Do any of your friends have spouses who are alcoholics or drug abusers?

Yes yes yes. We’ve lost a lot of friends to alcohol and drugs both. My besty and I aren’t close because of her addictions. Her mom is raising her child, itd all very sad.

A good friend of mine had/has, a wife who has issues with some drugs. Mainly alcohol. We all just didn’t bring it up. He always had a crush on her. He loves her dearly. I think he may be in some level of denial about her. It caused him some alcohol issues too. I think he is clearly willing to overlook her issues, because he loves her so much. I can empathize.

I guess we (his friends) tolerate her, because we know what she means to him.

I drink a lot myself, but I don’t think it has affected any of my relationships. Largely because my girlfriends usually are heavy drinkers too. THAT has been an issue. I remain loyal, mostly, even if drunk. My exes would get wasted, and maybe cheat on me. They’d get mad about something, and try to cheat to hurt me. My ex was inconsolable, because she once mistook one of my bandannas, as a pair of panties. That was one long, stressful night…

If it has gotten to the point that one of the people in a couple are drinking or using enough to disrupt your friendship, the honest, best thing you can do is confront the non-using spouse.

Addiction/alcoholism is a family disease; the non user needs as much breaking of their denial as the user does. To that end, a friend needs to say that the using is causing one to disassociate from BOTH of them.

This is not a simple confrontation, it may take quite a few conversations, but it ultimately needs to be their choice to continue to get healthy or lose people from their lives.

Not really,

I do have a brother who we try to keep away from Tequila. He can drink gin or whiskey or just about anything else but not Tequila. I am not sure what it is about that particular drink but it makes him a very mean drunk so we either don’t have it around or hide it when he comes over. Personally, I love the stuff and usually have some in the house so it does get hidden. We leave the beer because he seems to have to piss that out more often and stays a little more sober.