Reply to I think my husband has a drinking problem

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[quote=Anonymous]OP, I will try to give some advice from the perspective of someone who has argued with her husband over drinking, though I do not think my husband is addicted to alcohol. He does drink too much from time to time (and so do I). He does not appreciate me nagging him about drinking, so we used to fight more about it before I learned to live and let live on the subject a little bit.

I would address your concerns with him from the perspective of his actions and his statements. You can mention that these things tend to happen when he's drinking, or not, but I would keep the focus on "you did or said XYZ that was hurtful/rude/dangerous, etc." Use specific examples. Write them down as they happen if you need to, and then read them back at a time when he hasn't been drinking. Ask him if he's upset or stressed about something in his life. These things are worth discussing independently of alcohol, and he may be less defensive if you don't come at him from a "you have a problem" perspective. And I would drop the pressure on him to not drink on certain days. It is controlling (believe me, tried it myself!) and will make him resentful. My DH goes through phases where he will have one or two beers per night, every night, and other times when he won't drink at all during the week. When I used to try to "make him" cut back, we fought. Now, he does his thing and generally his level of consumption is associated with stuff other than me nagging (for example, he wants to lose weight so he cuts back, or he indulges a bit more because he is stressed about work). I now try to focus on his actual behavior and interactions with the family, and whether they are affected by his alcohol consumption, than monitoring actual intake.

I would give his approach a try and see how it goes for a few months. Assume he doesn't have a problem and address the things that bother you, other than his actual consumption of alcohol, and see if you can improve those. It may be that he DOES have a drinking problem, but all you know for sure right now is you have a communication problem. [/quote]

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