Headspins due to alcoholic husband

[Anonymous]

My husband is an alcoholic. When he drinks he is always either morose, or angry and mean. He will say all sorts of things that hurt my feelings.

Then in the morning when I ask him about it, he claims to have no idea what I am talking about and will gaslight me.

I am going crazy.

[Anonymous]

Yep, that’s what alcohol does. I went through a period of that too and my dh finally stopped. The sad part is that he won’t remember and the trauma that you are currently experiencing will be yours to deal with. When he’s on a substance, he’s basically not taking responsibility for his words. The only thing I can say it to remove yourself and don’t do what I did which is try to reason/talk or argue with him. You will get hurt 100 percent of the time. The only thing that helped was getting him to stop drinking and that had to come from his dad.

[Anonymous]

Been there, left that. You should not tolerate abuse, whether he's drunk or not. It doesn't get better on its own and honestly, you are better off moving out and letting him clean up his own mess. If he sobers up and you feel like giving it another try, that's up to you. It doesn't sound like he's any where near that point now.

[Anonymous]

Al-anon.

[Anonymous]

See a lawyer.

Does he drink and drive too?

Are there kids witnessing his addiction?

I suggest you save yourself. Why drag two people down.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My husband is an alcoholic. When he drinks he is always either morose, or angry and mean. He will say all sorts of things that hurt my feelings.

Then in the morning when I ask him about it, he claims to have no idea what I am talking about and will gaslight me.

I am going crazy.

It’s not really gaslighting…he truly has no memory of it, because he is getting blackout drunk. He probably feels like you are gaslighting him when you tell him these things the next day. I would suggest you record him in the moment, but I don’t know if that would be dangerous for you.

[Anonymous]

OP, he may be having blackouts, which are VERY common in heavy drinkers, especially as their addiction progresses. They may seem to be completely coherent and aware, but their brain is simply not filing away that short term memory information. Most of his memory will be patched together, and often by evidence the next day. In that, He may honestly not remember what occurred. So I’m not sure if that is part of the gaslighting you’re experiencing. It is NOT okay, but I want you to know that is part of the reality he is experiencing - he won’t remember, and to his narrative, it didn’t happen, so please save your breath fighting him about it.

Go to AL-Anon or individual counselling, and seek out ways to set clear boundaries of yu choose to stay in the relationships, or develop relationships with people that have been there and can also help you out of it.

[Anonymous]

I wish someone could explain to me why Al-Anon is the answer. I sat in those rooms for a year — several different meeting sites. I still don’t understand what I was supposed to learn there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wish someone could explain to me why Al-Anon is the answer. I sat in those rooms for a year — several different meeting sites. I still don’t understand what I was supposed to learn there.

Anyone can sit in AA and never recover either - your story is yours. Did you not learn about the three Cs? Did you examine your codependency? Get a sponsor, do the steps?

[Anonymous]

I’m 18:27. I will say the family approach at Inova’s CATS was a good one. I still don’t get Al Anon. I made friends and that was helpful for awhile as I felt like we had lost a lot of our social friends during the worst days of (DH’s) experience.

At the end of six months, the counselors at Inova, praised me for being supportive, but I never bought into the idea that any of it was my fault.

I wasn’t the drinker. I wasn’t taking opiods. I was keeping up appearances and keeping the kids stable.