Is My Partner An Alcoholic

Defining alcoholism

If you’re concerned about your partner’s drinking, the DSM-5 criteria for Alcohol Misuse Disorder is a helpful resource. The DSM defines alcoholism as ‘a problematic pattern of alcohol use leading to clinically significant impairment or distress.’ It uses eleven criteria to screen for alcoholism, and you only need two of them for a diagnosis. They are:

• Regularly drinking more or longer than intended
• Unsuccessful efforts to control alcohol use
• Spending lots of time finding, using and recovering from alcohol use
• Cravings
• Recurring failures to fulfil obligations due to alcohol
• Continuing to use alcohol despite it causing interpersonal and social issues
• Prioritising alcohol over other activities
• Using alcohol in dangerous situations
• Continuing to use alcohol despite knowing it’s actively damaging your health
• Big changes in alcohol tolerance
• Withdrawals and using alcohol or other drugs like benzodiazepines to avoid them.

It’s unwise to attempt to diagnose your partner by reading a checklist. However, these criteria give you an idea of what a doctor would look out for if they were making a formal diagnosis.

Signs

You might think that it’s easy to tell if someone is an alcoholic – but many people go to great lengths to hide alcoholic symptoms.

If you’ve been missing the signs of alcoholism in your partner until now, you’re not alone – even doctors often fail to make a diagnosis. Less than 50% of people who see their doctor about alcohol-related issues are asked about their problem with alcohol, which means their addiction continues untreated, and they miss the opportunity to get valuable resources and advice on how to stop drinking.

People often minimise or are in denial about their alcohol consumption. Most of the screening questions for alcoholism focus on asking the patient about the frequency and severity of their drinking, so if the patient isn’t truthful the doctor has no way of knowing.

However, by living with your partner or being around them a lot of the time, you will be able to see things doctors won’t by observing them over longer periods.
Three of the biggest clues that your partner needs help with alcohol addiction are:

 

Reduced control over their alcohol use

One of the clearest alcoholic symptoms is your partner does not seem to have control over when and how much they drink or how long they drink for.

Prioritising alcohol more and more

If they’re skipping time with you, important events, or responsibilities to drink, this is a sign that drinking has a disproportionately large role in their life.

Unwanted effects from drinking

Having a high alcohol tolerance that causes them to drink more to get the same effects, frequent hangovers and drinking to avoid hangovers are all signs that they may have a problem.

Raising the topic

Alcohol intervention is not an easy topic. Your partner may be very sensitive about their drinking or be in denial about it.

It’s important to try to raise the topic in a way that is less likely to provoke defensiveness – this can stifle the conversation before it begins. Some ways to open the discussion sensitively are:

Avoiding negativity

This means using future-focused statements about the positive aspects of cutting down or quitting, rather than negative statements like ‘you’re drinking too much’. Raising the possibility of drink-free days, pointing out the benefits of more quality time together and talking about quitting in a positive light are good ways to start.

Being specific

Give specific instances of things you’re worried about, like ‘I’m worried about your drinking because I noticed you’re missing work.’ This isolates a specific problem that can be worked on together and also avoids negative, critical language like ‘you’re drinking too much – you won’t even go to work anymore.’

Being supportive

You might feel angry and abandoned by your partner for drinking, and this is normal and understandable – but harsh, critical statements are more likely to make them shut down and leave the problem unaddressed. Being understanding, offering to help them make a plan and giving them space if the conversation becomes unproductive are all ways of moving the conversation forward supportively.

Supporting your partner

A supportive partner is a fantastic resource for someone recovering from addiction – in studies of people recovering from cocaine and heroin use, they found that closeness with their partner was linked to better outcomes for their recovery. However, positive outcomes become even more likely if you enlist additional support.

Encouraging your partner to seek alcohol advice outside the relationship and support from individual therapy, detox, rehab or support groups will ease the pressure on you and give them other routes to alcohol addiction help.

Couples and family therapy can be useful recovery tools. These therapies treat addiction within the context of the family environment, recognising that a person with addiction’s home or interpersonal life is where the addiction plays out, and there may be patterns and behaviours that can benefit from being examined to help them recover.

Your needs and boundaries

It’s easy to subsume your own needs to your partner when you find out they’re addicted to alcohol, but neglecting your own needs won’t help an alcoholic addiction pattern.

Codependency is a common phenomenon in relationships involving alcoholism – and this can actually enable the addiction via making excuses for the addicted partner and putting their needs ahead of yours to an unhealthy degree. This phenomenon has been named pathological altruism.

Being a supportive partner means prioritising your own needs as well as theirs and setting boundaries. Effective boundaries set clear expectations for what are and are not acceptable behaviours from your partner in ways that are mutually beneficial and focused on supporting their recovery and your mental health. This means the motive for the boundary is the best outcome for both of you, not anger or frustration.

Setting boundaries offers structure and accountability and gives you the space to support your partner without feeling that your needs are being subsumed to theirs or that you’re at risk of getting burned out.

Ready to get someone help?

If you are a loved one seeking the right help for someone struggling with addiction, it’s important to know that professional support can make a profound difference. Comprehensive treatment plans, including dual diagnosis support, can provide recovery tools. For more information on how you can get your loved one the help they need or to discuss the available options, please call our rehab referral team.

 

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