Trying to detach but struggling

@Anxiousdinosaur82

It is almost impossible so if you are managing good for you😄. It is not good long run you will wear yourself down and become bitter and remember your child is watching. Do you have support from any friends or family that perhaps could do an intervention with you.... ?

the alcoholic will not change until they see it for themselves ... a DUI or other trouble.....

paying for everything and letting him play games and get drunk is enabling his behavior. do you buy the alcohol perhaps just a free consult with a divorce lawyer or a legal separation will show him your serious... he needs a wake-up call to stop.

Do you and child have somewhere you can move even temporary until he gets the picture ... he cannot support himself drunk.

@Anxiousdinosaur82

Hi, I'm sorry to hear about this. And while I wanted to share the extent I've seen other people go through it with their husbands, I figured it would probably be more helpful for me to tell you from my own experience: the denial is real. I mean really real. I was aware of 'a problem of drinking too much alcohol" for years and years (since I was a teenager, then in college where the joke is it's only alcoholism after you graduate, then through adulthood where I was spending time at bars 'to network for my business'). Even when I started therapy initially to get support for divorce, I could tell the therapist thought my alcohol use was a major problem, for example when I shared exactly how drunk I would get and how unbecoming my behavior was. "But only sometimes" is what I thought.

I searched the diagnosis criteria for alcohol abuse disorder and I promise you, I laughed and texted my therapist that I checked more boxes for pizza use disorder. Really. It bothered me that she would think this about me and it scared me to think I was anything like my alcoholic parents or the narcissists I heard seemingly bragging about their rock bottom experiences the one time I went to AA in my 20s. (You can see how even though I was attempting to get help I decided for myself that my problem was 'different'). I preferred to chalk up my drinking to other symptoms like dissociation and to trying to control yet other symptoms. And boredom. And escape. And to avoid the awful feeling you get when you go 24 hours since you last drank heavily, which does not seem obviously like 'withdrawal' but that's exactly what it is. It's just that alcohol withdrawal is often as innocuous as being irritated easily or not being able to sleep. So I also drank to help me fall asleep or get back to sleep. The truth is my alcohol use is all of it. As is plain by what I write.

It took me about 4 years - while in therapy the whole time (I have PTSD) - to circle back to that diagnostic criteria and actually laugh at myself. I didn't WANT it to be true, but it was just so clearly obvious that I checked most of those boxes before. But I laughed because how amazed I was that I couldn't see it. I had to accept a bunch of other things about myself first in order to accept some of the other things. I wanted to tell you this because while I thought my story was probably unusual at the time, it wasn't. It took me lots of exploring (including here on 7cups) and using resources like monument.com for group therapy, and a WHOLE LOT of nonreactive acceptance from my therapist. I used to drink during (video) sessions because it was THAT hard for me to have feelings, much less in front of someone else. My very first therapist used to act like my drinking was some kind of emergency. And it was: I was actively suicidal or just trying to ignore that I was for so many years of my life.

It took all this time, dedicated introspection and acceptance, and external acceptance to finally be able to bring up not drinking as a struggle, and to congratulate myself for getting sober without being embarrassed. And a lot of witnessing myself go back to alcohol and come back out of it. I also want you to know that the brain changes are real: just like any other drug, you need more and more to work until one day, it just doesn't. But your brain is SURE it is the one thing missing that will improve your day. So you drink 'to find out' and what you feel better about is that you don't have the same things to feel badly about in the same way. Like for me, it's my home life, the way my body feels, the shame of not doing things I think I need to or should. All of it. And having a hangover to work through is honestly a very, very helpful excuse to let myself work on things I need to do at a pace that won't become my new addiction (I struggled with workaholism, too).

I want you to know that you don't have to 'accept' any of this. I just want you to know that your husband's non-acceptance makes a lot of sense and is impossible to get out of until it becomes important to him. You might think that threatening to leave him would do that, or actually taking your kids away for a while could do it. But honestly, if drinking is his only coping skill, he will be stuck in the shameful spiral of falling deeper into it. I have to say, it's weird to see myself type the same cliche'd metaphors (since you know, my alcoholism experience was different!) but -- they're true. Your husband is actually trapped by chemicals and getting out is not reasonably going to be willpower alone.

I don't think it's your job to help him quit, either. As a mother, I fully support you leaving him if that makes life easier - which it could. I would only say that no matter what you say to him or how you say it, the only thing that will help actually help him find his way through is for you to not add directly to the shame that he already has and can't cope with. You can get up and take the kids out too early for him to join on the weekends or insist that he not drink at home or come to bed after a certain hour; space away from him is what will continue to make you and your kids feel better. You don't have to allow him access to funds, either; you can move your money to a different bank account and you can set up a credit freeze to make sure that he can't take a card out in your name. You can simply reply to him "I'll handle the purchases, you don't have to worry about it" to chill that conversation if you've already tried to set a boundary that you won't pay for alcohol and he keeps asking for the card 'to buy groceries' or whatever is happening.

I hope any of this helps you get through this. You didn't deserve it, you don't deserve it. Your kids don't deserve it. And not only do you not have control to fix it but it's not yours to fix.

Thank you both for your insight. I went to my first Al-Anon meeting today. I just sat there crying, not being able to say a word and listening to the story of my life come out of the mouths of strangers. It was beautiful and horrible at the same time. Last night was bad. It got so bad I had to take my son and leave in our PJs without shoes or anything until he calmed. My son slept at his grandmother's because he was too afraid to go home. I am not enabling him with money. He does not have access to my accounts. He does odd jobs to pay for the booze.

Today I came home and explained that my son was too afraid to come home and that I think it would be best for him to leave. He threw his hands up and started screaming that I won, I finally got what I wanted and he is out of my life. He told me to lose his number and took off.

I am trying really hard to be ok that he doesn't want to see that he has a problem and there is nothing I can do to change the situation. My son and I are safe tonight and that is all I can ask for right now.