What would you do if your spouse drank every night?

[Anonymous]

Canada now says 2 drinks per week at most. Europe is I think 7 units for women and a bit more for men. It is a carcinogen and implicated in many cancers.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Of course you have time. Many people have a glass of wine at dinner or a beer after work. One is no big deal it becomes a problem when it creeps to 2 or 3 or more and they get that fat alcohol belly. One a night is fine.

No, I don't have time. By the time the kids are off to bed, the house is cleaned up, the dog is walked, I want to get in bed and read a book, not get a buzz on.

This is different than not having time. It’s actually possible to have a beer WHILE reading a book.

Will it make reading the book better? In my experience, it will just add calories and make it harder to sleep.

For you. Some people don't have negative reactions to alcohol, either because they actually need it (i.e. are dependent on it) or because they process it differently. I personally don't drink much, but don't assume that your experience is everyone's experience.

This. I’m in my 40s and my body is done with alcohol. I used to drink regularly (not problem drinking, but not too far from it). I cut back sort of unintentionally, and then gradually stopped. I’d order a cocktail every once in a while at dinner with friends and wouldn’t be able to finish it, and would still feel sick the next day. I had half a glass of wine a couple of years ago and felt sick almost immediately. It’s like my body knows it’s poison and reacts accordingly. So no more alcohol for me.

But my close friends still drink. When we go to dinner they usually have wine or a cocktail, though mocktail choices are getting more interesting and sometimes they’ll have one of those instead. They don’t drink as much as when we were younger, but they don’t have negative reactions to a couple of glasses of wine.

[Anonymous]

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OP you sound incredibly controlling. Are you annoyed at the beer or the fact that he's not on the same wavelength as you? I often have a glass of wine while preparing dinner (but sometimes I take 2-3 nights off) and then carry that one drink while having dinner. I'm done drinking if I drink by 8pm and then switch to tea. Would it be better if he was drinking a beer at 5pm versus later at night? I think you need to give your husband some freedom to live his life.

He just sounds immature.

The choice to drink has nothing to do with maturity. There are big cultural differences for example between Italians and Americans on this for example.

That’s just bigotry.

Not all Italians drink wine, not all Irish are drunks.

[Anonymous]

Science evolves. Tobacco, soda, white sugar and margarine were considered okay to eat but we learned that they are not so we stopped consuming those. Same goes for alcohol. If one isn't an addict, they won't get offended. If they do then recommend an addiction therapist.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I've done both. I've drunk every night, and I've drunk only when going out socially. Honestly the latter is more fun. Doing it every night at home by yourself is not that fun. And having a lower tolerance is more fun. Last night I drank one beer at a soccer game while chatting with friends and I had a nice little buzz.

My ex drinks 5 drinks, give or take, almost every night. It's not attractive and it's not fun. He's 46 years old and he never grew up. He puts no thought into his health, physical or otherwise. He never thinks, do I have healthy coping mechanisms? What can I do other than drink? Is alcohol a crutch? Is this a good example for my kids?

When I stopped drinking at home every night (a habit that solidified during COVID), I realized that I just wanted a little pop of sugar. So now I have a Poppi instead. It gives my brain that same, "Ah, I'm rewarding myself at the end of a long day" feeling.

Yup. Booze isn’t the great evil but i feel like you reach a point and it’s just like “really… you’re still drinking?” And people who still party are just … sad.

Drinking and partying are two different things. Having a glass of wine with dinner every day isn’t clubbing.

And normals have a really strange view of alcoholism. Alcoholics don’t drink to party or be young. Almost all drink to numb out emotions, pain and trauma. Not all of us look like that bum passed out on a sidewalk, but emotionally we might as well be.

I don’t know if it was the pandemic or if the pandemic just helped bring into focus what people do in their free time, but I have at least two good friends, whose kids play with mine, who are very clearly high functioning alcoholics. Super successful, but they come home and put the drinks away - and more importantly can’t NOT do it. They’re fun (until they’re not, but that’s usually late in the night) but what for me is a wild Saturday night is their Monday Tuesday Wednesday. I just can’t fathom doing it everyday - the effect on sleep must be devastating. I used to wonder how they managed to party and be so successful and then I realized - they’re just alcoholics. They’re not partying, they’re drinking because they can’t stop.

And they’d never accept being called an alcoholic. My BIL, who is a helluva guy when sober, puts back 12-16 beers a night and gets up and goes to work out at 545 every day and then goes to work on the trading floor. He knows something is deeply wrong and tried AA, but was horrified by what he saw as “losers”. He said to me “how can I be an alcoholic - my bonus last year was $450k! I’m doing everything right, but I can’t not stop and get two beers on the way home to get ready for the case waiting for me.”

Alcoholism comes in all shapes and forms but all three people I’m thinking of were fun, life of the party people who didn’t drink an unusual amount for their peer group … but everyone else quit or barely drinks and these guys kept going and now they can’t stop.

[Anonymous]

We don't need to follow Italians or Irish, we can make our own decisions.

[Anonymous]

When it comes to preventing cancer, not drinking alcohol is the safest choice.


https://www.mdanderson.org/cancerwise/what-does-drinking-alcohol-do-to-your-body.h00-159696756.html

https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/04-01-2023-no-level-of-alcohol-consumption-is-safe-for-our-health