The unfaithful wife...that's me..

[25yearsmlc]

R,

The labels are only so helpful. Not sure it matters about the definition of who is an alcoholic or not. What matters is what happens when he drinks. If he only drinks once a year, but gets violent with her, I don't give a crap if he's an alcoholic, I'd want out. And if he's a jerk without alcohol as well, he's a jerk with issues to work on and the fact that he stopped drinking but is still controlling or weird, means he may as well be drunk b/c he acts the same with or without the alcohol. When I say he "may as well be drunk", I mean in terms of her reaction.

Just saying that there's more to this than her A. A lot more. And he is sabatoging the chance of saving the m, for whatever reason. I'm tempted to think he doesn't want to stop drinking and a recon requires that, so he gets to use his pain and anger at the A, as an excuse. He knows the drinking had an effect on their m or she wouldn't have brought it up and he wouldn't have ever quit. Yet he now chooses to start again.

Also, the "powerless" part of the program is to stress to the alcoholic that they cannot trust themselves to start again and control it "this time". It's PERHAPS not technically true in the sense you mean, b/c you fear it lets him off the hook. It doesn't. Same thing about calling it a disease. It's to keep the drinker from trying to control something that they will again lack control over. Don't sweat the terminology. My mom resisted calling my dad an alcoholic b/c she thought it protected him and she wanted him to see it as the character defect she saw it as, which enabled him to keep drinking, ironically, since he wasn't an alcoholic after all! Oh, btw, my dad, with his PhD and law practice, died of liver cancer (75% of Americans with Liver cancer drink a lot....) and he could not get a transplant due to the cirrhosis, so umm, he WAS in fact an "alcohol abuser", if that helps anyone digest the terminology.

As for al-anon, all I know is that at every meeting, I heard something I needed to hear, even if only a sentence or two. But I "shopped" around to find a group that was productive for me. And I didn't buy into doing it forever or wearing the label as if I was a victim.

Calling it a disease just helps to re-inforce that he can't start to believe he can control it again," just have a few," b/c in time he'll be drinking the same amount that caused trouble before. I could be wrong. But how much does it matter? Isn't the issue what he is like when he drinks?

J-