Hi all,

Well my boyfriend is about 5 months in now. We have taken two week-long trips right on top of each other, and his drinking was so so bad while we were away. His drinking at home is always about the same, but not really going down. It's just so upsetting to see him get annihilated after all this time. Please please just let this be the "big spike" before his numbers start to go down?

At least he was awake, aware, and able to hold conversations with people instead of passed out drunk within an hour of waking up and starting to drink. That's what would have happened before TSM. And he never got to what I would consider his really horrible bad point, even though he was drinking a ton. I guess that's a step in the right direction. This is so f***ing hard to deal with. I feel like we're back at square one.

Hi
I am the spouse of a TSMer and I agree it can be frustrating at times. The approach that has worked best for me is to be an active and supportive teammate. I gather from your post that you have seen some small signs of progress but nothing you can really quantify. The thing that has helped me to deal with the volatility is to carefully track as many variables as i can think of that are pertinent. Each day I log her number of drinks, her craving level, and any special situations. I like numbers because it's easy to miss a small improvement just by judging ones level of intoxication or other factor. Was he drinking a ton, or was he drinking 85% of a ton or even 98% of a ton? The thing is, if you know the numbers, you might see the improvement (however small it may be) and garner some hope. In our case, there has been no improvement for binge sessions (usually planned party nights), but vast improvement in alcohol free days, and incremental improvement in drinks per day overall. I hope this helps.

Best
RG

OK things just got worse. One of his friends who saw him get drunk on our vacation has teamed up with his mom and they are both trying to get him to go to rehab. They are saying that this method isn't working and I'm afraid they are going to try to pull a full-on intervention. They don't understand, they don't see him every day like I do and they think he's just coming up with an excuse to drink all the time. They don't know that before TSM he was only awake long enough to drink/blackout again, they see him drinking vodka and they think it's bad, but he has already lost his taste for beer, whiskey, and pretty much anything else. We've had several bottles of wine lying around the house for months that he doesn't want to touch. I think they believe I don't want him to get any help for some reason, even though he IS getting help RIGHT NOW! I don't know what to do.