Loving Your Alcoholic Wife

If anyone knows what it’s like to live with an alcoholic wife it would be my husband, who for several years, battled with my addiction with me. That’s right, he battled alcoholism with me. Because I have been sober for fifteen years I can write about addiction with confidence. Alcoholism is a family affair and without knowing how to handle addiction, being married to an alcoholic is an ongoing battle. It does not matter who is the alcoholic, wife or husband – what matters is how you handle the affects. If your wife is an alcoholic there is great hope in her recovery by how you manage the addiction.

Through Al-Anon my husband finally learned how to stop enabling me and to move on with his life. “Moving on” with his own life does not mean that he left me, but that he learned to detach from my emotional outbursts brought on by alcoholism. We still lived in the same home, its just now my husband was not allowing my verbal abuse to affect him. It is not the end of your marriage because your wife is an alcoholic; it is through your strength to overcome the insidiousness of addiction that may bring the beginning of a new life for your wife and yourself.

It wasn’t always easy for my husband, but for him just having the ability to understand that my condition was not a reflection of him but a reflection of my own inner problems that needed healing, made a big difference in his attitude towards my addiction. What I’m saying is even though your wife may blame you for her drinking, you don’t have to believe that nonsense. Anything that comes out of a drinking alcoholics mouth is devoid of making much sense.

The alcoholic will always need to find someone to blame and you happen to be living with her. If she lived with her aunt she would probably blame her aunt. Alcoholics are good at trying to find someone or something to blame for their behavior. That’s because anytime they can find justification for their drunken behavior they will certainly jump on the chance to validate in their mind that it’s all your fault. When she blames you, simply ignore it, don’t fuss or fight with her because that makes you look like the one with the problem, and not her.

Your wife’s emotional problems do not have to be your emotional problems. Be of support and encouragement to her when she is NOT drinking but do not enable her negative emotions and verbal spurts of abuse. Distance yourself from her mentally, emotionally, and spiritually by telling yourself that your wife is sick and needs healing. By walking away you don’t take the emotional abuse. Tell yourself over and over again that by not arguing, blaming, yelling, fighting, and being verbally abusive back at your wife you are actually helping your wife to look at her drinking as a problem.

When a husband carries the burden of the negative emotions of his wife, the addiction will suck him in with it, and he will become just as emotionally and mentally sick as his wife. The more you allow the addiction to overshadow your own thought processes, the least likely your wife will get better or want to get better. A spouse can either be a detriment to the alcoholic or advantageous – it’s all up to how you handle the alcoholic.

A husband may love his wife with all of his heart and feel it is his responsibility to help her, and that is mostly very true, but it’s not a husband’s duty to help his wife to kill herself by enabling and rescuing her addictive behaviors – there is a huge difference here. He should not enable her antic behaviors or console her emotional impulses. It is a husband’s job to love and care for his wife, even when she is sick, but it is not his job to allow his wife to drain him of his own life in the process.

A husband must learn to detach with love before the addiction strangles him too! This is the only way he will be helping his wife to come to grips with her addiction and seek the inner healing she needs. A husband surely does not have to feed into his wife’s guilt trips – remember she will blame you for her problems. Be assertive about your feelings and let her know that you love her but not the addiction. Tell her you will not help her to kill herself. That means don’t give her money to buy alcohol with. Don’t drive her anywhere, even if she pleads with you. Do not carry her to bed, even if she passes out on the living room floor – leave her where she passes out.

Don’t allow emotional abuse to control what you do, or how you feel. If your wife feels like arguing, blaming, or screaming, simply walk away, or if that doesn’t work, take the children out for ice cream. Don’t stand around taking the abuse, do something about it, for your and the children’s sake. The more garbage you take in by the alcoholic the more you will begin to believe and even behave like the alcoholic.

Do let your wife know that you are praying for her to seek the healing she needs. Do let her know that you love her but you don’t love what the addiction does to her. You can love your alcoholic wife when you separate the addiction from her. God did not create alcoholics – alcoholics chose addiction. Do let your wife know that you appreciate her and need her but also let her know that you will not help her to abuse her body and mind. Do let your wife know that when she is ready to get the help she needs you will be there to support her every step of the way.

Living With An Alcoholic: A Healthy Detachment

The best thing you can do when dealing with an alcoholic spouse is to detach from the abuse of the alcoholic. You can do this if you truly love your spouse and want to help them to possible sobriety. The more you focus all your energies on the alcoholic, the less likely he is to get sober. This article focuses on how you can detach and remain healthy mentally.

Don’t Make Alcoholism Your Problem

If you have never read any of the Al-anon material then you probably don’t know that you are making the disease of alcoholism YOUR problem. One of the sad facts of living with an alcoholic is we become just as mentally and emotionally sick as the alcoholic. This happens because every step of life we take, and every breath of air we breathe has some involvement with the alcoholic. Our emotions overtake our own mental health as we try and cope with the deterioration of the alcoholic in our life. What are we doing wrong? We are concentrating too much on the disease, instead of concentrating on our mental and emotional health. We may as well be tipping the bottle for them. Better yet, we may as well be drinking with them!

Don’t Enable

Most spouses of alcoholics don’t realize they are helping their spouse drink just by a few simple behaviors and actions. Several ways in which you may be enabling your spouse to drink is by buying them alcohol, drinking with them, calling the boss and or family members for him because he is too hung over or too drunk to do it himself. Lying to friends, boss, family and co-workers about him and his drinking problem. Taking them to the store, arguing with them, and behaving like a victim. You are not the victim of alcoholism until you make yourself BEcome the victim.

Get Off The Pity Pot

Get off of the pity pot and begin living for yourself, instead of living for the alcoholic. “Oh poor me, everyday I am suffering and I can’t take it anymore” attitude won’t get you anywhere. You need to take care of yourself and that cannot be done if you are focusing all of your attention on the alcoholic and what he is doing or what he isn’t doing. Start focusing on what you can do for yourself. Get out of the house, don’t hang around the alcoholic, and don’t let them abuse you with their words. If you care about the alcoholic in your life, this is what helps them more than anything else.

Detach With Love

You are powerless to getting your loved one to stop drinking. The first step in being able to detach is by realizing that the shenanigans of the alcoholic is not your problem. Don’t try and fix their messes for them. Not only does this enable them to continue drinking, but also it justifies their drinking. Don’t have any interaction with the alcoholic while they are drinking; that includes, talking and arguing with them. Why fuss and fight with someone who has lost the ability to make any sense? Don’t become ensnared in the alcoholic trap with them. Stay out of the trap, so you can help them. Ninety-five percent of what an alcoholic says is manipulative in nature anyway, just so you will keep enabling their behavior; so don’t start believing in the lies of the disease. Separate yourself from the antics of the alcoholic.

Pray For The Alcoholic

I can’t tell you how important the process of daily prayer can be. Not only does it bring you closer to God but it will also get you into the habit of going to God with your life challenges. God does hear your cries of pain and He will give you the answers you need to get through your trials and tribulations, even if your spouse continues to drink. Be patient and remain faithful in the Lord and He will deliver you from your suffering.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. (Philippians 4:6)

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If you liked this article, you will love my book THE ALCOHOLISM TRAP
Order your copy today! This book is also available at major online book sellers.


Review of The Alcoholism Trap -- Results within a couple of weeks!, May 13, 2008

"The Alcoholism Trap" has helped me so much in my relationship with my alcoholic husband. I've placed healthy boundaries for me and my two daughters that I had never put in place before.

As a devoted Christian, I had always just tried to be the peacemaker and my daughters and I have suffered as verbal punching bags as a result of that. Now I know that I can love my husband even better and take better care of my family's welfare by putting up healthy boundaries.

This book has enabled me to be more loving to my husband when he's sober because I'm not holding in resentment from allowing him to injure my spirit while he's drinking. And I no longer feel guilty about saying things or acting in a way I regret later because I have taken control of the only part I DO have control over - me.

When I see he's drinking, I just remind him that I love him, but I don't want him around me and the girls when he's drinking. Then, the girls and I go to a separate part of the house, as the book recommends, and enjoy our evenings. No more walking on eggshells! We're laughing again!

The first couple of weeks, it was hard because he's also a workaholic, so we were getting virtually no time with him. When he was sober, he was at work even on Saturdays and Sundays. But this past week, he's actually spent two days completely sober in order to spend time with us. This is unheard of! Unbelievable!

He's even admitted to me while sober that he has an alcohol addiction and he's "working on it". I encouraged him to quit altogether rather than trying to "cut back" and told him when he decides to make that commitment I have a book that might help :-)

I have been able to take better care of myself and my girls and I'm getting better at it with practice. My husband is treating me more respectfully and his eyes are being opened to the fact that HE is the one with the problem, not me and the girls.

If you're looking for a loving way to take care of your family in the middle of this crisis, buy "The Alcoholism Trap". I believe it is helping me save my sanity, my girls' self esteem, and my marriage. It's up to my husband whether he will be saved from alcoholism, but I've made my choice! Make yours today!

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Alcohol: The Most Used And Abused Drug By Teenagers

According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, June 1997, alcohol is the leading cause of death among teenagers. Teenage drinking contributes to the high rate of teenage car crashes, traumatic injuries, suicide and date rape. Alcohol is by far the most used and abused drug among America's teenagers today. According to a national survey, nearly one third (31.5%) of all high school students reported hazardous drinking of five or more drinks in one setting.

Twenty million American's are alcoholics, and the children of these alcoholics are likely to inherit the disease. More than 40% of those who start drinking at age fourteen or younger become alcoholics. The problem I see is the lack of knowledge about alcoholism being an inherited disease. Children of alcoholics are four times more likely than other children to become alcoholics, according to the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.

Teenagers, if you have a mother, father, or grandparent with the disease, then you might be susceptible to becoming an alcoholic. It is not a good idea to even have one drink. It is like playing Russian roulette. Abstinence is the best strategy against defying the odds of being another death statistic in the cogs of alcoholism.

I came from an alcoholic background, and I know first hand the destructive affects of what alcohol can do. I had no way of knowing that I would become an alcoholic, even though my grandfather was an alcoholic. I didn't know that at the age of seventeen, while drunk, I would be driving with my best friend and roll my car three times into a telephone pole. Fortunately for me, I wasn't hurt, but my friend will have back problems for life.

I can't tell you in a short article all the pain and suffering I put my mother through when I was a teenage drinker, or the anguish I put my husband through, but I can tell you this, I have been completely freed and forgiven through the love and saving grace of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I have been alcohol free for over fourteen years!

Teenagers please don't let yourselves become trapped within the depths of this insidious disease; instead become informed about the susceptibility of alcoholism being passed down from one generation to the next. Abstinence and education is the best and most effective means of preventing the use and abuse of alcohol.

All it takes is one drink of alcohol if you carry the gene from a relative; that one drink is ONE too many! And even if you are not susceptible to becoming an alcoholic, alcohol is very dangerous and can make you do stupid things you normally would not do. Abstinence is the best policy.