If a person doesn't have a drinking problem, should they have a problem quitting for a SO.

In My Humble Opinion
1

Not asking for myself, it’s just a generic hypothetical:

John, likes to designate Friday nights as his “drinking” night. He doesn’t drink any other night and he is off on weekends. And while he doesn’t get sloppy drunk, he does get to an altered state of mind. Enough so, he definitely shouldn’t drive. Which he never does.

Jane the GF, has a problem with this. She’s had a history of alcoholics in her life. From past drunken BFs that had lost their jobs due to excessive drinking to an abusive drunken father.

John is nothing like these guys. His bills are getting paid, he’s in good standing at work and has never abused anyone in his life.

Despite this, Jane will, on occasion (less so than John) have a glass of wine. Usually two glasses, never more than three.

Still though, Jane thinks John should quit full stop because she doesn’t want to get involved with another alcoholic.

Should John give up his Friday nights to satisfy Jane?

2

IME, the fundamental definition of a “drinking problem” is not being able to stop. If one can stop, but chooses not to, then it is a life choice that is subject to prioritization - which is more important - the relationship, or the alcohol? The fundamental difference with the problem drinker/alcoholic is that they are unable to make the choice due to alcoholism.

3

No he shouldn’t stop.

He is, by pretty much any definition, not a problem drinker. He uses it once a week as a leisure diversion. It isn’t going to impact his health and on the evidence of you post he isn’t being abusive or in any other way causing trouble.

The SO is being unreasonable and far too demanding, regardless of what issues she previously had.

Imagine her family had a history of health issues due to diabetes and obesity. She’d be equally out of line to demand he give up his Saturday pizza.

4

I think Jane should tread carefully with this request. She’s not wrong for feeling anxious around drinkers given her history, but asking her SO to give up something he enjoys shows that she may not be handling these feelings very well.

If I were John, I would be worried what the next big thing Jane was going to ask me to give up. Riding motorcycles because a dear relative died on one? Playing videogames because a friend became addicted? This could be a symptom of a larger pattern of controlling behavior.

That said, if Jane doesn’t enjoy being around John when he drinks, I don’t think its wrong of her to tell him this. Then it would be up to the both of them to come up with a comfortable solution. Maybe he can cut down on the number of drinks so his behavior is less noticeably different. Or maybe she can go hang out with friends while he does his own thing. Or maybe he can propose himself that he stop drinking.

5

If Jane only wants relationships with teetotalers (or close to), that’s fine. But why did she start a relationship with John, knowing that he enjoyed drinking once a week?

Sure, she can ask John if he would consider cutting back. But if he says no, that’s okay. He’s just not the right match for Jane.

6

Everyone can decide what they will tolerate in their SO. Goes both ways in this situation. Jane has to decide how exactly she wants a prospective partner to mirror her preferences in all things, and both have to decide what they are willing to give up and how much they are willing to change for a partner.

I could imagine it being an issue if John were having loud, late drinking parties at their house every Friday, or if this were a fixed commitment barring any different activities on Friday. Also, she’s being somewhat hypocritical, since she’s not a teetotaler. It would trigger huge resentment if John were to have to seek “permission” every time he wanted a drink. On the flip side - what is John like when he drinks to excess? Does he come home and want sloppy drunken sex? Is he hungover the next day? Those would be legitimate issues for someone who drank only rarely and always in moderation.

As said above, what else will Jane wish him to change? “I don’t want you to eat meat, dear.” “I want you to prefer chocolate ice cream over vanilla.” “Let’s only listen to my favorite music - even when we are not together.”

It would be far different if the activity were inherently harmful, like smoking.

7

It depends. Is Jane important enough for John to make this change?

There’s no hard and fast rules wrt relationships. Jane is making what appears to be an ultimatum before she’s willing to move forward with the relationship. Clearly one that Jane needs to make for herself. Only John can decide if she’s worth it. Not us.

8

To me, she flags as way, way too controlling, especially since her wine drinking makes the ‘don’t drink’ rule completely hypocritical. Like other people have said, what other fun activities that he normally does will she decide he has to give up in the future? I would consider it a much more neutral thing if she didn’t drink at all and wanted her partner to also not drink; that I would believe is about alcohol use and not rigid control of her partner. John would still have to decide if that is acceptable for him in a relationship, but could evaluate it on the basis of what he’s giving up instead of concern about overly controlling behavior.

9

I’d say, it depends. As with any relationship, there’s some degree of compromise that should be taken, and any time one just refuses to put something on the table, either they’re being unreasonable, or it is important enough that it is something that one should end a relationship over if they can’t come to an agreement.

Further, I would make the argument that one has an alcohol problem not only if one is unwilling to give it up, but also if one actually does, that one can’t have even one drink without fear of losing control again. That is, the inability to drink in moderation, or can’t even have one or two drinks socially, then alcohol still has a grip on someone. That said, I would certainly say the latter problem is a better problem to have than the former, but it’s still an issue.

So, for him, how much fun is this drinking to him? How much would he care if he cut back or stopped or if other interests or obligations interfered with it? What about health issues? Chances are, if he’s drinking enough that he really shouldn’t drive, there may be some problems that come with it. Being aware that his girlfriend has issues with it, is he willing to compromise on it to make her feel better?

And for her, how confident is she in his ability to control his drinking? If she hasn’t seen any real issues yet, why can’t she extend trust to him to continue drinking but establish some sort of guidelines about how to identify when they think an issue may have arisen? If she is going to drink some, then she’d be a hypocrite to expect him not to drink, so what level does she expect him to pull back to?
From my experience, I’ll have a drink or two socially, but I find anything beyond a slight buzz to be generally unpleasant, so it’s very rare I’ll do more than that. That said, there was a girl I had a date with a few months back, she didn’t seem the type to drink in excess, but it did seem she would have drinks several nights a week. She talked about the drinks she enjoyed as part of the conversation, and she even works in the industry. She seemed great in all other respects, but as it turned out, even though she only rarely got drunk, it still came off as a dependence on alcohol, and it was enough of a turn-off that I didn’t call her back. So, at least for me, I do think there’s levels of problems with alcohol that are below drinking to excess regularly.

And I voted other, because I don’t think the answer is that he should flatly stop just because she asked. I think they should talk and figure out something in between that let’s him have some fun with his friends and lets her feel confident that he’s not going to deteriorate.

10

I guess, to start out, Jane needs to decide if she wants to escalate John’s ritual/routine of drinking on Friday evenings into deal breaker or not.

11

Sounds to me like Jane’s issues with previous alcoholics are skewing her perceptions, rather than John’s Friday night drinking actually being a problem. She’s the one who’s viewing everything through alcoholism-paranoia glasses.

Put another way, I’d wager that most people without a history of alcoholics in their life wouldn’t really bat an eye at John having 4-5 drinks over the course of an evening, as long as he’s not getting sloppy drunk, injuring himself or others, or otherwise causing problems.

It seems a bit presumptuous for Jane to expect John to quit entirely, just because of something she’s worried about based on HER past, and it seems a bit passive if John just complies because she asks. They need to hash that out and come to some kind of compromise, not have John be defiant and tell her to fuck off, or just knuckle under either.

12

There is no way you have a right to ask anyone to completely stop drinking. Well, except maybe your underage child! But asking him to limit it might be in the cards.

Still, if you don’t like drunks, don’t get involved with one who gets drunk, even once a week. I can tell you frankly getting drunk once a week would be too much for me and I would not continue the relationship. I might ask if he would be willing to scale it back: drink, but not get drunk, but if that wasn’t acceptable, I have no right to attempt to force him.

And I did end up with someone who voluntarily drinks even less than me, so it can happen. (I too have a bad history of drunks and don’t like drunkenness one bit.)

13

I’d be okay if she were asking him to save one Friday for date night; maybe there’s stuff she would like to do with him once in a while and doesn’t want to always play runner-up to his night out. But to ask him to cut them out entirely is a tad controlling.

14

No. As you’ve written the hypothetical, the problem isn’t John’s drinking (that isn’t doing him or anyone else any harm); it’s Jane’s emotional response. On an emotional level, she’s conflating ‘drinking alcohol’ with all the horrors that go with alcoholism. For her own sake much more than John’s, she needs to learn to separate the two things. Failing to make that distinction could take her into all kinds of bad places, from worrying that she herself is an alcoholic due to those occasional glasses of wine, to being terrified to be in a car because someone she knew died drag-racing.

An emotional response always deserves acknowledgement, but it doesn’t always deserve to be catered to. Sometimes it’s a counterproductive, irrational response that needs to be unlearned.

15

The issue lies not with alcohol but with what is and what is not a reasonable thing to ask of one’s partner.

There should not be many situations in which you authorize yourself to ask of your partner, whom you ostensibly love, to forego a major pleasure merely to make you mildly less irritated or incrementally happier about something that doesn’t even directly involve them or your relationship with them.

Hell, there should not be many situations in which you authorize yourself to ask of your partner, whom you ostensibly love, to forego a major pleasure, period.

16

I have a friend who has this issue, except that the SO doesn’t drink at all as far as I know. I voted no for him, and for the poll. If it’s not otherwise causing an issue, why do they get to micromanage your behavior? If you’re willing to let another have that control over your life, ok. I’d rather have someone who could compromise.

17

Jane isn’t someone I’d wanna be with.

If I know John well enough to know he’s anything like me, I’d suggest he find someone else.

18

Yeah, sounds like they’re not in the right relationship.

19

If Jane herself was a recovering alcoholic, I could see her wanting a “dry” house. But she drinks wine with no apparent problem.

Nope.

20

All of this resonates far too much, and I’ll just say that having a relatively new SO/GF who throws out such a selective condition, with evident bias against fact and reality and self-behavior, is trivial compared to a longtime spouse who makes the same pronouncement.

Part of it, I think, is that a drinker needs a close companion to help judge their habit from outside, and be helpfully corrective if they see a real problem. When a partner is so biased and arbitrary, as in the OP’s case, it means the drinker is without that essential “gooney bird” watching out for him, as their opinion is worse than useless. If you just say, “Fuck it, babe, I’m going to keep drinking my way” you’re flying solo and without all your instruments.