I am quite concerned about your current situation so I have looked online for some help for yourself from people who will hopefully be able to give you some advice.

The first helpline is ALANON 1300 252 666. They are for partners with alcohol issues. Hopefully they will be able to help you with discussing your concerns and offer some suggestions.

I'm also concerned about your safety after some of the things you have mentioned in your post. I would like to encourage you to reach out for some guidance from the organisation 1800Respect 1800 737 732. They are really helpful in discussing your current situation and your concerns while still letting any decisions be completely yours to make.

Please maybe reach out to your family again to get some assistance. They I am sure would only be too happy to help. I'm sure they care for you and your husband and they would only want the best for you both.

I hope I have been of some help to you. I'm here if you need to talk. I wish only the best for you. I'll be thinking positive thoughts.

Regards,

Emo.

[geoff]

Hello Omara and Emo, I'm sorry as this is a very difficult situation knowing that other circumstances within the marriage need to be considered, however, it's not a position you want to have to cope with, suffering the consequences of their untoward behaviour.

As Emo has said ALANON provides a great opportunity for you and your family to talk with qualified people regarding your husband's/father's drinking, because at the moment trying to discuss this problem with him will not make any improvement and I say this as I had a drinking problem while I was in depression, now I haven't drunk for over a year.

He may well be charming during the day but eventually, this can be broken, as any celebration during the day may well bring out his changed character, it can't be hidden 24/7.

Rehabilitation may well and truly be helpful for many people, but if they are forced in doing it, then it may well work while they're in there but once they leave, back to the same habit, so it's not a positive solution, we only hoped it would be.

Any medications prescribed, you can't be sure whether or not they had been taken or thrown down the loo, only a blood test would prove this, which I don't think he'd do, so I understand your situation.

If you decide to separate, that doesn't mean the love between the two of you will end, what you are doing is a 'wake up' call, if that's how you want to handle it, but if I can say, and I mean this without any harm to you and if I do I apologise sincerely, but your own behaviour will be affected by this separation, that's why you need to contact a help team.

We really hope you can get back to us, as there is more to discuss.

Geoff.

[Helarctus]

Hello Omara,

This sounds like a very difficult situation, a person you care greatly for is behaving in a way that harms you. If you have documented the incidences and attempted to help them with stopping but had little success. The questions to have a calm sit down chat about with them would be;

- If the roles were reversed, how much would they have put up with?

- Why do they expect you to continue to allow them to treat you this way?

- If not now, when?

Hopefully they can take the steps and stick to them to get themselves on track. This seems like the sort of situation that they will have to take ownership of the problem, accept responsibility for the damage caused and do the grunt work of fixing it themselves. You can support them but you can't "not drink/drink less" for them.

I hope you have success.

Regards,

Helarctus

[Omara]

Thanks Sophie, these are really good resources. I didn’t know about men’s line. Thanks again 🙂

[Omara]

Thank you Emo, I have called a domestic violence hotline in the past but not 1800 respect so I will give them a try. My experience phoning these types of services before are that they are really kind and try their best but 1. I can’t tell them too much (and they have warned me about this) as they have mandatory reporting and can involve child services or another government agency which would cause me more stress without dealing with the core problem - my husbands alchoholism addiction. I do need to call alanon though, it’s been on my mind but I was worried they are a faith based organization (similar to AA) and I’m not religious so it might not be the right fit. But it’s worth a try as they are specialists in the area of family members effected by alchoholism. Thank you so much for your reply.

[Omara]

Thanks Geoff, you have made some really good points here. Especially about the separation ‘wake up call’ and if/when that does happen I will need a support team. I’m just so reluctant to go down the path of separation for a number of reasons but over time I am worried that if he does go to rehab it will be to avoid a separation, not because he wants to stop drinking. Part of this whole problem is that his addiction is so severe that he blacks out when he drinks and doesn’t remember anything he does or says, so he lacks the natural guilt that you or I would feel from behaving badly.