First time post really. I will explain my story in full detail shortly. But just wondering how people cope when their other halves drink around you and alcohol is everywhere in the house and you see them having fun but your just watching your sober clock and trying to do the best you can!
This can also apply to a bunch of other scenarios like going out with friends and watching them drinking etc.
Would love to hear everyones thoughts or any tips… 40 days Sober myself today! 
I hear you. It used to suck for me too. Why can’t I drink like other people? It’s not fair, etc etc. Now I tell myself that I can’t do a handstand either, I just can’t do some things. But I can do other things. And each time I ‘survive’ an event where others are drinking, I get a little stronger. I am extremely fortunate my partner drinks very little. I know people who are with people who drinks lot, and that is another problem in itself. I also make sure I ‘treat’ myself in another way if my partner is drinking. I get dibs on a nice ice-cream, extra chips, or something.
Hi there 
This is a topic that comes up all the time because it’s just so common. My partner not only drinks fairly normally (on occasion overdoes it’s but not regularly) but he also is a beer brewing hobbyist. In early sobriety it was extremely challenging for me. I had to accept that what he chose to do, to drink, etc. had nothing to do with me. I had to make my own choices for my well being. He did offer at times to remove all the alcohol from the house and even offered to quit his hobby but I knew that wasn’t going to be sustainable. I’d have to confront it at some point and be able to say no to a drink. Not easy! But it is simple. Just say no to that first drink and take it a day at a time, a moment at a time.
I replaced my alcoholic beverages with tons of fizzy waters and enjoyed creating mocktails, but sometimes if I was feeling a craving just removed myself or asked him to keep his alcohol drinking to a certain part of the house. But we did figure out a way to compromise through continuous communication. I’m very lucky that he is so supportive, I know not everyone has this experience. Though it took way longer than necessary for him to remember not to offer me samples of his new brews 
I also had to fill in other activities for when I would normally be drinking, since my pattern was one of binge drinking. Got back into hobbies that used my hands a lot like knitting, coloring books, cooking, etc. But that’s just me.
There are several other threads on this subject if you’re interested in reading through them. Here is a link:
The bottom line is that you have to make this choice for yourself and it is possible! Being here for support is great, and seeking support elsewhere might also be something to consider if you are finding it very difficult. Hang in there! And congrats on 40 days!
This is perfect! I’m saving this.
@Haz, years of addiction - which is basically replacing fulfilling human activities with drinking (bizarrely, in addiction our “hobby” / “pastime” becomes drinking) - conditions us to think it’s the “fun” thing to do. It’s not actually fun (hell, it’s not even healthy in any way; alcohol is literally a poison), but because we’ve conditioned ourselves to think that, it seems like we might be “missing” something.
In recovery we learn how to be human. We learn how to find fulfillment of our human life in things that are meaningful for us. Obviously we work and we have day to day responsibilities, but in addition to that we learn to find fulfillment in helping others, in doing creative things (cooking, crafting, building, etc), in forming sober healthy friendships, in doing fitness, etc etc.
We learn that nothing about our addiction was ever fun. We learn that fulfillment - meaning and enjoyment - is a journey, and we start exploring what that can be for us.
For me when I see triggers for my addict mind I get into breathing and I use mindfulness strategies to help me ground myself. I have found www.InsightTimer.com helpful for learning that. If I need space, I might take a walk.
I’ve also found that in my sober time I’ve cultivated friendships that don’t relate to my addiction, so more and more as time passes, addiction exposure is less and less. I’ve grown spaces that are healthy for me.
What are your wishes and your interests? Now that you have this free time not stuck in addiction, what can you explore?
My husband is also an alcoholic and wasn’t interested in sobriety when I started my sober journey. What helped me was going to AA meetings. By working my program on a daily basis, that obsession to drink was finally lifted, and being around alcohol became a non issue.
Congratulations on your 40 days sober.
Booze and wine and the wife are always in my house. My sobriety is real strong and she has supported me my 2 and a half years. But she still gonna drink.
I started going to Al-Anon again a couple of months ago because my life. And that’s my key. “MY LIFE,” became unmanageable. I didn’t want to go. I’m sober. I’m already working a program. I’m not doing anything wrong. 
Whelp, let’s jus say after 6-8 weeks, of once a week AlAnon meetings I can wait for my Tuesday nights. It’s like my favorite part of the week now.
AlAnon.org.
If I’m not the problem. There’s no solution.
Hey there!! Congratulations on your 40 days!! Great job!!
For myself, I had to really get that drinking was not fun for me anymore. It made me really hate myself, brought on hangovers, guilt, shame, embarrassment, anxiety and killed my self confidence and self love. That is simply not how I want to feel anymore.
Idk, maybe your experience with alcohol is different…but for me, there was zero fun left, just a really bad habit of forgetting the reality of my drinking versus the fantasy that it was still fun.
I put together similar threads about partners who still drink, maybe you will find some helpful thoughts reading thru these.
Edited to add…oops, I see Rosa already shared the link!!
Forty days is huge. Congrats on freedom from alcohol. I replied to Sassy, because I resonated with what she said. Something happened to my perception of alcohol and “missing out” around 100 days. Huge paradigm shift. I love being alcohol free, and all the benefits that go with it. Keep rocking it!
I love this, Eric. Great one liners we get from AA and Al-Anon. You sound really healthy and at peace. I’m not drinking today, And probably not drinking tomorrow.
Hello everyone!
Thank you so much for the replies 
I’m going to try give a bit of background story as to where I was and how I got here I guess.
I’ve always had a sort of addictive personality. I do it with everything pretty much. When I find something I like I latch onto it and usually over do it. I can do this even googling into something I want to buy and sit there for a week reading review and finding the absolute best thing ever for my price bracket etc. Well alcohol started out pretty innocent I guess like everyone as a teenager I was just drinking to socialise and have fun but even back then I would always be the person drinking to excess and be absolutely wasted by the end of the night. But even as a teenager my tolerance grew pretty strong. I think my genetics helps somewhat as I’m quite a stocky built guy and I’m Turkish so we can naturally drink like nobody’s business!
I think where it started becoming a problem for me is when I would try to outcompete everyone I drank with which usually ended up in me being the last one standing since my binge drinking was slowly getting out of control. During my time I’ve had a lot of ups and downs in my life. I have lost a lot of people close to me over the years and also went through a period of my life where I was pretty much a full blown gambling addict. I think what really pushed me past the point of no return with alcohol was when I lost big time one night when I was drunk playing online roulette close to the tune of £20k which was literally my life savings and was meant to be a down payment on a house. I just was in shock for weeks, months in fact I couldn’t speak to anyone or tell nobody. I was so ashamed all I could think to do was drown myself with alcohol almost every night. It soon got to a point where I was drinking just under a ltr bottle of spirits (vodka or rum) every two days or so with beers in-between. It’s funny because I was still able to keep my shit together and somehow managed to keep my job and to everyone else I looked completely fine but I was broken inside. Pretty much my entire life I have bottled up a lot of emotions and I guess I’ve used alcohol as a way of suppressing these feelings and getting out of my mind when I’m overthinking.
Fast forward about a 2 years or so after this event I had blacklisted my name on gambling and haven’t touched it since, something I’m really proud of, but I still haven’t been really been able to stop using alcohol as a crutch for all my mental issues as well as physical (I was also using it as a way to relieve pain as I have disc degenerative disease and insomnia)… I did at one point go to my GP to tell them I’m having all these bad thoughts and I’m drinking quite heavily and was referred so some clinic who spoke to me for all of 20 minutes and said sorry they didn’t have space or the funds to help anyone else at the moment and they didn’t feel I was in a bad enough state (I guess that goes back to me keeping things bottled up and not being entirely truthful even when I’m trying to get help I convince myself im fine)… I was however a bit shocked at that and thought it was quite poor but good old NHS ey.
Well after this I managed to sort of taper down my drinking and really focus on my goals of owning my own home again and began saving like crazy for the next 3 or so years. I went in and out of big time binges but I was now mainly drinking at home and hiding how much I was drinking from others so I never really put 100% into addressing it as I thought I couldn’t get into much trouble drinking at alone.
Well that all changed about a year ago when I found myself locked up in a police cell for in charge of a motor vehicle with excess alcohol. Now I’ve never been one to drink and drive and never really go out the house when I’ve been drinking but this one night I decided to go on a date to see someone I had been speaking to for quite a while and I had just got the good news that I had finally closed on my very first home and was due to pick up the keys the next morning!.. I honestly wish I stayed home was the biggest fucking mistake of my entire life and has cost me dearly. Long story short I was sober when I left and had full intentions of staying the night which she already told me was fine. I got there and she decided to pour me a drink I wasn’t even looking at what she was doing I was in the living room talking while she popped to kitchen. Came back with a vodka in a pint glass with some juice. I literally only had this one drink which I’m guessing was quite a liberal pour but we got into a heated argument over a really sarcastic borderline racist comment about my religion which quite shocked me and I decided to just walk out. At this point I should have got a taxi but I felt I was fine (as anyone who has had this happen).
The outcome of all of this was me losing my job of 10 years which I loved doing, a ban for 14 months a fine of almost £1000 and my anxiety and mental health in complete tatters. Family and friends as well as myself thought I was the most stupid person they had ever seen especially since I had just done everything to achieve my dream goal and had thrown it all away. The house is currently sitting there barely hanging on making payments and had to ask family for help which just feels like absolute shit. I still didn’t even learn from my lesson and actually started drinking more as I felt my life and everything I had worked for was just collapsing before my very eyes.
Well 40 days ago I sat down and had a long heart to heart with my best friend who is the only one that knows the true extent of my drinking and knows everything negative that’s happened in my life has some way been due to my alcohol use. I have been reflecting for a long time on all of this and decided enough was enough. I will be honest though, 80% of this is me wanting to quit drinking and 20% it being a requirement for me to get my licence back which touch wood all goes well I should have in the next 2 months.
I’m sorry for the length of this post but I guess it’s been nice getting a lot of stuff off my chest. Some good has come from all this though. I managed to meet the love of my life around 7 months ago who has been helping me get through all this and has been an absolute rock for me and I wouldn’t have found her if all this hadn’t happened as it was a very specific place were we started talking which I wouldn’t have gone to otherwise. Also I’ve managed to finally get myself a new job which I’m really happy about and it’s something I know I will enjoy working for a charity on a similar wage I was on before starting Monday!
I think a few people asked what I have tried to do before to help getting sober and to be honest not a lot. I’ve never attended meetings or anything like that. At most I kept a journal and managed to get to 6 months once with the aim being a year and had to most spectacular relapse which almost ended in me burning down the house forgetting the oven was on!.. Erm I’ve also tried drinking non alcoholic drinks to try substitute which I do not recommend as within a few weeks it made me crave the real stuff!
Whoever got to the end of this thanks for reading but yeah I hope to go far here and keep my sobriety up. On the main subject though I do find it hard going out with my partner and she is drinking or we are at home and she is on a second bottle of prosecco having a whale of a time and I’m sitting here twiddling my thumbs but that is something I will need to figure out I guess.
Me too pretty much. And realizing it is the first step to being free of it. Im so proud of you for realizing this about yourself! Awesomeness
Whats helped me with this is one, realizing it MYSELF, not having others point it out to me, and two changing my thought patterns. So number one, which sounds silly, telling myself, “i don’t have an addictive personality.” Even though i do have one, i tell myself i don’t so i can start to change those thoughts. Number two, what i do, is i use one of many of my DBT skills
Here is a thread where we discuss some of our DBT skills and how they have helped us
(DBT & Me ( & you, you & you!))
As for me and my partner, he doesn’t drink often and i asked if he would be okay to not drink around me or have alcohol when we move in together, and he said yes. My advice? I would have a heart to heart with your partner, if/when your ready.
Thanks for the link I will definitely look into it. And I think I’ve always known I have addictive traits but I just seem to let myself go with the flow and end up completely engrossed in whatever it is at the time till the next new thing comes along. I just thank god I have never been interested in the hard drugs etc or I would probably be 6 feet deep right now. Though alcohol alone is quite the devil itself and one of the very few drugs you can actually where you can die from withdrawals alone but it so socially acceptable to drink that nobody bats an eyelid. I think your right I need to figure out ways to keep my addictive personality at bay and keep busy. For sure I need to find new hobbies etc which I’m looking into just to keep me occupied. I find boredom is the number 1 reason why I drink… Thats awesome your partner is willing to do that for you he is very understanding. The thing is I’ve told my partner I use to have a small problem with alcohol before and went for help and saw a GP but I explained it was ages ago and it was just because I was feeling down and I have things under control now. I’m afraid to tell her the full extent of my drinking habits as she had an alcoholic father growing up who passed away and also came out of a relationship with someone who use to do very silly things when drunk and was very argumentative and borderline abusive. I don’t want her to think she has jumped back into the same issues again. But I am not that sort of drunk anyways, I am always happy go lucky and just giddy laughing drunk I wouldn’t hurt a fly and I can never be bothered for arguments when I’m drunk I simply walk off. But I feel now that I’m making a conscious effort to stop drinking I don’t really have to delve too deep into it with her and hopefully I will learn to be just fine when she is drinking and in time not even bother me! That’s the plan anyways
I am sober with a drinking partner
I’ve been sober for 21 years and my wife drinks.
It’s not fun.
She started drinking heavily about two years ago and what I’ve learned in my journey is i can not sober her up.
I make my meetings and do not drink. Her journey has to come to its ONLY NATURAL CONCLUSION.
I cannot make her sober.
I would also say, Watching her drink is not fun. I don’t miss that kind of fun.
I miss the sober fun she and i had.
And i do love telling her how much of an ass she became while drinking.
That sober self inside her is the one i married and have loved for so many years.
Like with all my sober friends, I’ll stick with her thru the hard times too
The best part for me is, she is fun sober. Not fun drunk. She’ll get sober again
Don’t give up your sobriety
On tues, we will be married for 28 years
That’s amazing! There are some good threads dealing with spouses/partners who drink. Glad you are here.