The following is an interview I participated in on IdeaMarketers.com for National Recovery Month.

September is National Recovery Month. A month dedicated to the message that recovery from alcohol or drug abuse is possible. There are many people who live with the secret that they have an alcoholic in their family. These same people struggle with questions on what they can do to help their partner and family.

More on National Recovery Month: Is There Help for My Alcoholic Partner?

Jackie asked me how many drinks could her husband have in a day before she should worry. She says he drinks three or four beers in the evening on work nights and a lot more on weekends when he doesn't have to go to work the next day. She thinks he may be a functioning alcoholic.

Kevin worries that his wife's three or four glasses of wine in the evening could be the beginning of alcoholism. Alcoholism runs in her family. 

Both Jackie and Kevin were quite surprised to find their partners' consumption was well above what are considered low-risk drinking levels…

More on How Much Alcohol Is Too Much? The Facts Might Surprise You

Being married to a functioning alcoholic is a big problem. Tens of thousands of families in North America alone are struggling with the issue.

For a minority of people social drinking can gradually deteriorate into alcohol abuse and eventually into alcohol dependence. The drinking could have started in a lot of different ways, but that's not what's important. What is important is that the drinking became a habit and the habit became alcohol dependence or alcoholism. It matters not a hoot whether the alcohol is in the form of beer, wine or hard liquor.

More on Alcoholism and Marriage

Dr. Neill Neill

Mary (alias) recently took the Alcoholism Test and then emailed me. (She didn't leave a public comment because she wanted her communication to be confidential.)

Although a few details are changed or omitted to protect Mary's privacy, she began with

"I was researching functional alcoholism and came across your site. I took the Alcoholism Test to determine if my husband would be considered a functioning alcoholic. I have not yet spoken with anyone about this, but just researched Al-Anon and plan on attending a meeting…"

Mary goes on to make the following points:

• Married for 19 years.
• Husband a drinker, mostly drinking alone.
• He has been drinking more during the last 5-6 years (now more than two liters/week of hard liquor.)
• He is not abusive and does not miss work.
• He seems to have trouble remembering.
• He just seems out of it at night…

More on Married to a Functioning Alcoholic? Getting Help

Dr. Neill Neill
 

Is Your Marriage Partner a Functioning Alcoholic?

There are many tests for alcoholism on the internet, so why do we need another one? The simple answer is that most of them aren't very practical.

Most of the tests for alcoholism are "self-tests" and are therefore aimed at someone who is wondering, "Do I have an alcohol problem?" This may be the wrong person most of the time. Serious problem drinkers probably won't take the test, because they don't want to have their suspicions confirmed. The typical functioning alcoholic isn't interested in questioning his alcohol abuse. And if the signs of alcoholism are more advanced, no test is necessary to recognize the alcoholism.

The Alcoholism Test on this site is designed for anyone who thinks their partner has a drinking problem and perhaps suspects the drinking has progressed to alcoholism.

More on Alcoholism Test for the Alcoholic Marriage

Dr. Neill Neill

You both enjoyed a drink when you were first married. But unlike your drinking, his has increased over time. In fact it has become an integral part of everyday living for him.

It has become a familiar part of your life too, because you worry about what is happening to him and to your marriage. For present purposes I will limit my comments to home life.

Perhaps he is just a friendly alcoholic. He pours a drink as soon as he gets home from work and he keeps one going all evening. He watches television with you and the children and is easy to get along with, provided he always has a drink. He insists there is nothing wrong with this drinking and that he is functioning quite well. After all, he reasons, he does his job and he brings home the money.

However, he never goes to the children's games, because he doesn't plan ahead. By the time he is asked, he's already drinking and can't go. "Next time…"

If you enjoy sex in the evening, you are out of luck, because by bedtime he's blotto. And sex is not the only area where you are feeling neglect. It's hard to have a discussion about anything significant after he has had a couple of drinks. You spend a lot of time effectively alone. You didn't bargain for loneliness in your marriage.

More on The Functioning Alcoholic Is Your Husband

Dr. Neill Neill

In my previous post, Alcoholism: Addiction with a Twist,  I commented on how addiction can lead to addictive or co-dependent relationships. I ended with,

"The benefits to all of overcoming an addiction to the wellbeing of another are far reaching, but as always, the healing process begins with awareness."

Awareness alone doesn't remove the problem, but it may produce a roadmap to wholeness. And with wholeness can come real intimacy.

Codependency is full of opposites

Imagine a husband and wife where the man is addicted to alcohol and the woman is addicted to him and his well-being. She has an intense pull towards her husband. She loses herself in the intensity of the need to care for him.  On the other hand she has a strong need to pull away from him and get a life for herself.

We have all seen it: one of them leaves and comes back, and then leaves again and comes back again. There seems to be no middle ground. It's either total enmeshment or complete cut-off.

More on Alcoholism, Codependency and Intimacy

Dr. Neill Neill

Addiction to a drug like alcohol develops gradually. Drinking alcohol may start out as social fun, or it may from the beginning be a way of escaping pain and difficulty. Sometime I think of it as one of dissociation’s helpers, because alcohol helps a person to split off from reality. But that's an idea for another post.

The point is that people cannot know whether alcohol has become an addiction until they are deprived of it, either through circumstance or through an attempt to quit drinking.

More on Alcoholism: An Addiction with a Twist