Speak with us direct

Your Letters

Dear Husband,

Alcohol has and will continue to tear your life apart.

I buy alcohol for the house, not to encourage your drinking but to control the damage that you can bring onto yourself.

For the most part, I can contain your anger when you are drinking. I can save you embarrassing yourself publicly, from confiding in strangers when things aren’t going so well in your private life.

It destroys me to see you press the self-destruct button every time you drink. To see you make a fool of yourself in front of your friends, in the docks, in the hospital for your latest break or facing the consequences when your work yet again have to pull you up for being too drunk at the works do.

I know how hard you work. I know how much you want to stop drinking. There is only so much that I can do to help you. I can’t keep enabling and funding the habit. I want my husband safe.

Love,
Your Wife

Expert Response

Sheri Milan, Early Intervention Worker at ADA.

Thank you for sharing your experience with us, I know this can be difficult.

I read how concerned you are about your husbands drinking and the damage this has caused. I am not sure how much knowledge around alcohol use you have and depending on how frequently your husband drinks alcohol there may be some important harm reduction information to be aware of. I hope it is ok that I can share this link with you: https://www.fassaction.org.uk/downloads/sensibledrinking-ver1.0.pdf .

From the information, you have provided it sounds like you want to support your husband to be safe without enabling his alcohol use. It may be worth having a think about the roles and boundaries you may want to set ensuring they are realistic and manageable.

Some family members in this situation have a discussion with their loved one around the impact on finances that purchasing alcohol can have and agree to boundaries that minimise the impact of alcohol use.

I also read that your husband can get angry and I want to ensure that you are able to keep yourself safe. Some family members in this situation have a designated space where they can go to minimise this risk it this is often a relative or a close friends house.

I wonder if you have thought about family support? Alcohol and Drugs Action can provide 1; 1 support through a duty drop in and we also have a family support group. The family and friends support group is a friendly safe space to share each other’s experiences and look at boundaries, coping strategies and self-care. To find out more about the services we offer we can be contacted on 01224 594700 or if you want to find out more about the family and friends support we can be emailed at FSG@alcoholanddrugsaction.org.uk .

I hope you have found this response helpful.