I listened to the first 20 minutes of yesterday's show. They talked about something relevant regarding POJA and people not following through.

Struggling this morning. I let my wife know I wasn't doing well and that I had something to tell her but just can't seem to send it.

Well, keep on listening when you find the time. The app should hold your place as long as you keep listening. Just use the pause button on the scrubber overlay when you need to stop listening for a while, and don't hit stop. You can drag the scrubber to the 20 minute position to resume where you left off.

Thanks Mr. E

Update:

My wife and I have decided, at this time, to not seek professional help or require her to quit drinking completely. I know that goes against the advice I have received here but I have decided to let her try to control the drinking and see where it goes.

We haven't sent anything to Dr. Harley at this time. That is an option I will keep ready should there be any struggles with the plan her and I worked out together.

She's agreed that if she cannot stick to this plan then she'll seek help in dealing with her drinking problem. Based on the research she's done and self-reflection she feels she is an alcohol abuser and not an alcoholic. She wants to follow some advice she's read geared towards those that abuse alcohol.

I'm willing to let her try this her way. If it goes South then more drastic measures will be taken.

Right now she will limit her drinking to Friday and Saturday. We've worked out a very limited amount of drinking and I'm pleased to report she is drinking even less than what we agreed to be an acceptable level.

She won't drink when she's angry, sad and she will never drink more than one drink each hour or so which means the alcohol shouldn't have a large effect in changing her state of mind. Her perception is that she never drinks when she's mad or sad. It's the one red flag that I've seen that, for now, we've agreed to disagree.

She's being very honest on her drinking. Letting me know when she's thinking about having one and letting me know she isn't going to have one because we have an agreement. That shows me she can control the drinking. So far last night is the first night she told me she felt like a glass of wine after dinner.

Meanwhile her and I are hard at work POJA'ing our daily behaviors in an effort to rekindle our love. We've had a couple of nice weeks together, spending a lot of time together doing whatever we can to entertain ourselves. We continue to explore new things to do together.

We're both still exercising and encouraging each other to drop the 15 pounds or so that we'd both love to lose. So far I'm down 9 pounds, with 15 more as my goal. She's down 5 or 6.

No SF at this point. She's hoping those feelings come back the more we continue down this path.

I'm sorry I didn't follow the advice given. I'm hopeful that my wife has self-diagnosed herself properly. If she hasn't then we have an agreement to take the next step.

Quick Update:

So far so good. She's been sticking to her plan and although she's struggled a little denying herself she's kept it up.

Meanwhile her and I have been a lot more in tune, are really enjoying each other's company and being back in love with each other.

Saturday night we had a bunch of folks over after our DD's softball game and we kept the drinking to almost nil and had a really nice time. The next day she commented several times how much fun she had.

So far ... thumbs up.

So how much is she drinking?

Last weekend she had one beer at a dinner with friends, one more later when her and I were home watching a show together.

Saturday after our DD's game we had about a dozen people to our house for pizza and drinks. She had 1 beer while they were there and then one more after they left.

So far that's been the norm. Friday and Saturday somewhere around 4 or 5 drinks total.

We spoke on Sunday and we both commented how much fun we had. She communicated a revelation that she didn't miss drinking a lot while others drank and had a lot of fun because she wasn't missing it.

Seeing that is going so well her and I have been focusing on our MB principals almost out of habit. Right? We're back to where we were when Jennifer helped us get on a good path.

It's pretty cool. Right now I am extremely happy.

That's great!

Mr Alias, I am sorry you are going through this, and I think MelodyLane is correct, even if she isn't an alcoholic it's a problem for your marriage so she needs to stop.

That being said, if she is addicted this will take a lot of patience and support on your part to get her in and through recovery if she is willing.

I agree with what Dr. Harley says about it here when trying to tell if the spouse is addicted:

"Dear G.B.,

Alcohol addiction can sneak up on a person. It's an addictive substance, which means that if you drink enough of it, you will develop a physical and emotional need for it. Even you could become an alcoholic if you got into the habit of drinking regularly. Who knows, maybe you are already an alcoholic and don't even know it.

A good test of whether or not you are an alcoholic is to ask yourself, am I willing to stop drinking entirely if it would make my spouse feel more comfortable? If total abstinence from drinking would be very difficult if not impossible for you, even if it made your wife more comfortable, you're an alcoholic. Alcohol, in that case, would be more important to you than your wife's feelings.

My test for alcohol addiction is simply an application of the Policy of Joint Agreement. In every marriage, spouses should avoid gaining at each other's expense, and the policy is followed, thoughtless behavior is eliminated. But when something is so important to a spouse that it prevents him or her from following it, whatever is that important will ruin the marriage."

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5048b_qa.html

I myself have just recently recovered from alcohol addiction and I can tell you that nothing else mattered to me but alcohol, even when I was successfully moderating at 2 or 3 drinks a day 3 times a week. It was still active addiction. Nothing can be resolved until the alcohol is out of the way, the addiction makes healing impossible since all an addicts energy goes to feeding the addiction.

Now that I don't have alcohol, my spouse and I have a lot to work on with both of us, as I was ignoring many problems and just drinking them away. My giving up alcohol has revealed many problems I have with my spouse that I was willing to ignore before, and we fight much of the time for now. Many people with addiction problems can not cope or quit without professional help, counseling, therapy, group therapy, etc. Addiction is hard to overcome, and effects both of you, I personally would not try to do this without professional help.
Blessings and best wishes to you.

Glorya,

Thank you very much for sharing your personal story.

I am prepared to get the professionals involved should this drinking become problematic again. For now she seems to be doing quite well just maintaining her current plan. We are being very open and honest about the drinking right now whereas before we tended to only deal with it after she had a night of getting way too drunk.

I'm willing to maintain this status quo so long as it doesn't progress. We have already had a conversation about this and I continue to let her know if I get triggered by something I see in her drinking.

I am being alert to her drinking. Not so alert that I'm obsessing but I pay attention enough. I will not go back to the way things were and she's fully aware I'm willing to separate if the drinking becomes a problem again.

Right now we're doing really well. I'm obsessing about my wife again which is a really nice feeling; especially after being withdrawn for years.

We just had the nicest Valentine's day that we have ever had!!!!

Spent most of the evening with the family doing some fun little events and having some nice food which I coordinated. I can't remember the last time her and I kissed passionately in front of the kids. "cover your eyes kids.".

Everyone had a great time and everyone thanked me over and over for planning and taking care of the fun night.

Then later her and I had a lot of "us' time.

We're celebrating our 27 year anniversary today !!!!!

Congratulations!!!

Congratulations, Mr and Mrs A.

Congratulations

Hello good people of the forum,

I'm sorry to say that things have taken a bit of a turn for the worst in our home. Despite my wife's honest attempts to control her drinking, in the last couple of months, she has started to slide back into some her bad habits. Drinking more, drinking faster and more frequently.

I told her I can't live like this anymore. That her drinking is ruining it for me, That I'm triggered every time I see her drink.

I've informed her that I see the only solution to resolve this would be for her to commit to stop drinking entirely.

Outside of me communicating that to her, getting myself to Al-Anon, is there anything else I could be doing? Is it recommended to get others involved or, at least, communicate to some of the important ones that her drinking has become a problem?

Have you read Dr Harley's Q&A articles on alcohol abuse?

PS: I thought this thread title needed a change. I'm sorry about what's happening.