Secret Drinking

Most evenings I greet my husband at the door when he returns home from work, hug and kiss him hello, smell it on his breath, and just continue to pretend I don't notice.  Quite a few times I've caught myself sniffing, and he noticed ("What?") and still I said nothing.  The times he comes home and there doesn't happen to be an odor, sooner or later throughout the evening it will usually appear.

Sometimes it feels like I am playing a little game called "I Know You Secretly Drink But I'll Pretend I Don't Know So We Can Try To Be Happy Together", and even though I am playing by the made-up rules (and the rules I made up myself, mind you!) I'm still losing.  Part of being in Al Anon is understanding that we don't talk about the alcoholic's drinking with the alcoholic.  Actually, I'm pretty sure this hasn't even been suggested but it's what I gather from the program.  Indeed, the times I have discussed my husband's drinking with him, things did not go well.

Part of being a "functioning alcoholic" is that my husband is able to keep up his professional life and remain successful in his field while being a good provider to us.  The "alcoholic" part is that he drinks, he hides his drinking and also, he is drinking alone.  And, I suspect, everyday.  So he drinks everyday, alone, sometimes in his car before coming in the door so I can't see it (I prefer to think it's this instead of drinking while he drives home), and sometimes upstairs in our side room where I also can't see it.  He hides the bottles so that if and when I go inside, I'm none the wiser.

From what I have learned, there are a few reasons alcoholics hide their drinking:

1. To increase their intake unnoticed.

To clarify, though most of my husband's drinking is in secret, not all of it is - on weekends he puts on the show for me called "See, I Bought This Six Pack And Only Drank One And Didn't Even Finish It."  (I hate that show, it's always reruns).  In his mind, he's showing me he can control himself.  And for a while I believed it was true.

But one night, reality smacked me across the face.  He had a glass of red wine downstairs that he was nursing.  He took a sip and went upstairs.  I needed something from our bedroom and when I went up, our dog followed me - when he saw her (but not me) he told her to go downtairs.  Turning around, I saw his mini-wine bottle up in the air as he downed the last drops of the white wine inside.  When he came down from his sip he saw me seeing him; I said nothing and walked back downstairs.

My first thought was "But - he has his...glass of red...wine...downstairs...?"  Well gee golly gosh.


2. The alcoholic knows their relationship with alcohol has become unhealthy.

At some point last year, my husband mentioned to me that he was working later and later at work because he figured the less time he was at home, the less time he had to drink.  He has made other comments to me that leads me to believe he may be grappling with the idea that he has a problem:

"I know I do, and I don't care.  And if you don't like my drinking you can leave."
"Well, I know I have, you know - whatever - but it's not a problem until it becomes a problem."

When I caught my husband making a drink upstairs in another room:  "You moved the bar upstairs?"  I couldn't help myself.  "Yeah well I know it bothers you so I don't do it around you."

Recently my husband told me some facts about how alcohol affects dopamine in addicts.  "How do you know this?" I asked him.

"I looked it up online."  Genuinely, I gave him a quizzical look.  "Because I thought I might be an alcoholic!" he said.


3.  Denial (They're hiding it from themselves).

I would imagine that drinking out in the open - and in front of me, especially - causes my husband to feel judged and ashamed.  He knows very well how I feel about his drinking, especially because I find it so damn hard not to make my little comments to let him know that I don't approve.  This in turn probably has a few effects, one of which is to really look at his drinking and at himself.  And seeing as he is still trying to control his drinking and further the idea that he doesn't have a problem, any introspective place probably isn't a very comfortable place for him to be.

So, let's just hide the drinking and I can pretend my wife doesn't know - because if she doesn't have proof I can say I'm not drinking as much as she thinks I am, or anything at all even.  And then I can also pretend that this isn't a huge problem, and I'm just hiding it because my wife is a controlling, judgmental wench of a woman who hates me and doesn't see that after all my hard work and providing for her, I deserve some booze right?  This last part is something he has told me in his own words - "I mean, I don't have kids, I don't have a house - can't I at least have this?"

Also regarding denial - after my husband let me know that he had searched online for information on alcoholism after thinking he possibly is one, he proceeded to tell me the difference between himself and an addict.  "Addicts say that they have no control over it, they can't control it.  But for me, every time I drink I'm choosing to drink, it's a choice."


Like discovering squirrel plantings out in the garden,  I've found bottles buried in the nooks and crannies of our home.

Hiding places are found by me accidentally, typically during cleaning up (and in my early recovery, during remedial Step 1 moments of searching).  Pushing a chair out of the way to vaccuum and I find empty pints underneath.  Looking for the cat under the bed in our other room and there are empty tall cans and mini wine bottles.  Checking the side closet for moving boxes I see that on the top shelf was his top shelf Seagrams VO, mostly empty.  Also:

In between the mattress and box spring of a spare bed.

In his work bag.
Stuffed in the couch between cushions.
In his jacket after a road trip.

In the trash he takes out.
Behind his computer monitor where I couldn't see.
On our bar, but behind a bottle of a kind of liquor he doesn't or won't drink.
Under the front seat.
In his luggage.
In the trunk.

Sometimes the bottles never surface, and the scent is just lingering in the air, on his breath, or in an empty can of soda.

The times I've ever delicately mentioned finding bottles (definitely in the context of a drinking discussion, and not a random topic of conversation) my husband maintains that the found bottles are old and have been there for "who knows how long."

Before we moved some of our things this past weekend, we got the oil changed on my husband's car.  It had been a nice weekend for the most part, and a nice day in particular.  But wouldn't you know, when I got in and saw some empty mini-wine bottles on the floor of the passenger side and coming out from under the seat, my husband's mood shifted pretty quickly.  He clammed up, his eyes were wide, and before I knew it he was driving, nay, speeding to the oil change place.  A little too roughly I may add - taking turns fast and flying into driveways.  Surely, he was pissed.  But why?  I hadn't even said anything and did my best to pretend I didn't even notice - which was probably ridiculous considering how obvious the bottles were.

A friend of mine who is a "double winner" (in both Al Anon and AA recovery programs) explained to me that he wasn't angry at me - he's angry that I had found one of his hiding places.  He had been "found out."  That alcoholics are filled with shame and that that shame is exacerbated by someone who discovers their secrets, whether through discovering hiding places or anything else that supports or is related to their addiction.  "His way of life is threatened."

His way of life.  Drinking alone, drinking in secret, drinking period.

So how am I getting through this?  It is a struggle, but I have accepted that my husband is an adult - he has the right to drink.  I also have a right to not accept his drinking or the consequences to our relationship, and I recognize that unacceptable behavior is unacceptable.  To that end one of my options would be to tell him my concerns and be prepared to take any following steps for me and make my choices - this is not my strong suit.  Though it's taken me a while, I have learned that I can control the message but not the outcome (typically my past behavior was to tell him my message over and over again, for hours, essentially begging or pleading him to stop doing x and please do y, etc. until we were both exhausted.  Never worked).

Lastly, as ever I try to keep the focus on myself.  His drinking habits can easily become an obsession of my own, and so I tell myself to stop thinking of where he may be hiding his bottles tonight, to stop calculating how much I think he's had, and so on.  The only way to get through something like this isn't to ignore it, but to accept it, and to also accept that I'm powerless over the alcoholism.  I am powerless over my husband's own opinion of whether or not he has a problem, and I am powerless over his decision or lack thereof to enter recovery.

And so I continue attending meetings, talking to my sponsor and program friends, reading the literature, working on my business, and posting here.  This may be my secret from my husband, but it is a secret that I hope is maybe helping someone out there gain some perspective and realize that they aren't alone.