How has your loved ones addiction changed the way you view and consume alcohol? Do you ever feel guilty for indulging?
I recently had a kid, she’s 10 weeks old today! And my SO has been doing great and staying sober since her birth. Since I wasn’t able to drink practically all year it was easy enough to just cut it out of my life completely, but now that I’m beginning to drink again from time to time I’m struggling with how to approach it and my feelings towards drinking. Sometimes I find myself hiding it from my partner, like I’ll grab a beer from the store and drink it before he gets home from work, burning the evidence in the recycling can. I feel like I can’t order a glass of wine while out at dinner with him in case it tempts him too much. I guess what it comes down to is that I feel guilty about drinking.
Just curious how others have felt about it, do you avoid drinking around your loved one? Anyone else feel guilty? How was it changed your overall relationship with alcohol?
How has your relationship with alcohol changed?
@Samas thank you for posting such an important question! I know this feeling all too well. My relationship with alcohol has definitely not stayed the same since my dad’s struggles with addiction. Because I grew up with my dad’s substance use, I learned to hate alcohol, almost as if it were a moral sin to drink/ as if it were an evil substance that only led to pain, terror, and ruined family holidays. I remember hiding my parents’ alcohol as a kid so they wouldn’t be able to find and drink it. I even remember one time I accidentally got a drop of my dad’s beer on my hand and I immediately went to the sink to scrub it off with dish soap. I wanted no part of it.
When I approached high school and my peers began experimenting with alcohol, I remember being extremely against it at first. I felt so guilty about the tiny amount of interest and curiosity I began to develop for experimenting with alcohol at that age. Most of my friends had their first drink in middle school, but I didn’t until around my junior or senior year of high school. When I began to socially drink in college, I had major trouble preventing feelings of guilt whenever I’d raise a glass to my mouth.
When I turned 21, which is my current age, a lot of the feelings of guilt went away, but I still remember my parents’ struggles every time I drink. I remind myself that I shouldn’t feel bad, but it can be so hard not to sometimes. Although I enjoy socially drinking once a week or so with friends, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to enjoy an alcoholic beverage in a 100% carefree way. And I try not to drink when I’m at home visiting my siblings, because of the connotation alcohol has carried in our home.
In some ways, I feel fortunate that I have this heightened awareness of how much alcohol I consume— it comes in handy in being a preventative measure against alcoholism, for sure.
I am definitely rethinking my relationship with alcohol. My husband and I recently found out that my youngest stepson (he’s 25) is addicted to opioids and meth. I’ve been doing a lot of reading about addiction, and I’m realizing that alcohol is a bigger part of our lives than I’m comfortable with. Also, this is a very stressful time and alcohol makes it worse. So I’m stopping for now in order to take care of myself.
My relationship with alcohol has definitely changed since my husband’s struggles with substance abuse. I went through many stages during his active addiction, such as the idea of “if you can’t beat them join them” and hiding it from him as well as staying away from it. During his last relapse is when my view of alcohol/substances in general has shifted (seeing the evil it caused) and I just prefer not to drink. I also am very much into fitness and nutrition so that also impacts my decision to not indulge. Since he is now in early recovery I am still choosing not to drink and when I do feel like there are events that I may drink At, I will have a conversation with him about it. I do think it is important for you to have an honest conversation with your husband about his feelings and yours related to this. I’m sure you would want him to be honest with you if he relapsed, so I don’t think you hiding it from him is going to help the situation. Communication is key, especially when working through recovery. Hope this helps!
Really good reminder here @KKmarie. Sometimes I make assumptions about how my loved one might feel about my decisions - but really, communication is always king.
I think to myself “I JUST CANT DO IT” I realize that people are going to suffer from alcohol or drugs and I’m not going to be one of them. If the temptation comes I rebuke satan and ask God to fill me with his holy spirit. Knowing that drugz and alcohol messes up peoples life is something that I keep in mind. I look back on the life I’ve lived and the life of others and it Clearly states that drugz and alcohol is something that will not help me become a better Man of God nor will it help any women become a woman of God. That’s the foundation I’ve build as far as staying away from drugz and alcohol. KNOWING THAT “I JUST CANT DO IT” I cant take another drink nor smoke another hit or my life would be disconnected from God
My son is living home, lost his license for one year, and he actually noticed his father and I not drinking in his presence. He thanked us for this. Yes, I do feel guilt when consuming alcohol, his father makes our wine, so we have it while alone. On the other hand, I find myself drinking much much less, and this is a good thing. Going through the recovery with our son has made me aware of alcohol in our lives. I am now aware of when I drink, what makes me want to, and learning to depend on self care. Some of this I learn from our son! Thanks for asking.
Honestly I don’t even drink anymore after supporting my fiance. I used to go out all the time, get drunk with friends but I haven’t touched it in probably a year. I don’t want to trigger her, indirectly enable her or see her get drunk and fall into a situation where she could fall into old habits
I haven’t changed my own drinking habits much. My husband and I still enjoy a beer or glass of wine with dinner - after our college years, we’ve never been super indulgent. However, I’m keenly aware now of how people sort of glamourize drinking/partying (myself included before addiction touched our family). Bragging about their crraazay Saturday night stories, or “wine mom” culture, or once I overheard some guys talking about painkillers that they got for “so cheap” when on vacation abroad so they stocked up. I generally subscribe to the “to each their own” philosophy, and I can’t help but feel a little bit mad when I see this kind “promotion.”
I’m not really much of a drinker. I do enjoy drinking but I prefer to smoke marijuana (it is legal here in Canada). I find that this drug has less side effects.
My boyfriend has an addiction to alcohol, cocaine and gambling. He is new to this recovery thing. We have had huge issues because of it. I also just let him move back to our apartment the other week. So we are both new to this whole thing.
Two nights ago we were at an event he was on a panel for. He was great. I was so proud of all he has accomplished. His friends were there and as to be expected they had moments where I wasn’t near them. I worried that he was getting back into the coke thing mistrusting him with his one friend.
This was only a split second thought though. What I did really notice was that I felt bad drinking around my boyfriend. I ordered a wine and as I hadn’t have eaten that much that day I started to feel the effects quickly. I felt bad and almost ashamed to be talking to my boyfriend because I felt as though I was rubbing his face in my drink.
So this event gave me two drink tickets and normally if I get something free I’ll use it. But after feeling so weird drinking that first glass of wine I decided to give my other ticket away. My boyfriend and I left shortly after that.
Which is another thing that has changed or I’m noticin will probably change, that I do not want to be out late. I know it may be all in my head but I feel bad, again, subjecting my boyfriend to events where people are drinking. Not only do I feel bad that he has to soberly have to understand what people around him are saying when they are incapacitated but also I feel shame in my own slurred speech or senseless arguments. I think this is why I do not like to stay late even at things he is not privy to. If I were to come home and he would see me in a state I would again feel I’m somehow making him jealous of sensations that are now problematic for him.
As I write this it makes less sense than I thought it would. My boyfriend does not live in a vacuum so why do I hold my actions accountable for encouraging his drinking needs?
Last night I submitted my thesis paper cheers and I wanted to congratulate myself with a glass of wine. Firstly I didn’t even finish my glass ( that’s how little I drink) so I wanted to leave my glass with an 1/8 of wine still left in the glass on the counter. I was really torn at that moment. Do I force myself to finish the remains of my wine and can go to bed assured that my boyfriend won’t come home and drink it or do I pour it down the drain. I ended up bringing the glass to my bedside table because I couldn’t decide. But than there was a second issue, I had just opened a wine bottle and now where do I put it?
I had just bought a safe to protect myself monetarily when my boyfriend moved back. He stole from me on numberous occasions so I thought this was the best action plan if we were to stay together. But the safe is too small to fit the wine bottle. So I had to leave it out and unattended while I slept. I checked the level of wine left this morning and it looks the same as I left it last night. But look at how much his addictions has caused me to mistrust him and go into almost states of paranoia.
I appreciate so much of what you share here @EMM89. You’re totally not alone in the feeling of mistrust or the paranoid inner dialogue of “What should I do? I shouldn’t do that. I should do that. What if…? Maybe…? Arrrrgh.” It can feel so crazy. I think what you share makes total sense, actually!
I want to highlight something you’ve said. Something that the CRAFT method (Community Reinforcement and Family Training) suggests is to do a ‘functional analysis’ of our loved one’s using behavior. This includes looking at external & internal triggers, using behaviors, and short term positive consequences vs long term negative consequences. The reason for this is that often we cannot interrupt the use itself, but we can interrupt or support our loved one from a different angle (with knowledge like who they like to use with, or when they like to use, feelings they get from use, etc.) Soooo this long winded explanation is to say 
that I like that you’re thinking about how late you stay out as a supportive behavior for your boyfriend’s recovery.
@EMM89 Alongside @katie, I also really appreciate you detailing everything you’ve been going through with your boyfriend. I really related to what you said towards the end about wanting to treat yourself to a glass of wine after reaching a goal, and experienced something similar a few weeks ago. It was the start of a weekend after a long week of classes and work, and I had some leftover red wine in the fridge from when my friend and I were catching up not too long before. I was exhausted and really wanted to pour myself a glass and watch some Netflix, but I have always felt so much guilt at the thought of drinking alone. It reminds me of when my dad would pour himself a little shot glass of Maker’s Mark and hang around our bar in our basement. So I ended up not drinking, because I felt as though something that’s supposed to make me feel relaxed at the end of a long week was just going to make me feel bad. It’s interesting here, because even though there was no one around me that would have been negatively affected by me drinking, I still felt so much guilt at the thought of drinking because of the memories drinking alone can bring back to me.
Yes, my feelings about alcohol are different. I try not to be a judgmental person but I find myself jumping to judgment when other people drink too much - especially if they may be driving. I’ve become sensitive about it.
One reason is that I recently heard my adult cousins had uncovered something terrible that happened in my grandfather’s life as a result of drinking. My grandfather was what one cousin called a drunk. Through genealogy research, my cousins found a report that my grandfather was in a car accident (after a late night drinking), killed his brother-in-law and tried to cover up the fact that he was driving by moving his brother-in-law’s body to the driver’s side of the car. Because of my grandfather’s position of responsibility at work, his employer did an investigation and he was demoted.
After hearing about this story, and after seeing the effects of drugs on my adult son, it is difficult for me to have a carefree drink of alcohol. I have never been much of a drinker, so it has been easy to avoid drinking except for an occasional glass of wine. I understand why some religious traditions prohibit any kind of intoxication. Bad things can happen all too easily.
Oh wow, what an interesting thing to learn! Can see how that might shape your feelings about alcohol.