Lobsang, if you feel you need to, or if anyone else who knows you thinks you need to, please try to get that monkey off your back. It will kill you if you let it get too bad. If one thing doesn’t work, try something else.
Leifsmama, please tell me you have the support of friends and family. Please tell me your husband is willing to go into treatment.
I also watched my first husband dying. For years. Then he did die. Age 36. He was three days away from the millenium we used to talk about. I could never understand why he loved and chose alcohol over me and his family. He lost everything, little by little. Friends, job, health, drivers license, wife, life. Everything.
I peripherally work with professionals with addiction problems, and I am of the opinion that inpatient treatment is the only hope for an alcoholic like you describe your husband to be. Please please e-mail me (it’s in my profile) if you feel you need a sympathetic ear, advice, support, anything. I truly mean it.
Lobsang - nobody can tell you what to do, but read Leifsmama’s and Regina’s posts carefully. It creeps up on you - slowly at first, then accelerates. My own husband nearly died of drink. He has had to give up altogether - after descending (slowly, then faster and faster) into a hell of vomiting and shaking every morning, then off to the pub at 11am, finishing up 10 pints and one and a half bottles of wine later at 1am. While this was going on, he would say, quite straightfaced, that he was “cutting down”.
I can’t say if you are an alcoholic. But you are obviously worried about the possiblility. Start with your GP - they see thousands of patients with alcohol problems all the time - there is nothing to be ashamed of. At the very least, you should find it a relief to talk to your doctor. He/she may suggest counselling to begin with (this is how my husband started to get well). You mentioned in one of the posts that going to an AA meeting would be a terrible blow to your self-esteem…I think you’ll find that these meetings are very unthreatening - just a group of ordinary people from all walks of life, talking. If you don’t like the AA approach, there are other groups - ask your doctor.
The big myth about alcoholics is that they are desperate down and outs. This is nonsense - alcoholics are everywhere - in every office, every profession - the only thing they have in common is the lack of control over drink. The main thing I want to say is (1)There’s nothing to be ashamed of; (2) Do something, before this gets out of hand.