punchy333 asked:


I’m at a loss for what to do in my situation. My husband of 4 years (we’ve been together for 9 years) is an alcoholic; both heredity and the environment he grew up in played a significant role. We are in our mid-twenties. We have a 3 year-old son, and an infant daughter, and have recently returned to our home state after being stationed over 2,000 miles away in the military for the last 4 years. I have no friends or outside support, as I am not close with my mother (my father is deceased.) It’s difficult to get out of the house to do anything without the kids, as I am still nursing our daughter and she’s having a tough time getting used to solid foods. I am a stay-at-home-mom who has not worked outside the home in 4 years.

My husband has always drank, but not to the extent that has been going on for almost a year now. He is rarely sober and drinks until he passes out. I found out, by him, that he has been lying to me about drinking for the last couple weeks. He said he had been drinking in-between work and school, and has been lying about the amount of alcohol consumed at other times. He expressed a sincere desire to change, even pouring out the remaining beer in the fridge. But that effort lasted 4 days. I’m pretty sure, from researching, that he’s entering the middle stages of alcoholism. He has already refused the notion of attending AA, and going to counseling is “not for him” either, even though it’s apparent he needs it. He’s in construction and many of the people who he works with are also alcoholics. Some drink at work or right after work.

I can see where this is going. I don’t want our kids to grow up in this environment. He loves them, and they love him. He’s not physically or verbally abusive- he can just get negative after so many beers. He feels the need to rip apart everyone he sees on television, and then starts on everyone who has ever wronged him, sometimes me. I put him on an allowance of $40 a week, and he has admitted that he sold some of his tools at work for money.

I feel that our relationship is deteriorating. While I still love him and recognize his disease, I don’t know if I want to stay if the situation were to become inevitable. He seems pretty unwilling to actually get help. I know that I can’t make him. If I were to leave, how would I support my kids, and afford childcare on top of that? I don’t have a degree. Where would I go? I feel so alone and I don’t know what to do.
His father is also an alcoholic. When my husband confronted him about his childhood, he apologized and said it was wrong for him to be drinking the way he did around his kids, BUT also told my husband that “you can’t just give up those things entirely… just try to cut back.” This was on his 4th day of sobriety. He drank the very next day. I have never been so dissappointed in my life, except for last night, when he told me again that he doesn’t have a problem, (He drank 15 beers from 3pm to 7 pm.) and then had to go to bed because he was dizzy. So, back in denial is he. His (divorced) mother is a recovered alcoholic (15 years) but is dying from liver disease and Hepatitis C. He would not take anything she said in a helpful way because of their past. Family intervention is not going to be helpful here.

I haven’t been away from my children in 3 years, literally. The adults that I speak to, besides him, consist of grocery store cashiers and the like.