There are many women who will spend a life time with a substance abuser becoming sicker and sicker as the years go by.

For me, I became so insane by his illness that the only option was divorce. He left me one night in a fit of the fog of his drug of choice and 18 months later (living apart with little or no contact) our divorce was final.

If you are doing any of the below, you might want to consider leaving if only temporarily.

1. You spend your days worrying about him so much so that you aren't accomplishing anything for yourself.

2. You spy on him by following him around to see if you can "catch" him in the act.

3. You go through his wallet and his car to see if you can find evidence of his drinking.

4. You are cleaning up after him after a binge (i.e. he gets sick and you clean up behind him)

5. You are witholding money from him or trying to control the finances to prohibit him from being able to afford the alcohol.

6. You are working yourself into the ground in an attempt to keep you and your family above water while he continues to drink.

7. You pour our his bottle if you find it and leave the empty where he can find it so that you can create a confrontational episode about his drinking.

8. You enable him by making it easy for him to drink, you give him money, you pick him up when he's too drunk to come home, you drive him to and from work (or other locals)

9. You have endangered your children by your quest to "stop" him. (i.e. you have dragged your children out to the car in the middle of the night to go search for your alcoholic.)

10. You have jeopardized your own financial stability to try to "hinder" his drinking. (i.e. you have left work early on repeated occasions when you couldn't readily locate your alocholic.)

Ladies you deserve better. Al-anon is a wonderful organization, HOWEVER, if your Alcoholic is not seeking recovery, you will do one of two things. You will recover beyond him and leave, or you will quit going to meetings and sink deeper into the pit of his drinking.

bump

first of all i want to say thankyou for posting a reply...
ok dreaming...yes i know he does love me that is why im still here...he does in fact treat me very well other than the drinking..
multimom...i dont snoop thru his stuff i cant be that kind of person...i wont follow or track him down that is not how i want to spend my life...yes i do worry as recently he flipped my new car over in a ditch upside down...so i do have reason to worry...btw he was ok...and this happened about when i first logged in here...since then he has been a bit better but has his nights...i guess what i want is a normal family like everyone wants....hmm what is normal ..i want a husband to come home after work eat supper with his family...im tired of wrapping his plate with tinfoil...while he has a few beers with the guys...which turns into 1 to 2 am by the time he gets home...i want him to be healthy and our family to be healthy...so day by day i take it and hope he somehow sees the light...i guess until i cant take it anymore....well im off to work....didnt sleep well last night been up since about 2 and he got home about 3am.....so should be a long day for me.....tc all have a good day

How are things going for you now?

I'm afraid that I have seen all the things you are talking about, but it seems different when you hear it from someone else. My DH says there's no point in going to AA or any other treatment programme as he has to make up his mind himself. He promised me that when I got pregnant he would stop drinking (our first child). Well, here I am at 31 weeks and he hasn't stopped yet. He stopped for a month at the begining, but wasn't able to keep it up for longer. He drank every evening over Christmas, as he's planning on giving it up tomorrow. I just don't get his thinking. He does drink at home, so at least he's not driving too. Apart from that he's a wonderful man that I love a lot. I'm really not sure about bringing a child into this situation though.

I'm afraid I don't have any answers. I went to al-anon twice, I must go again.