January 4th, 2010 | 
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31 year old married father of 1 child (toddler), he drinks 2-3 times per month on average. He usually drinks on a friday evening into early monring hours saturday and consumes between 12-36 beers in that time period. He spends the better part of Saturday sleeping it off and crying that he doesn’t want to drink anymore. On one occassion his wife came home from seeing a movie with her mother and nephew to find him drunk when he was supposed to be caring for their 17 month old daughter. Does this man have a problem with alcohol?
The reason I ask if because the wife tells me today that he’s been “sober” for two months and is talking about drinking tonight which will certainly turn into a binge session. She wants to leave with their child if he drinks and she wants to make sure she isn’t overreacting.
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It certainly is binge drinking and he has a problem. Tell your friend NOT to leave her child with this man as long as there is liquor in the house.
She has every right to be concerned. 8 weeks is nothing and has put the child in danger before. to get so wasted every weekend for the most part. is binge drinking and sounds to me like he blacks out. alcoholics can be terrible people to live with so I say before it gets worse she should leave. A reality check may be in order if she does go perhaps he would see what his problems are costing him
He does have a problem and needs substance abuse counseling. Not an inpatient program as he’s not a daily drinkerBut he does need someone qualified to help him assess why he goes on unconsciousness binges.
In my opinion, for her to leave permanently at this point without having leveled with him about getting treatment is inappropriate. They do need to discuss and she needs to set boundaries. However, spending the night elsewhere until he sobers up would be a good thing to do in this instance as it will protect her and the child and drive the point home about this not being acceptable.
You don’t have to put a label on his behavior to decide whether it is acceptable or not.
If the wifey finds this behavior unacceptable, then she is free to take any action that she wants.
The truth is..only he can decide if he an alcoholic or not. It does us no good to try to rationalize his behavior.
At least he says he is going to drink tonight. When he does this, then he is only hurting himself….perhaps she should take baby and stay at friends or family and come back when he is feeling better.
West Wing’s character Leo McGarry said it best of alcoholics when he said “I don’t want one drink, I want ten.” If he drinks, leaving to stay with family temporarily is probably a good idea, if nothing else will get through to him about how much of a problem this is. The reason he is sober between binge sessions is probably because of the end result.
Perhaps getting him to talk to a doctor and getting his liver functions checked would be an eye opener. Let him see what happens when teenage girls drink and get STDs or get pregnant and try to make him understand the kind of behavior his daughter is learning.
My mother had a lot of anger management issues when i was young, and though she overcame them, even now I have a very hard time not passing that behavior along to my own children. He needs to see all the consequences of his behavior, and seperate himself from the alcohol dependency. See this addiction for the monster it is, controlling him, but not him. The addiction is not who his wife fell in love with and had a daughter with. He needs to see himself empowered to eject this demon from his life.
this is Marriage and Divorce….. not food and beverages.
but yes…. this man has a drinking problem.