Drug Rehab Options Blog

I am have been clean for 1 year from opiates and I'm personally doing pretty good, but my fiance, the man who helped me get clean, is an alcoholic. He won't admit it, and he doesn't want to quit. He moved me out of state to get away from the drugs and without him I probably never would have got clean if it wasn't for him and I want to support him and be there for him like he was me. I wouldn't mind his excessive drinking but when he drinks he becomes a completely different person. He's short tempered, easily offended, and just altogether mean. He is the manager at a liquor store and comes home with a different kind of beer every night. He won't quit his job to get away from the alcohol because the money's too good. He says if he wanted to quit he would. I think deep down he knows he has a problem, he admitted to me once but later denied it. I know whether he drinks or not isn't up to me, and I know he has to want it, but I don't know how much longer I can deal with this. He was there for me when I needed him and he never gave up on me. When i'd wake up at 4 am crying for a pill and he had to get up for work at 6, he'd stay up with me. He spent $3,000 on methadone. I can't give up on him. Any advice on convincing he has a problem, or even just how to tolerate it better? I've started going to bed earlier when he drinks so I'm not awake to see him that way, but there has to be another answer. Any advice??

Hello everyone. I have been lurking here for a while just wanting to see if I could see any similarities with anyone and their situations - it really shows me that I am not alone. I am married to a clinically depressed alcoholic. I am 31 and he is 37. We have been together for 14 years and married for 9. We have an 8 year old son and a 3 year old daughter. I have always known that he had issues with depression and alcohol but I just kept hoping that he would eventually "get better". It has gotten very bad over the last year. For 13 years we had never seperated but have had 3 seperations this year - and this will be the last. I have filed for divorce. He is currently in a rehab facility (has been in detox twice and rehab twice as well). He is a kind, loving man with a huge heart and I will always love him - but I have finally realized that I am not "in love" with him anymore. I know that I can't go through any of this anymore and I am really trying to be strong. There are sooooo many things that have happened that I won't get into now. Both of his parents are alcoholics - his father has been sober for about 30 years but his mother is currently on her deathbed because of her excessive drinking - we have been told she has approx. one week left. He gets out of rehab tomorrow and I am scared to have to finally confront him as we have had no contact for 6 weeks now. He does know that I have filed for divorce but I don't think that he believes that I will really go through with it (and why would he - I have always let him back in before). I read so many stories where women say that they have been married to an alcoholic for 20, 30, 40 years and I don't want that to be me. In my heart I don't believe that this rollercoaster will ever end. I am so sad and letting go of the dream that I had for our family is the hardest of all for me right now. Well thanks for "listening" - and I thank all of you for sharing your stories - it really has helped me out a lot.

~Danilee

Ok, still a nOObie here, and I have another silly question.

I've read the book "Under the Influence" referred to and quoted in other parts of the forum here. Very useful and informative. It lays out very convincingly how alcoholism is a physical disease, much like diabetes or MS or others. I get that part.

What I still don't quite understand is whether alcoholism can be acquired. In my own case, I believe that I inherited a genetic predisposition to alcoholism. So when I took my first drink I triggered or set the disease in motion. Fine.

My question is, can one who is not predisposed to alcoholism develop the disease through excessive drinking? In other words, was my mother correct when she confronted me after my first bit of trouble due to drinking and said: "Oh, no! Now you're going to become an alcoholic!"

Thanks all. Sobriety is great!



Curious nOObie.

It's officially 2 weeks for me today and I cannot thank this forum enough for your posts, sincerity, honesty, and encouragement. I love music and yesterday, while driving home from work, I had a moment of the music flooding my body with feeling and it felt alive for the first time in years. It was brief, but, very noticable. I have been living the last year (especially) in a numbed state and habitual routine blaming stress and a terminal parent to excuse my excessive drinking. I turned my self into a victim from my hardships and escaped into a bottle of booze wondering who's gonna die first, my mom or me. We'll I can now say I couldn't find a geinie anywhere in the bottle. So, 2weeks sober, lots of introspection and willing to continue my sobriety today. :a194:Thanks again.

I am new to this site and fairly desperate for advice and answers. My father is an alcoholic and he has been struggling with his addiction for years. He first lost his vocal cords to this addiction in 1998 because of cancer. He recovered but several years later again began to drink. He has been in rehab, we've had him institutionalized, he at one point was going to AA but stopped long ago. A year ago he began drinking excessively again and he again was diagnosed with throat and mouth cancer, largely caused by his excessive drinking. He had a highly invasive surgery which removed most of his tongue to get rid of the cancer, and the surgery was a success, however because he was depressed because of his increased difficulty communicating he again began to drink heavily and the cancer came back again, the worse the cancer got the more he drank, the less he ate, and the more he helped the disease progress. Finally this past summer we got him into a program of chemo and radiation because he said he seriously wanted to try to make this work, so he went through the treatment and recently finished. The doctor said as far as he can tell it was fairly successful, but as always with cancer treatments there is always the danger of recurrence. Despite his promises to try to live a healthy life he is again drinking heavily and refusing to eat, he is too weak to do much, and keeps my mother up all night with his drunken rants. I recently moved at the end of the summer to take a job in another state, so my mother is left at home to deal with him. I don't know what to do. She wants to have him committed which I think is a good idea, but she doesn't know how to go about it or how to ask anyone. He is literally killing himself by drinking, and we don't know what to do. Please any advice or help would be sincerely appreciated. We've gone through all of these treatments and he's just throwing it all away again.

Thanks so much
KB

I talked with the gal from the attorney's office today. She said that we needed to make an appointment together to discuss what we both wanted in the disolussion. I made mention that I wanted to add some stuff to the no drinking clause. I told her about the incident and that I wanted to add in there that the kids are also not to be taken to any place where excessive drinking is taking place.

Up until this point I had not said anything to him yet about the incident because I am consulting with an attorney this afternoon. Well the attorney said something to him about it and he called me. He tells me that I need to have my facts straight before I go making accusations and that he has enough respect for his kids that he wasn't drinking and driving. I told him that I don't believe him for one minute. First it is completely inappropriate to take a 6 year old and a 2 year old to a beer drinking party. Second according to my son he played the game and his dad drank for him when he lost. Then there is the issue of the "smoke pong" game. WHen I told him that our son said that they were smoking cigarette looking things his only words were "There was no weed there." He keeps insisting that he didn't do anything wrong and that maybe our son said that stuff because he was afraid of getting in trouble. He also said that I yell at him and our son every time our son does anything like his dad. Uh yea well I'm not going to sit by and not say anything when a 6 year old is saying they want to drink beer or smoke a cigarette like their uncle. I'm not training my kids to be keg drinkers and chain smokers. I guess AH thinks I'm going to sit idly by and not say a word. Well he has something else comming. Ok off to see the attorney.

My sobriety story begins when I sobered up March 3rd of this year. I had been drinking very heavily on a daily basis for the last 13 years. I literally don't remember one sober day starting from when I was a teenager and alcohol became freely accessible through my older friends. I have to say my excessive drinking was most likely a direct result of trying to mentally escape from the severe abuse and neglect I experienced as a child.

Recently, after a life changing event I decided it was time for me to give up the bottle for good. I was ready to usher in another, more positive era into my life. I started going to AA, started going to counseling weekly, started on antidepressants and enrolled in school. I made many positive life changes anticipating some fraction of peace that I hear many recovering addicts claim to have found. Don't get me wrong--I knew that I would experience serious setbacks and tribulations, but it seems overall that most of the SR folks and those that I met in AA were much happier healthier people. They seemed to have found God and He seemed to be active in their lives. I have to preface this with the fact that I have always been very spiritual but it seems that my God has gone silent. All of the little miricles I used to experience have dissapeared? I feel almost abandoned from that aspect of my life that has brought me glimmers of hope and joy through the depressing veil of alcoholism.

Now that I have been sober six months now I am more miserable than ever--regardless of the positive moves I make in my life. I have tried to wait it out thinking it was merely a passing phase but to no avail so far. I have on many occasions found myself with a bottle of pills in my hand contemplating my own life. What am I doing wrong? I am at the point that somthing has got to give. Am I the only one out there where one becomes more unhappy after a decent amount of sobriety? Have I waited long enough? I am walking a thin line here and I am fighting for my life.

Any advice?