r/AlAnon

My husband 33(M) and I 27(F) have been married for a year. He is addicted to fyentinal for more the ten year on and off and have been rehab like 4 times. He is functioning he goes to the methodone clinic and he is " trying" to get better. We just found out he has low t because of drug use and has taken a toll on are marriage. We work together and love together but half the time he is locked up in the bathroom or playing games. For the past couple months he not sleeping In bed with me and sleeps on the couch. We haven't had sex for 3 years and we cuddle and stuff but I don't know if he wants to get better or not or if he losing attraction to me. Any advice would be great. On the bright side he is open to recovery ideas and has been going to therapy.

Hi,
My partner has a severe drinking problem. He believes since he’s a bigger guy, he can drink more and will over consume without fail to the point of uncontrollable body responses and passing out. We’ve been together for about 2 years and to say the least, it’s been so hard. It started magical, I mean magical. He swept me off my feet and threw me head over heels in love. Constant gifts, being together, kissing at red lights etc etc etc it felt magical to me. Regardless, about 7 months in he got in a bad car accident. He ended up tearing part of his shoulder(I’d go into detail if I could remember exactly) and causing a long year of healing. In that time, he picked up drinking and began to hide how much he was drinking and how often. And from there everything got worse. Drinking and driving, more lying and deceiving, more mind games more gaslighting. To about six months ago when he “finally” came clean and told me “everything” and said we needed a break. After that week we decided we were going to work on things, he started going to AA and therapy and things felt okay. Till roughly a month in and he dropped everything claiming “it wasn’t that bad”. I am struggling so hard with this. Every day we talk I feel like I am speaking to a man that hates me. Beginning of the month we got in a really large fight over all of this and how I am not feeling confident in our relationship due to how he will continuously choose alcohol over me. And after promising he loved me up down and to the south, here I now sit alone bc he is choosing the alcohol over me again.

Asking why alcoholics behave the way they do( fill in the blank with behaviors) is like asking

Why is the ocean salty?
Why is grass green?
Why is dirt dirty?
Why is water wet?

Because it’s what makes an alcoholic an alcoholic. It’s what goes with the territory. It’s part of the disease. It’s ALCOHOLISM AT WORK.

Why can they act like narcissistists? See above. Why can they be mean? See above. Why do they drink and not put you first? See above. How can they fall asleep with their baby in their arms? See above. How can they watch their life go up in flames? Why is their brain so messed up? Why do they make such awful decisions?
‼️‼️Stop asking why the circus is filled with clowns 🤡 and ask yourself why you keep showing up to watch!!!‼️

My husband recently got sober off all substances and it’s been about a month.

Before this “relapse“ he had an issue with alcohol/pills but has done ok over the past year and stayed sober off alcohol.

My question is why do I still feel anxious, needy and quite frankly insane with thoughts while he is working toward getting healthy again? I cannot stand version of myself and I cant stop looking to him to ease my feelings of anxiety. Which I feel is incredibly unfair . I fear he will grow weary of this and leave. I want to be supportive I absolutely adore the healthy version of him and want him to be happy, but I'm struggling also.

I am not experienced with this process but someone from my past reached out to make amends after we’ve had no contact for 25+ years. We had a messed up relationship in our youth that lasted for years and at the time we were both young, drunk and liked to sleep around. The relationship did lead to an abortion (which was for sure his) and during the whole 5 years or so I was for sure the one treated more poorly. Life and distance allowed me to break my addiction to him in college and I have really not thought about him much in the last 25 years. But of course I am now. Anyway, he reached out in a seemingly respectful way, saying he’s ready to take responsibility for being a dick and offering to have a conversation about it. I declined. We are both married with children and I don’t see why an emotional conversation (I assume it would be emotional?) is necessary 25 years later. I don’t really have resentment towards him, even though I know I deserved to be treated better and somehow even love him still (but definitely not in an I want to be with him way). Anyway I can’t stop thinking about this, fluctuating from being pissed he didn’t just leave it alone or write me a letter to worrying I that I didn’t allow him to get the closure he needed. I’m sure I did the right thing but there is a part of me that’s curious what he would have said. Also I don’t like the thought that anything between us would contribute to him messing up his life/still drinking but I’m probably making too much of this aspect. I don’t want to keep thinking about this but the brain is a bitch. IDK what question I’m asking here, but if you read it thanks for listening.

I have been living in survival mode for so long that even after separating, and even with him only in my house because he physically cannot live alone, my body still reacts like I am in the middle of the chaos.

I have been living through this for years, but it was only in the last year that I finally understood what was actually happening. Before that, I kept trying to explain it away. Stress. Work pressure. A rough patch. Anything but the truth. I kept trying to believe the version of him I loved was still in there. I kept trying to believe I could help him get back to who he used to be.

But this past year stripped away every excuse I had left. His drinking changed in a way I could not ignore anymore. It stopped being something we laughed about and became something I monitored. Then something I worried about. Then something I hid from other people. Then something I hid from myself.

There were nights, days, weeks he disappeared and I sat awake, staring at the door, wondering if he was passed out somewhere or drinking with strangers or messaging someone else. There were mornings I found him on the floor, confused and shaking. There were days he swore he had not been drinking while I was literally holding the bottles he forgot to hide. There were times he drove drunk and I only found out because he came home with a story that made no sense. There were hospital visits where I was the one answering questions he could not answer. There were moments I realised I was more scared of him dying than I was of leaving.

At one point, I reached out for therapy. I finally admitted to myself that I needed help. I booked the intro call. I was ready to start untangling myself from the chaos. And then, right as I was trying to take that step, he got a DUI. Not a small one. A serious one. And suddenly I was being told, not asked, that I needed to pay for the interlock so he could keep his job. I remember sitting there thinking, I am trying to get help for myself and somehow I am still the one paying for the consequences of his drinking. It was like the universe was showing me the pattern I had been living in for years.

I adapted without even noticing. I became the caretaker. The crisis manager. The one who held everything together. I cleaned up after him. I checked if he was breathing. I watched him detox. I protected our dog from the chaos. I tried to keep the house functioning. I tried to keep him alive. I tried to keep myself from falling apart.

I stopped sleeping properly. I stopped eating properly. I stopped having a life outside of managing him. I stopped feeling like a person. I was just someone trying to survive the next incident.

About a month ago, something inside me finally snapped. Not in a dramatic explosion. More like a quiet, tired acceptance that I could not keep doing this. I told him I wanted to separate. He did not agree. It was messy. He begged. He promised. He cried. He said I was giving up on everything we built. He said this time would be different. He said he would never drink again. I had heard all of it before. I told him I was done. Fifteen years together lost.

Two days later he was in hospital. Suddenly I was dealing with a crisis again, even though the relationship was over. He was admitted, then transferred, then scheduled for surgery. And because he physically could not walk or shower or cook or even get himself to the bathroom safely, he came back to the house. Not as a partner. Not as a reconciliation. Just as someone who literally cannot live alone right now.

He is in the guest room. He cannot move properly. He cannot shower safely without someone nearby. He cannot shop or cook or clean. He is here because he has no other option until he can walk again. And once he can move, he is leaving. That part is not up for discussion. We both know it. This is temporary. This is practical. This is not a relationship.

But my body does not understand the difference.

Even now, with the relationship over, with him in the guest room, with his sister as the primary contact, with the future already decided, I still react like I am living in the middle of the chaos. I still jump when I hear a car outside. I still brace for bad news. I still feel responsible for his safety even though I know I am not. I still get that sick feeling in my stomach when my phone buzzes. I still feel like if something goes wrong, it will somehow land on me.

My mind knows I am not his partner anymore. My body has not caught up.

Living through years of decline does something to you. It rewires you. It teaches your body to expect crisis. It teaches you to scan for danger. It teaches you to be ready for the worst at any moment. And even when you finally step out of the relationship, your body keeps reacting to ghosts.

This last year has taught me that detachment is not a clean break. It is not a moment. It is a long, messy process of unlearning the fear and the responsibility and the constant vigilance. It is grieving the person I thought he was. It is grieving the person I used to be. It is grieving the future I thought we would have. It is learning to care without sacrificing myself. It is learning that I can love someone and still choose to step away.

If anyone else is in this strange in between place, where you are separated but still sharing a house because life is complicated, where you feel relief and grief at the same time, where your body is still living in the past even though your mind is trying to move forward, I see you. You are not failing. You are healing from a long stretch of survival.

And it is going to take time.

Daughter is an addict, she was just a few days through detox when she walked out this week. My hopes were up and now I am having a hard time. Looking an online meetings and there are so many I am not sure how to choose. I cant do in person, I am raising her 4 year old (which breaks my heart for him he is missing her) Is there any recommendations for starting out, I don't know how to pick but I think I need the support.

Tonight she told me she experienced heart palpitations during the day due to anxiety, from me.

My wife is what I would classify as a daily, high functioning, binge drinking alcoholic. I admit I would know, I’m a little over a dozen years out from putting alcohol behind me because I recognized my own problem and had to do something about it. She gets up early to stay her day. I’m talking 3:30 in the morning early. She doesn’t day drink to my knowledge, but once she begins, usually around 4 o’clock, it’s game on until bed. From the summer of 2023, to around February of 2025, she was putting down nearly 4 gallons of rum a month. It finally came to a head when I snapped and brought evidence of the drinking through her DoorDash and Instacart purchases of rum and the consistency to her parents, her childhood best friend, and called her brother to discuss that I just can’t do this on my own anymore. She was belligerent, mean, incoherent throughout most evenings, and I had grown completely tired of it.

Since then, she stopped drinking rum, and fell back to wine. She drinks boxed so it’s not nearly as measurable, but I’d still venture to guess we are talking about at least a bottle and half of wine a night, every night. That was what was essentially her compromise that we never agreed on. There is more to her drinking habits, she drinks (rum I’m sure) every Saturday night with a small group of women that she plays cards with. All of whom are widows who are honestly looking beyond her problem because it benefits their own loneliness to have someone younger around. It’s a sad situation if you ask me.

As I have explained to her before, I’m to the point that it has nothing to do with the quantity, and everything to do with the behavior. We have an almost 8 year old together, and it sends so many mixed signals to a child when half the parental input can be so chaotic. Life advice is just horrible coming from someone who is cockeyed on booze and ready to fall out by 8:30-9 every night.

This upcoming weekend, we will be headed to my in-laws lake property to celebrate the holiday. The big trick of course being that she will not be there. She is staying home to take care of some things around here that are beside the point discussed here. Details I will spare you all of for the sake of TLDR. She came to me and told me about these panic attacks. She then said they were because I was going to be with her family all weekend without her there and she doesn’t trust that I won’t “betray” her again. She said she is terrified of me. The last 3-4 nights she has been sleeping in the livingroom by 8:30, which is whatever. If you are tired, go to bed, don’t allow yourself to just constantly crash in the livingroom when you are spending the last few hours staring through your eyelids, but I suspect it is her long work schedule that she forces upon herself, as well as her wine intake. Her blood pressure is regularly 150-160/100-105, and she is an otherwise normal built woman under the age of 40. Not overweight by any means, so I suspect her alcohol intake is the major culprit.

I honestly had no intentions of discussing her drinking while we were down at the property. This was an opportunity for me to know there would be some stability for a weekend away from rolling the dice with her around.

Yet, here I sit, a woman who constantly tells me I am gaslighting her, is gaslighting me into a corner where I actually almost feel bad for how she feels and the anxiety she felt today. I believe it to be true. I believe her anxiety is real. I just find it so frustrating that her anxiety is more about the reality that her intake could be a justifiable topic but she is pretending I am the cause of it all and putting that on me to the point where I feel bad and am worried that *they* will bring it up and I will feel like I’m letting either party down.

If you made it all the way through this, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it. Everyone here spends so much time supporting one another while we dump these pent up frustrations and concerns on one another. This subreddit is something so therapeutic for me and being able to share my experience and hear that I’m not losing my mind is so powerful and I have all of you to thank for it.

My boyfriend is 32, he does meth, weed and lots of alcohol. Either he smokes weed and sleeps in all day or he gets high on meth and drinks for days, it’s an endless cycle. We have a 21 month old child together and the main person who takes care of the child is me, or on some weekends my mom. My boyfriend smokes next to the kitchen hood when the child is home, when I told him just yesterday to go smoke outside he told me to leave if I can’t stand him anymore. He doesn’t go to work, we rely on my maternity leave and mainly on his mom. I’ve tried talking to him multiple times to get him some help to quit all of these substances, he just agrees with me or changes the topic because he doesn’t want to talk about it. Recently I told his mom about his substance abuse, she didn’t even mention it to him. Every time he goes on a drinking spree (which almost always last at least 4-5 days) she gets disappointed with him and tells me that she will talk to him, but she just tells him that she doesn’t want this to happen again or that he has a family now and he needs to take care of us, something like that. Then she continues to give him money every time he asks her.
I don’t know what to do with him anymore, how can I help him get better? He doesn’t do anything with his life and I don’t want my child living like this anymore. When he drinks there are people in our house all the time, even though they are in a separate room I can hear them because they are next to our bedroom. They smoke inside even when the child is there with them. I’ve been thinking about leaving but I want to try getting him help first. I don’t think I can rely on his mom to help so what should I do? Have any of you been in a similar situation? What would you have done?

basically the title. we have an age gap relationship and he has kind of been falling apart since i've known him. he is 36y/o. i don't know what to do. we are due in december of this year, and i am terrified. he can't stop drinking.

the most he has strung together has been 4 days of no drinking, and that is since finding out i was pregnant. baby was not planned: i was on the pill.

i've talked to him a lot about how his drinking affects me, i've found him passed out so many times, helped clean him up and been there when he's throwing up, when he got his truck impounded (driving drunk), etc. i just don't know what to do now, i'm pregnant, exhausted, and i'm terrified that i won't be able to trust him when we have this baby.

any advice would be appreciated, thanks!

I was with my Q for almost 12 years, married for the past 4. Tomorrow is our 4th wedding anniversary and also happens to be the day he and his parents are coming to collect the rest of his stuff from the house. He lost his job because of the multiple relapses in the past 2 months, all of which he blamed on me for asking for a separation (and now filing for divorce). He’s moving back to his home state and living with his parents.

It feels like my best friend died. I’m literally grieving someone who is still alive. I’ve been avoiding the emotions by staying busy for weeks, but it all hit today and I physically can’t get out of bed. We have two dogs together, they’re staying with me because I can’t even rely on him to take care of them for one night without the risk of him getting absolutely wasted instead of walking them.

I don’t know why I’m posting this. I just am so so so so sad and angry and hurt and feel like the person I fell in love with / married died a couple years ago and I’m finally realizing it. Such an intense emotion and hard to explain to anyone who hasn’t loved an alcoholic/addict.

My alcoholic has moved on, living his best life, with his first love, booze and his second love, women. I feel devastated, by the stark contrast of what he gave me (worries, pressure, aggression, silence, anger, dismissal, depression, refusal to live, refusal to socialize, fear) and what he's putting out now. Laughter, joy, social life, enthusiasm, happiness.

As if us ending finally brought him back his joy for living. We ended it after his last relapse and an announcement that his alcoholism has been cured so he's going back to the bottle.

Don't come for me, I'm not snooping on him, I'm also fully no contact. Just got the information through a 3rd party despite letting people know not to give updates as I'm still raw and uninsterested in keeping up.

So yeah, that's the post, I feel fucking wrecked despite knowing to focus on myself, my healing, knowing it's got nothing to do with me, knowing that it's for the better and I'll probably find joy too.

But today cuts deep. Some kind wishes please?

I know you are shotgunning beers in the other room, I can hear the cans opening.

You are so volatile and nasty to me right now that I hope you drink yourself right into passing out, so I don’t have to hear you yelling at me. Go to sleep, you mean little man.

am i valid in my feelings and decision to ask for a break (at minimum)?

my (28f) partner (29m) have been together for a little over 10 months, and i'm finally coming to terms with his alcoholism and have realized this isn't what i want for the rest of my life. i'm planning to talk with him this weekend about everything and needing a break, at minimum. he needs to seek help independently of me, i can't be his girlfriend AND his therapist/social worker (my actual job).

i've known from the start that he is a heavy drinker, but it's progressively gotten worse and i've started to see the reality of it more and more the past 2 months since he moved in temporarily. we have signed a lease for late june for a place of our own, but i don't want to live like/with this.

he will come home from work and have at least 6-8 beers per night during the week, and then on the weekends the same or more, plus liquor. This past weekend he had an entire bottle (1 L) of tito's and plenty of beers saturday, then sunday did the same but with tequila and beers. he will black out at least once per weekend, and will usually end up passed out on the couch for the rest of the day/night. he will also randomly call people repeatedly when he is alone and drunk, many of them being girl friends. i recently found text messages of him telling one of them he wanted to be friends with them again, and "love you sweet pea", which she was really confused about and told him to stop calling her. there's probably more i have no idea about

during the past 10 months, there have been at least 2-3 times where he has missed an entire week's worth of work due to being on a bender, and then random days here and there for being too hungover. i constantly worry about how if he will get too drunk when we go to a family event, friend hangout, etc. he's never been violent towards me, but his behavior when drunk is annoying and embarrassing.

he minimizes all of this by saying he isn't acting "that bad", and tries to reason with himself and the concerns i have by saying "at least i'm not a violent or abusive drunk", referring to how his dad and step-dad were during his childhood. he once told me to stop being a baby when i expressed some concerns and ended up crying because he started nodding off during the convo from being so drunk. the way he plays it all off makes me feel like i'm going crazy and overreacting at times. he has moments where he recognizes that his drinking is problematic, but told me this past weekend that he has no intention of stopping.

am i valid in my feelings and decision to ask for a break (at minimum)?

I have had to create some strong boundaries for my safety with my alcoholic husband. I am living with my parents as a result of his drinking, and I refuse to go home until he is sober.

I have had to step this boundary up to not seeing him or speaking to him unless he is sober. Since Saturday I have been asking him each day if he is sober so we can talk, and every day he is not.

Today I asked again, I was so hoping because he told me yesterday he only had one beer left. I foolishly thought this meant he was weaning himself down. NOPE. He got $20 from a friend to buy beer yesterday.

Then when I told him I won’t be budging on this, he texts me and says “Yeah and also was hoping to see you so we could do bottles and get a grocery gift car so I could start baking.” (he has been baking a lot)
So I reminded him that he just told me he got $20 from a friend and spent it on beer instead of eggs and then told him to leave me alone.

He responded with “Well you’ve taken everything else away from me so some beer it is.”

It is all he cares about. Not his wife. Not his kids (his kids wont see him. My kids wont see him). Not his family. Nope, just beer and the people who drink with him at the pub.

He is losing everything for an inanimate object.

It is my birthday tomorrow. I have a feeling I will be spending it alone.

My husband used to be the warmest, kindest, most loving man. Now he's just a dick. Blame, blame, blame. Denial, delusions, shame flipping, the works. Where did he go? Will he ever come back? He's starting to work with a counselor, but he'll significantly downplay the addiction and make his recovery seem more legitimate than it is. Is there hope? Does anyone actually recover?

I left my Q last June after His addictions became too much for me to handle. After I moved out he checked himself into rehab and finally admitted he had a problem. During his time in rehab and in the months following, he was begging to get back together and said he was committed to his sobriety. I decided the risk wasn’t worth it for me and proceeded with divorce which will be finalized in July.

Today, I randomly decided to check his Venmo history and saw that he Venmod one of his friends for “Beers”. I’m in shock. He posted it so bluntly on a public place. I don’t know what to make of it. I’m so sad for him, I really hoped he would have chosen life. I feel like no one really knows how this feels except this community. I think I will always love him, I’m so sad right now.

As the title says, I’m new here and new to admitting I’m married to an alcoholic. My husband is very high functioning, he runs his own successful business, shows up for our child, is fun to be around mostly and no one would ever suspect he drinks a six pack and/or a half bottle of liquor a night. I’ve turned a blind eye for years because he’s so high functioning.

This changed a few months ago when I found a bunch of empty airplane size bottles of liquor in his car. I asked my husband about them and he said it was “no big deal…from a long time ago…only did it once after work…” and that he’d never drink and drive with our child. I believed him.

Yesterday the same thing happened, I was looking for something left in his car and found more - including a larger empty bottle of whiskey. I waited until our child was asleep and then approached my husband again leading with “I love you, I’m concerned” and gave him an out that even if he isn’t drinking and driving our kid around, if he gets pulled over and those are found he could lose everything he’s worked so hard for.

My husband again said it was no big deal and threw out the bottles. He then went to workout in his workout room directly under our bedroom where I could hear him calling me horrible names and calling me a fu@king freeloader over and over again.

I knew he didn’t like me, I’ve known for a long time, but I wasn’t prepared for how much pure hate he has toward me. I’m feeling sick and lost and want to protect my young child more than anything. I dont know where to start.

This one kind of blew my mind. My 27-year-old alcoholic son has been passing out and vomiting all over my pkg lot, where he currently lives in his car. He can barely walk straight, but this is what his CARE Team said:

We bought him breakfast and spoke with him for a while. I called the rehab. They may have a bad available next week. He needs to take a shower soon. Hopefully we can get him to LA fitness and have him change out the clothes he has on. I have to transport another client today and tomorrow. I won’t be back till next Tuesday.

So, how’s this going to work? I’m trying to picture it. Are the 2 CARE Team workers going to drive my son to L.A. Fitness, wait in the car, and hope he can stagger past the front desk and into the shower?

Are they going to carry him in and say to the front desk workers, “We don’t have memberships like he does but he needs a shower, so we’re going to help him walk there.”

I’m also trying to imagine the scene in the locker room, where there’s a group shower. Will it end up smuggled onto social media by another gym member?

There are 8 CARE Teams in L.A. with the Dept of Mental Health that outreach to people who are homeless. Until Jan 1st of 2026, they either had to have Schizophrenia or psychosis. I’m in sales, so I pushed my way past this requirement for my son, who has BPD, and got his CARE Court petition granted last spring in 2025. People with just substance abuse issues weren’t allowed to apply until this year when more rehabs are being built with Prop 1 funding.

But are they taking the homeless that are living under a bridge to L.A. Fitness to shower if they have a membership? And do any of them have memberships?

I told the CARE Teams worker that I have 4 boxes of my son’s clean clothes in my house if he’d like to ask me for a set before they take him to L.A. Fitness to shower, and he said he would.

So, who’s enabling my son here? Me? His CARE Team? Both of us?

I don't really know where to start, but over the past couple of years my husband's drinking has increased and he has now started lying to me about it. He had a weed addiction and quit cold turkey where he started to supplement with booze. After a year of no weed he is now smoking again and has only increased his drinking.

He is high functioning, has a full time job working from home and is a great father. We have a farm as well and he is very productive. I worry he overworks himself and about his isolation at home.

I've spoken to him before when I found about 17 massive bags of empties that accumulated in three months just after our second child was born. They were stored in a part of the house I don't go to and my mom actually brought it up to me. Her parents were alcoholics and she clocks those things quickly.

I spoke to him from a place of concern for his health to which he acknowledged that it was a lot. He heard me out and was kind, but I never really saw a change. I started to watch more closely and realized he is an alcoholic.

I see him falling down a slippery slope with the increase in drinking as this continues. He lied to me for the first time (that I know of) this weekend about running out of alcohol and proceeding to get more. I found the empty beer cases and more in the trunk in the car ready to be drunk. I was incredibly upset he lied to me about it. We were together all weekend as a family and drove places together and I had no clue he was drinking either. I feel kind of stupid for missing it.

Earlier in the month I had to go away for school for a couple of days and I found empties when I got back in the bedside table looking for the heat pump remote. During this time he was watching our kids while I was away.

Ultimately I'm really struggling with trusting him alone with our kids. On my way out to work this morning he was smoking a massive joint and when I pointed out that he has to drive the kids to daycare he was annoyed with me but put it out. I don't know how much he was drinking when I was away but I didn't think he would at all in case they needed to drive somewhere. I don't want my children to be caught in the crossfire when this gets further out of control and he hits rock bottom. If he hits rock bottom.

I'm really isolated where I live with no family close by. My in laws expressed a bit of concern before but when I tried to involve them last time I addressed the situation my husband was incredibly angry with me. He also gets mean when he hasn't had his fix and I don't like how he speaks to me like I'm stupid in front of our children.

Anyway I'm just ranting I guess but it is hard. I don't know how to support him, how to address this concern about the safety of the children in a way that will land.

Any wisdom, support or word of advice would be greatly appreciated.