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Sharing the same roof with an alcoholic husband can harm a wife’s well-being, which could trickle down to the kids.
Margaret Moschak, author of My Alcoholic, My Love: My Love and Loss of an Alcoholic Husband, is highly aware that if people live with an alcoholic husband, situations will eventually turn sour. Ultimately, the wife won’t be the only one in danger in front of a raging alcoholic.
Alcohol abuse goes beyond the act of excessive drinking. In reality, alcohol abuse is an unhealthy pattern of using alcoholic drinks that could end badly. It threatens the welfare of the individual drinking and everyone around them.
Today, we’ll examine how it can affect spouses and family members.
Living with an Alcoholic Husband Can Escalate to Domestic Violence
Alcohol use can lower inhibitions and heighten an individual’s propensity for violence. This increases the possibility of physical or emotional outbursts, which raises the danger of domestic violence.
Domestic violence is probably the scariest effect of being with an alcoholic. Imagine seeing the person you love become a monster you don’t recognize. A beast that is wearing the skin of your husband.
Dealing with an Alcoholic Husband Heightens Anxiety and Depression
Relatives may experience anxiety and depression due to the strain and stress of caring for an alcoholic family member. These mental health problems might be exacerbated by persistent worry for the alcoholic’s well-being, financial concerns, and disturbances to everyday living.
The fizzing sound of trouble locked in beer foams can keep any wife awake. Sadly, the worry never disappears unless the husband stops his excessive drinking and gets it together.
Financial Consequences the Spouses and Family Deals With
Everything we do can financially affect us, particularly alcoholics and the family they’re with. Significant financial strains can happen if an alcoholic uses a lot of money for their vice. The issue is compounded if more than one family member struggles with alcoholism.
Another financial problem is healthcare costs since alcoholics will most likely get sick. Health isn’t the main focus of alcoholics, and they often neglect their bodies. They will eventually need long-term care or hospitalization, which might happen sooner.
Loses the Ability to Work and Earn Money
Abusing alcohol might result in missed work deadlines, lower productivity, or even job loss. It’ll be impossible for a person to support and meet their family’s living expenditures this way. Spouses who live with an alcoholic husband often suffer in silence.
Wives will often be working many jobs to provide food on the table. Meanwhile, their alcoholic husbands will be meandering their time away with booze. What’s worse is if the domestic situation at home is riddled with physical, mental, and verbal abuse.
Experience Stigmas and Social Isolation
Alcoholics’ families frequently experience stigma and social isolation. Due to their loved one’s illness, they often encounter humiliating glances, nasty remarks, and other prejudice. This is particularly true if the drunk husband is prone to making a scene.
The alcoholic husband might get into fistfights for the most minor reasons. They might threaten other people or hurt their spouse in front of others. Being the center of a drunk spectacle is quite humiliating, after all.
How to Help an Alcoholic Husband Overcome Alcoholism
Whether it’s due to the constant abuse or health concerns, there will come a point for alcoholic husbands to stop drinking. If someone lives with an alcoholic husband and wishes to help him, they might want to look at some of these treatment options:
1. Medication-assisted therapies
2. Alcoholics Anonymous meetings
3. Residential rehabilitation programs
4. Therapeutic interventions
By availing of these treatments, the wife and the liquor-addicted husband can start healing from the effects of alcohol abuse.
Wives with alcoholic husbands might think they’re alone, but Margaret Moschak is here to tell them they aren’t. She’s had a personal run-in with an alcoholic husband as well. Margaret shares her story in her book My Alcoholic, My Love: My Love and Loss of an Alcoholic Husband.
Get a copy of her book today by clicking here to visit her website and order one for yourself. Read her inspiring story and how she got out of such a toxic relationship!