I have to admit though, I find it hard to read about the drinking part without my own experience of having been close to a heavy drinker/alcoholic.
A couple of things stood out to me from what you said here:
'That's the case with many with addiction - admitting it is often the hardest part. I'm just saying, it's NOT at all a clear cut case. In fact, other than I am able to count - if I didn't count or know the consumption amount, I'd not even consider it. The other indicators are not there - it's just amount and perhaps frequency.'
I think before even admitting it as an issue, comes the possibility of even just seeing it as an issue. My XH never even saw that his drinking was a potential issue. He just saw it as totally normal. And he refused to budge from that viewpoint.
Speaking from my experience, I learnt that it's never really a clear cut case. And that was as much to do with my own ideas and perceptions (and prejudices) of what an 'alcoholic' was/is as much as anything else.
One of the turning points in finding a different perspective was hearing one of his work colleagues say to me 'I mean, we all know how much he drinks'. I had noticed it, pointed out to him that it was an issue for me for years, in the way it was impacting our R and in the future would impact on his health. But he had always brushed it off/ignored me/carried on as previously.
Now, I'll say straight away, that from my perspective, at the time, the amount he drank and frequency of it didn't seem to impact on his work whatsoever. He was extremely, extremely good at what he did and incredibly successful at his job and very well known too on a national (and even international) l level. I was lucky to ride on the coat tails of that success, personally, financially, and possibly professionally as well.
Everyone knew who he was and what he'd done. You could go out and have the most amazing evening...he was the life and soul of any place whenever we went out (and that was a lot). Even places where when he walked in, he didn't know anyone. By the end of the evening, he would have chatted to everyone there and befriended everyone as well.
It wasn't until after everything fell apart that a couple of older people in the industry told me briefly about how his drinking affected his working life. And it really shocked me.
So, you'd think that spouse of 15 years would know pretty much everything there was to know about their partner. But some of the things I learnt about his behaviour around and as a result of alcohol afterwards really shocked me. And it tied in with the gut feeling that I'd had, and which I'd brushed off for so many years (for various reasons: cultural, over sensitivity on my part, personality differences, a live and let live attitude on my part...whatever the reason).
The thing I've taken away from it all though, was that I was always second place to alcohol in our R. That came first and was the thing that marked the boundaries of our R. Not in any obvious way, but in a very, very slowly, undermining, self esteem eroding process that took years and years. We were in a R for 18 years and M for 15.
Sorry if my really is a bit on the short and curt side, I'm just about to get up for work but wanted to write something anyway. And please do feel free to ignore some/most of what I say. I'm obviously hyper sensitive to issues around alcohol.
