Anyone here have experience for their ADHD partner having a drinking problem on top of everything else? And it's not that they might drink a lot, per say, its what happens when they DO drink - no matter how sporadically. And they blame you for their 'not going out with their friends' because to them, they think YOU are the problem and that you don't want them to have any fun. But in realtiy, you've realised (in fact, it's a rather light bulb moment for me here today) that their stress, anxiety, diagnosis and depression has them so wound tightly that their only release (in their opinion of course, god forbid if they exercise, try to get better sleep, or eat decent food of course bc that's clearly NOT the problem) is to have a few drinks once in a while with friends, family or on their own, but they don't do it anymore because you just yell at them or have a problem with it the next day.
And on the other side of it, the person your partner becomes when they drink is horrible and vile. They said terrible things to you and treat you in ways that you were sure you would never be treated - but they don't want to hear how they've hurt you so badly for these times. They just want to do what they want to do and have their fun.
I have realised that I don't have clear boundaries for myself, let alone communicated them in any way but it feels like an ultimatium is on the cards because I've put up with too much.
But I'm wondering if others have gone through similar. Those who have ADHD and maybe realised their drinking was part of the problem...how did you realise this? Was it yourself? A partner putting the foot down? And for those of us nons....this is really new territory for me. I don't have the same relationship with alcohol, didn't grow up with alcohol and it's only becoming clear to me now that this can not continue.
alcohol
Submitted by honestly on
My ADHD OH has drunk to excess throughout our relationship. Even when he's promised to cut down. Mostly it's just a health concern - he can't be doing himself any good getting through a bottle of wine a night - but on the occasions it has gone really extreme it has caused me and the kids embarrassment and distress. It once led to an A&E admission, which was terrifying - a head wound from a fall, blood everywhere, and the whole thing exacerbated by OH's lies about how much he'd drunk. He said he'd only had a couple when he'd had a skinfull (the friend he'd been drinking with texted me to ask if he was okay...). He was slurring his words, incoherent, with a head wound - so I thought he had a bleed on the brain...
His father (who we now think was probably ADHD now we recognize the symptoms) and grandfather (known for his short temper- so poss also ADHD but of a generation long before it was diagnosed) also had problematic relationships with alcohol. Maybe the two are inherited together? My OH is not nasty when drunk but he is a liar. I can't trust him.
I also have problems with boundaries. I'm the product of narcissistic parenting; as a group, we're poor at boundaries. I didn't even know what they were, tbh, till I read Boundary Boss (recommended to me here) and am just learning what mine are and how to assert them. In a way the boundaries were always there; I just wasn't conscious of them, so I didn't know that the feelings of misery and crashing disappointment where from my boundaries being trampled over again and again.
I imagine the drinking is due to attempts to tweak brain chemistry. Deferring anxiety to tomorrow, blurring out the boredom. We all know it only works short term, but perhaps that seems enough if you have ADHD.
I wonder if people with defective boundaries (eg kids of narcissists) often pair up with people with ADHD? we maybe don't react or work out what's happening as quickly as those with well defined boundaries...