The buzz is pleasant, at least at first. Then it turns nasty.
I can make conversation more easily, but I’m likely to end up saying something you wish I hadn’t.
I gain insights that, once sober, I realize are absolute bullshit.
It kills my ability to concentrate at all, so it had better be the last thing I do in a day.
I go to sleep readily after I’ve drunk, but then my sleep patterns are messed up for days.
My emotions are altered for a day or two after drinking. Sometimes I’m more cheerful, sometimes less, but there’s always an underlying feeling that things aren’t quite right.
I still drink. Usually I have about 4 drinks once a month. I do it for the initial buzz, and because I like the taste, and because sometimes being at a bar with someone seems like the thing to do. Occasionally I actually get drunk, because the sense to stop deserts me. But I have never had what could be called a drinking problem, and no one is threatening to leave me if I do it. Were such the case, I’d stay as far away from alcohol as possible.
They are not universally applicable, however, this is the most slippery of slopes and ought to be avoided at all costs. Only YOU can decide, not Mrs. D, or anyone else. But I believe you know all of that.
It is an easy target, but one that usually has some gravity to it as well. I’m sure you have outlined the issues between you and your wife quite well here and with her, this point in your life when kids are leaving the nest and you two are looking at one another like - what’s next - can be very hard. But pulling out past transgressions and the like is opening the cauldron waaay too much for very bad things to be thrown in.
What would Mrs.D say if you decided to have a beer with friends?
Her perception is her reality. Now, did she try to control and change your behaviours, or did she try to control and change your drinking? You can hardly fault her for wanting you to change a behaviour that threatened the stability of her and her children’s lives, can you?
Food for thought - you were the one who was altered with alcohol. Maybe your recollection isn’t as accurate as you think. Man, that sounds really harsh, but it looks to me like you’re kind of glossing things over here; she’s willing to leave the man she loved enough to marry and have three kids with over this; it’s serious for her.
If I hadn’t read most of Dinsdale’s threads, I’d agree with you entirely. But since I have, I have to disagree. Your wife, Dinsdale, has always seemed to be a stick in the mud, and you’ve supported her faithfully with a higher income job for quite awhile. IIRC, she even stopped entirely looking for a job a few months ago, something you’ve come to terms with. I feel like her own dissatisfaction with her life has made her controlling of yours, IMO.
My father had a bit of a problem with drinking when he met my mom, and my mother smoked. They both worked to correct each others problems. While no amount of smoking is healthy - my mom has been smoke free for 25 years - my dad slowly introduced drinking about 8-9 years ago, to no harm. My mother’s reaction was initially pretty visceral - but I talked to her about how it helped Dad relax and it wasn’t casting a bad image on my younger siblings (her initial worry), so there was only benefit to it in moderation.
Your kids are out of the house, and you deserve a break; I think it’s unfair for her to point the finger and say “you have a problem!” when you had it all together.
Have you thought about talking your kids and your doctor about it? They may provide some much needed insight.
I’m not sure I understand the question. My interpretation of her answer was “1 sip of alcohol in any setting under any circumstances = automatic divorce.”
CW - I readily acknoweldge that drunks are not the best historians. But I also recognize that there are inumerable ways in which I am not living up to my potential in one way or another. My past drinking habits were one of many. I think I’ve grown a bit over the past year(s)/decade(s). And it seems to me a valid question whether my growth in one or many other areas might complement or outweigh whatever debatable shortcomings drinking might add.
Drunk and/or sober I’ve been an irresponsible asshole to countless people in countless situations these past 49 years. But I’m not going to don a perpetual hairshirt and deny that I’ve done some decent things as well. Like I said, I’ve never gotten a DUI, lost a job, or been injured from drinking (tho I’m sure I put some wear on my body). To the contrary, I’ve been pretty successful in my career, as the primary supporter of our family. We maintain a very comfortable home with no debt of any kind, including putting 3 kids through college. I have no significant chronic health problems other than some arthritis, and am in better shape than most guys my age. And however a bad influence I may have been, all 3 kids are honors students, engaged in diverse activities, have never been in significant trouble, and seem to drink very moderately.
If I managed all of that while drinking more heavily that I now think desireable, I don’t see that it is axiomatic that I couldn’t continue to do at least as well if drinking at a much lower level.
As I’ve said before, I probably will not start drinking again at any time in the near future. But it kinda pisses me off that so many people act as tho my personal drinking habits are this huge uncontrollable demon. I could count off any number of aspects in which I am confident that I am different than (either better or worse) than most people I know. So I am not happy to accept other peoples’ ready judgment that WRT alcohol - something I have demonstrated an ability to manage in the past - that I will inevitably succumb to a stereotype.
I guess in the long run, the most foreseeable negatives are other people being judgmental about my decision. And those probably outweigh whatever pleasure I might derive from having a glass of champagne when my kids get married, or drinking a beer with my son should he act on his plans to live in Germany, …
Yeah - just to be clear, I was drinking exceedingly heavily every day, puking and pissing myself on occasion, and doing just about any other substance that came along, when we met, dated, and got married. So it isn’t as tho I started drinking after we hooked up. (I think the night we first slept together a whole bunch of us - including my wife - were on shrooms.) And I certainly don’t aspire to return to those habits.
I thought about talking with my kids, and probably will. Recently my wife and oldest got into an argument (I only heard about it later from my wife). Apparently my kid said something about my drinking when they were young. Lots of emotions between the 2 as my kid is moving in with her BF next month when she finishes school. So I don’t know exactly what got said when, by whom, and why. Even tho I doubt I am going to start drinking again, I’m curious as to exactly how they perceive their childhood.
I’m pretty sure I know what my doc would say, and that he would recommend against it.
This woman is your soulmate, a person who knows you better than yourself. Listen to her.
I have no problem with alcohol. I can drink or not drink. I enjoy cider, port, and wine. I don’t enjoy spirits and beer. Because of this, it has been very difficult for me to understand alcoholism. But the SDMB has taught me a lot about alcoholism. So let me distil what I have learned for you: you really should not start drinking; you are displaying classic warning signs. In your case, drink is likely the road to ruin. Don’t go there.
Hmmmm, puking, and pissing yourself…I don’t know. That’s pretty rough, even if it was way in the past.
As far as the argument goes, I wouldn’t be too concerned. I say some pretty nasty and unrelated things to my mom when we fight, and if your wife is a bit conservative, the whole breeding ground for the fight could be because they’re moving in together (before engagement), not because of anything else.
You should talk with your kids; they’re a better sounding board on this than your wife, it would seem. My parents were teetotalers when I was young; consequently, I saw alcohol very much so as the forbidden fruit, and drank heavily my freshman year of college (to the chagrin of my waistline). But the littlest Bluth, now a freshman in high school, has a very healthy perspective on alcohol because my parents now do drink occassionally - a drink or two, in moderation. He’s elected not to drink in high school (and been offered several times, so he’s told me in confidence) because it’s not as conducive of an environment as college would be; underages in high school parties are common.
“Unsuccessfully tried to limit my drinking for a couple years, and then decided to stop”
If you couldn’t control it before, why do you think you can control it now?
I read a story about Phil Spector not drinking for four years until he decided to try it again. He was at his favorite restaurant and when the bartender got the drink order, he came over and asked Spector if it was correct or a mistake because he knew him not to drink alcohol.
Spector told him it was ok, the drink order was correct and now Spector will die in prison. I have no doubt in my mind that if he had not been drinking that night, he wouldn’t have shot that woman.
I quit drinking in 1974 and have had the same thoughts you are having.
It sounds to me like you unselfishly gave up drinking to appease your wife, even though alcohol may not have played any part in your marital problems. A case of beer per week is not all that excessive. Plus, your wife’s reaction of “I’d divorce you” is a telling sign that she may be the real problem, not the alcohol. I think it would be a great idea to ask your kids how they feel that your alcohol use affected their childhoods. If they cite direct examples of your behavior and comments’ negative effect on their lives, you really may have had a problem. However, if any negative impact on them that they recall always involves their mother and her reaction to your alcohol use, perhaps it’s really her. Certainly, if the children were bombarded by her complaining about your alcohol use when they were young, they may actually believe that it was the problem.
The reason I say this is all of this sounds very familiar. My ex-wife was constantly complaining about my drinking, even when there really was never a problem. She used it as an excuse for her dissatisfaction with life and the marriage. We’ve been separated/divorced for 4 years, and she’s still just as miserable as she’s always been. But she bitched about alcohol so much and so often that she had my family, neighbors and in-laws convinced that I had a problem.
The irony was that when she drank (which was not often), she’s the one that sometimes lost control and would display abusive tendencies and erratic behavior. I never lost control of myself, sober or drunk. It’s almost like she projected her own reaction after consuming alcohol onto me. While I drank more than her, I was always in control and always drank moderately. I worked and maintained a steady high-paying job and never called out sick. She didn’t work, and still hasn’t worked, with the excuse that she has to stay home to care for the kids. After the separation, she actually quit drinking. She’s since attempted to reconcile with me on a couple of occasions, for the sake of the kids (which I’ve always declined, just because I have the worst memory of what are supposed to be the happiest years of my life). she still sticks with her claim that I had/have an alcohol issue. She’s stated this in the divorce paperwork, along with many other lies. My fear is that my kids will grow up thinking that I actually had an alcohol problem that caused the divorce. I’m still wondering how I will address this when they’re older.
Thanks again, all. Gonna likely check outta here for the rest of the day to pretend to do some work.
To clarify, “puking and pissing myself” isn’t something I did all the time, or even often. I just wanted to make clear that she saw me at my worst, and married me anyway. I have no desire of ingesting the way I did when I was in college, nor do I think there is any reasonable fear that I would return to that level. For the vast majority if not all of our marriage, I think the most uncharitable description of me would have been as a high functioning alcoholic - and I think I would probably even take issue with that. Instead, I drank pretty heavily pretty regularly, and on occasion drank too much.
Right now I imagine one of the main reasons I would NOT start drinking again, is to avoid having to deal with all of the peoples’ reactions.
My general predisposition is to keep things to myself. You know - just bottle them up, tamp them down real good and pretend they’ll go away! The way many people have reacted to my broaching the subject of drinking convinces me that at least with regards to this subject, that’s probably the best approach!
That’s some seriously heavy shit. I think if your wife asked, “honey, what if I gain 10 pounds?” and your answer is “I’d divorce you” it would say a lot about whether you truly love her at all.
Does your wife love you? At all? Or just your wallet, which she doesn’t want to share with the liquor store?
Right, see, this is what I thought might have been going on. I mean seriously? The woman would leave you if you had champagne at your daughter’s wedding? Or had a stein of beer with your kid in Germany? Jesus Christ, we’re not talking about driving your car into a nunnery here, we’re talking about having a celebratory glass of champagne. But then when he says things like he was routinely puking on his shirt, it makes me think, maybe he’s the kind of guy who can’t just have some beers with colleagues after work, then go home. Maybe he’s a bad drunk, in which case, maybe he should abstain.
Edit: Okay, Din, you say the pissing, etc, was very rare. Why would these people react so negatively to you drinking, then?
To be quite frank, I don’t think you’ve demonstrated an ability to manage your drinking in the past. What you did was demonstrate an ability to stop drinking altogether. This task, in my honest opinion, is easier than trying to drink ‘moderately’.
I say this as someone who has never had a drinking problem, but as someone who grew up with a father who used to drink heavily, so take it as you will. My father quit drinking for several years, no AA, just quit cold turkey, only to start up again thinking he could handle it. He’s struggled with drinking all of his life, and while he’s no where near as bad as he once was (he once came home so drunk that he passed out in his car outside and even my mother opening the door, hitting him, and honking the horn didn’t wake him), he doesn’t really have a handle on it, either. One beer after a long day becomes six, and the next thing you know he’s calling me to lecture me, bitch about things in his life, or ramble on about different life philosophies all while I try to keep myself from screaming at him.
I’ve told him enough times now that I can’t handle talking to him when he’s drinking that he has, for the most part, stopped calling me when he’s like that. But I’d be lying if I said it didn’t effect me to see him when he’s like that.
Is it really necessary to have a glass of champagne at your daughters wedding? Is it worth the risk that you might think you’re fine until you wake up the next morning realizing you had about 6 drinks too many and ended up making a fool of yourself? Most people don’t realize how they are acting when they’re drunk.
My opinion is, of course, heavily biased. Is it so bad to have 1 or 2 drinks, especially at a celebration like a wedding? Not at all. The issue is, if you’ve struggled in the past with stopping after 1 or 2 drinks, what makes you think it wouldn’t be a struggle now?
They have a lot of history together, and your analogy is woefully inaccurate.
Dinsdale, I don’t want to give you the impression that I think you’re completely to blame for all your relationships troubles and your wife is a long-suffering martyr. I think asking your kids about their childhood with relation to your drinking is an excellent idea - get a little, well, not exactly outside perspective, but outside of the dance that you and your wife have been doing for decades.
I’m lucky that I can’t drink without severe physical penalties. Couldn’t become an alcoholic if I tried. I like various alcoholic drinks because they taste good and I enjoy the effects of very limited drinking.
Dinsdale, I have a built in safety limit (pain), you don’t. Alcohol is a substance that lowers inhibitions and is addictive. While you are sober you can resist it.
I think your wife’s reaction pretty much says it all, you have problems with it. The fact that you have the personal willpower to walk away from temptation says a great deal about your character. Go with it.
Precisely. You should never lose your wife for a Vodka cranberry, but to never again taste a perfectly made mint julep. Hmm, that is a high price to pay.
Well, if returning to drinking doesn’t work out for you, know that AA will always welcome you, and its members will share with you what worked for them, should you choose to go there.
The way many people have reacted to my broaching the subject of drinking convinces me that at least with regards to this subject, that’s probably the best approach! 