Recognizing the symptoms in your partner as being an alcoholic are not always quite so clear. In fact discovering your partner’s drinking habits is nearly as stressful for you as it is for him coming to terms with alcoholism.
Anyway, first on the list is to discover any particular pattern in your partner’s drinking habits. For example, Is drinking a daily event? or is maybe just the a weekend habit? Do they tend to hit the bottle after a sudden row? Or would you say their stressful job is always a good excuse for a drink or two?
Alcoholics in general tend to always come up with the same excuses for an excessive drinking pattern. A partner who just has the odd drink socially is not on par with one who always visits the pub regularly after work for a relaxing drink. If your partner falls into the latter category then I am afraid that he has become dependent on alcohol to a certain degree.
Something that most alcoholics have in common is to always put the blame on other people for any problem they may have in their lives. It could be a ruthless boss, a nagging partner or just plain old money to mention just a few examples, but the result is always the same as the only solutions possibles seems to be to drink their problems away. So at this point what you need to be asking yourself is does your partner do the same in facing up to his or her problems.
One of the sadder aspects of this disease is how it affects the whole family in general, as an alcoholic will avoid all his family commitments. If you feel that the financial burden is falling upon you and that your partner is not responding, then should just try and work out how much of the family budget is being diverted to alcohol.
The facts of the matter whether taken from a survey or a book are always identical and that an affirmative answer to the above questions can only mean one thing and that is that your partner is an alcoholic. A further complication to the situation is that it doesn’t only depend on the quantity of alcohol consumed but also any resulting erratic behavior patterns that upset the family ambiance. But putting all this aside, there is a way forward, but first you just need to able to sit down together and talk about it.
The conclusion to such a terrible situation to be in is that you are not the only person in or who has been in the same situation and that your way out is through mutual guidance and support. You can start to find support from other people who have suffered the same as you have on the stopDrinkingAdvice.org blog and you will soon realize that you have already taken the first step for you and your spouse.
Find out more about this tried and tested support to help Stop Drinking Written by Ed Philips and Quit Alcohol In Under 21 Days