I agree with SC and Prisca, get rid of the alcohol in the house and be a good support system to help her stay sober.

I also agree if she's serious about not drinking, it should not matter if you get rid of the alcohol.

Her agreement to stop drinking is a good start but not enough. Have you seen Dr Harley's writings on NC after an affair? He does not want people to rely on willpower, when willpower has failed in the past. He advocates changing your lifestyle and the conditions. It's the same idea here.

Honestly folks I believe she will quit drinking.

I've spied on her for a long time when we're at home but in different parts of the home and have yet to find her sneak a drink. We're usually in proximity and I would have smelled it had she done so.

She isn't a falling down drunk or someone that hides it. She openly drinks in front of me ... especially since she started trying to manage the volume of her consumption.

That doesn't mean I won't be getting rid of the booze but I thought a level-set of what I see from her is important.

She has had no reason to hide it before.

Even the dumbest alcoholic can figure out to sneak drinks and you would never know it. There are lots of ways to do this. So please don't think you know everything she does.

I would just quietly pour it all out at the first opportunity and take the bottles to the dump.

I suppose. You think you know someone until they do something that is so out of character you no longer recognize the person in front of you. If she truly is alcoholic I suspect I may find I lost the person I used to recognize if I'm not careful.

That wine rack is going to look awful bare with no bottles in it. Maybe I'll replace the wine with sparkling apple juice. So it doesn't look so bare. The kids love that stuff especially on Xmas day/New Year's. Or is that a bad idea ... too much like promoting alcohol because they come in champagne-like bottles?

It's the wine rack that reminds one of alcohol! Ditch the wine rack, and get sparkling juice that does not look like champagne, and keep it in the fridge (or a cupboard until the fridge has room).

Don't let you kids drink much juice. It's bad for the teeth and the blood sugar levels. Sparkling water with ice is sugar-free, and addictive (although I've read some reports that the bubbles are not great for the teeth, either).

Are you going to take an axe to the bar itself? You need to! Redecorate the room it lives in!

If and when she screams at me for emailing her sister and telling the kids do I simply tell her I told them because they have a right to know what's going on, I'm fighting to save our marriage and I need some support?

No SC we won't be redoing that bar. We spent a lot of money to put it in and I'm not throwing good money away. In hindsight it looks like it was a horrible idea but I had no idea I would be where I am today. It's only been since I asked her to curb her drinking that I realized this is a bigger problem than I thought.

Just because it has coolers and a wine rack doesn't mean we have to drink alcohol in it. It can be used to house water and other non-alcoholic beverages.

Do I need to avoid restaurants that serve alcohol now that she's stopped drinking?

That pretty much eliminates any place to eat out (where we spend UA time) except for unhealthy fast food joints.

You need to get rid of the bar. As sugarcane said, it's going to be a trigger.

I will bring it up to her. But not right now. She hates me already. I push the issue she'll say enough is enough, get out.

Just stay out of bars.

MrAlias:

My advice to you is to make your home and lifestyle alcohol free. You can't expect your wife to give up drinking with any alcohol available in the house or her lifestyle. Tell your boys now about their mother's commitment, and that you will all be helping her by giving up alcohol completely as a family. Let them know that you give up drinking yourself and will not drink at parties or sports events or while dining out. It will set a goal for your boys as well. But at the first sign of her sneaking a drink, whether in the house or in her car or anywhere else, I recommend an intervention and referral to a treatment program. By that time, your boys will already know what's going on. The more eyes on your wife, the better.

Your wife will probably try to lobby your boys to make them think that you are being unreasonable. So you should anticipate that by explaining to them your history (that you both drank heavily early in your marriage because you didn't think anything was wrong with it), but that you became alarmed by the way your wife behaved when under the influence. You can now see how much damage drinking can do when it's done to excess. You might also explain that there are some people who can handle moderate drinking, and never have more than one drink. But there are others that drink to excess, and they are the ones who should not drink at all. Tell them that they are likely to have inherited a predisposition to be alcoholics, so they should avoid alcohol completely.

You might also explain the difference between a problem drinker and an alcoholic. There isn't any. As soon as drinking alcohol becomes a problem, whether it's DWIs, becoming socially inappropriate, flirting, becoming belligerent, or any other way that alcohol affects behavior negatively, it should be avoided completely. When consuming alcoholic beverages can't be avoided by commitment, the person needs professional help.

Even if your wife refuses help, and continues drinking for the rest of her life, you children should see that behavior as something that they should not tolerate in themselves.

Dr. Harley

Thank you Dr Harley and thank you for the return email.

I have done as you recommended. I spoke early today with my oldest son before he left for work and then my younger two (DD16 and DS14). I discussed our history and let them know it was affecting our relationship. I let them decide if they wished to bring it up with their mother but certainly encouraged them to let her know how, if in any way, this negatively impacted them and that is was OK for them to encourage her not to drink.

I told them the details of our current agreement. That she's agreed to stop drinking but I also told them she still doesn't see her drinking as a problem. I let them know I was hopeful that this was going to work out and that Mom and Dad would get past this and get back to building a great marriage.

These are tough conversations for me. I am an emotional person in certain situations. Having to look my kids in the eye and explain to them what I've been going through makes it hard to keep it together. Today was one tough deal and I couldn't hold back my emotions. I had hoped I could keep it together to minimize any stress this conversation would bring for them but I wasn't successful in doing that. They obviously now know how much this has been bothering me.

I am in the process of removing all the alcohol from our home.

We don't go to bars however all restaurants have bars nowadays. We did our drinking at restaurants before, during and after dinner. She does her drinking there and at home and stupid places like the parking lots at our daughter's summer softball games between games. A few of the other softball Moms are a bad influence. Nice ladies but I don't like them for this reason.

Basically, she drinks wherever there is alcohol to be honest.

I am so proud of you!! It is a good thing that your kids were able to see how devastating this has been to you. That helps them understand the gravity of the problem. I know this was very hard for you and I applaud you for forcing yourself to take tough steps. This is major progress.

You're doing really well, MrA. I'm sorry; this is such an upsetting thing to go through.

If you go to a restaurant together, then obviously, if she is still claiming not to drink, you stay away from the bar area and go straight to your table. However, if you think that avoiding the elephant (bar) in the room will still be stressful and and an unpleasant factor in your evening out, then you'll need to avoid restaurants altogether and find other things to do.

(In London where I live, we can quite easily find restaurants with a "bring your own" policy, so there is no bar, and also, restaurants with middle-Eastern cuisines usually don't like serving alcohol. They might have a bar, but they are miserable little things in a corner of the room, and they make you feel really bad to ask the server to get you a drink! An atmosphere like those, where alcohol doesn't exactly slosh around, might be easier places in which to enjoy a date.)

What are you going to do about her normally drinking at softball games, and all her usual places? Could you ask her how she's going to manage not drinking, when she's been used to drinking there? Could you suggest that you go, instead? Alternatively, could your daughter be escorted and supervised by another mother?

Could you try bringing her onside to join you in brainstorming? Don't assume that she won't do this. You don't know until you try.

Hi MrA,

I usually lurk but I wanted to share my story, since it's similar to yours. I reached out to Dr H in Jan of this year, afraid that my otherwise good marriage was going to end due to my husband's drinking.

My h and I had both been daily or near-daily drinkers. Our friends and families all drink. Neither of us had any obvious problems and no one considered either of us to be problem drinkers. No missed work, no relationship, legal, or financial problems, etc.

So everyone, my H included, was surprised when I quit in Dec a few years ago. My husband shouldn't have been surprised because I shared my despair with him over my drinking (feeling sick, ashamed because either I'd behaved badly or worse, couldn't remember my behavior, etc.) However, regardless of what I said in the morning, I still ended up drinking most nights. I spent a full year trying to control my drinking before finally realizing that if I had to control something, it was only because it was controlling me. I stepped out of the ring, away from the fight, and gave up drinking.

However, this tremendously upset the balance in my marriage. Drinkers seem to just accept boorish, rude, stupid behavior as things that just happen, but I could no longer roll with these behaviors from my husband or family and friends. I really understand how you feel when the people who drink think you're making big deals out of nothing. My husband felt that nothing had changed for him: he still went to work, he still had no legal or financial issues, he didn't have any red flags and was drinking like he always had, like everyone we know drinks. So he saw no reason to stop. He'd support me, as far as watching our son when I went to my one weekly AA woman's group meeting. He did not think I was an alcoholic and he certainly didn't think he was one. Our marriage was getting rocky.

Unfortunately, over the next year, my husband had two episodes that went beyond the normal drunken stupidity. The first endangered our son, and afterwards my husband started to try to control his drinking. He had some early success and our marriage improved; but a few months later, he took a day off, got very drunk, and got himself into a very dangerous situation. Thankfully I was able to locate him using his phone and get him home.

Neither of these episodes were enough to get him to commit to quitting drinking. He would have a few drinks with family and friends sometimes and be ok. He was definitely trying to cut down. But one night, a few weeks after the 2nd episode, I I came home with our son to find my husband drunk and passing out on the couch. I moved into a different room and began making plans to separate.

His family thought this was a huge over reaction and highly unnecessary. I figured that I wouldn't be dealing with them anymore so they could talk amongst themselves all they wanted...but I did wonder if they were right. The trend had been for my husband to drink less, and we really got long well during those times. I emailed Dr H and Joyce. They invited us to speak with them on the radio. I sent my husband a copy of the letter I sent them and asked if he would join me. My h knew I was serious about being ready and able to separate, and he agreed.

I will be forever grateful to Dr H and Joyce for that call. It really ticked my husband off- to him, it felt like an intervention. Dr H spoke with my husband and was able to get my h to agree that his drinking was causing problems. It didn't matter whether or not he was alcoholic or "just" a problem drinker, because the answer is the same: complete abstinence. On the call, my husband agreed to stop but said he was angry because when I quit, it was a choice I made, whereas someone else (me, the wife) was making the choice for him.

The next few months were not fun. My husband had a lot of resentment. I was grateful and relieved that he had made the choice to stop and I didn't put any demands on how he worked it out. He told me that he didn't want to go to AA and didn't think he needed it. I told him that I didn't really care how he did it, as long as he got and stayed sober so that we could have a great marriage.

Still, we did not have a great marriage for several more months. I didn't trust him, he didn't like me very much. I wasn't sure that we were going to make it and built a contingency plan just in case I needed it. Dr Harley asked us on the call to commit to sending H to rehab if he drank again. I didn't know if I would even bother, if he kept on drinking.

I tried the best I could to work the MB program. My h did not want anything more to do with MB, so I didn't bring it up with him. As long as my h was generally pleasant, i stayed nearby, watched movies together. I found as much as I could to genuinely give him admiring compliments. I try to keep all love busters at bay. If he was being unpleasant, I'd either just get out of the away and give him space or I'd ask if there was anything I could do to cheer him up, and if not, I'd find something to do apart from him until/unless he got over his mood. So as long as he was acting ok, I spent as much time as I could with him. He started a new job and he wanted to talk about it often, so we did. He had almost entirely stopped initiating or accepting my advances soon after I stopped drinking, so the SF avenue had already been closed. Instead, we shared foot rubs, held hands in the car, etc.

Somewhere around month six or seven, things changed. It's like his resentment dissipated. He was pleasant and fun almost all of the time. He was interested in SF again. We got through several events with family/friends who were drinking, and he had sailed through them. He must have said something to his family, because no one batted an eye or said a negative word. He's just been happier, and our marriage has vastly improved.

From what I can see, he has not had a drink since that call. His attitude has changed and recently, it seems he's gained a new perspective on his past drinking. He is talking about things that happened in the past, framed as issues that were likely caused by drinking. He hadn't connected these things with drinking before. He identifies as a non-drinker now. He's been a type 1diabetic since he was a young boy, and for the first time as an adult, his blood sugars are in the "controlled diabetes" range! That stat gives me additional confidence that he's truly been sober.

Anyway, I typed all this out as a real-life recent example of Dr H's plan in action re: alcohol (or at least my attempt at following his plan, as I've not carried it off perfectly!)

I am not afraid of conflict, but I do pick my battles. I had- and still have- a "hands off" attitude towards my H's drinking. When he complained that I made the choice for him, I told him that I could understand why he'd feel that way, and that he was right because if I weren't insisting on it, he'd keep drinking. But I wanted him to know that I had tried for over a year to live with him drinking, and I simply could not continue to live like that. If he wanted to keep drinking, that was fine for him but I needed to leave so I could have peace in my life. I was always waiting for the shoe to drop if he was drinking. Sometimes he was ok but not always, and he couldn't control or predict when things would go sideways ( if he could control or predict it, he could ensure that things *never* went sideways.) I told him that I would stay and work with him to build an amazing marriage with him, but it was only possible if he stopped drinking. He hated it but agreed to it. I hope and pray that he continues on his current path.

I also wanted to agree with the other posters who say, don't worry so much about her anger. She is going to be angry. Maybe, like my husband, she will hold onto her anger and resentment for a long time. Hopefully she will move past the anger in time, if you're able to meet her ENs.

Lastly, re the "I'm not an alcoholic!" battle. On our call, Dr H told my husband that I was not an alcoholic because I was able to give up drinking easily. But, I was clearly a problem drinker and I made the best decision possible to quit. My husband was also at a minimum a problem drinker. He'd find out if he was addicted once he tried to stop, but problem drinker or alcoholic, the best way forward is sobriety.

I still go to AA. Nothing has changed for me. There are many of us there with "high bottoms", with few or no discernible consequences from drinking. Outside of AA I identify as a non-drinker; inside AA I self identify as an alcoholic, which simply means to me, someone who has problems if she drinks. For me it's much easier, and immeasurably better, to stay sober. I had a horrible time trying to moderate; it defeated me. I hope your wife is willing to go, it's such a great program!

I wish you and your wife the best of luck.

BedofRoses,

Thank you very much for sharing your personal experience with me, with us. And welcome to the MB Forum!

You story strikes a very similar chord. And I certainly appreciate hearing how, so far, things have taken a wonderful step in a positive direction.

I appreciate your support as of now I am devoted to making this work and saving my marriage.