How to spot — and stop — a drinking problem

On the surface, they look like your regular frum wife and mother. But they’re carrying a secret: during a typical Shabbos seudah, their husband is sprawled out on the couch, drunk. Or maybe he's drinking too much at night. Or at simchahs. For so many, what started off as a few sips has begun spiraling toward addiction. How to spot — and stop — a drinking problem.

Alcohol is not the answer. It only makes you forget the question. – Anonymous

First a man takes a drink. Then the drink takes a drink. Then the drink takes the man. – Japanese proverb

Esti G. is about the most normal girl you could imagine, a veritable poster girl for a Bais Yaakov alumna. Her life story checks all the boxes: married, three cute children, works in a school, busy with her life, and family simchahs.

Except that Esti is struggling with a secret problem, one I never dreamed of until I ran into her at the supermarket one day. After exchanging hellos, to my astonishment she pulled me aside and hissed, “I have something you need to write about!”

She looked dead serious. I pushed my cart over to one side and prepared to hear her out.

“You absolutely need to write about all the drinking that’s going on in our community!” she said, glancing around to make sure no one was coming down the aisle. “Do you have any idea how many husbands are spending their weekends drunk? They come home hours late from shul. They spend the rest of the weekend sleeping. They scream at the kids. It’s not all right!”

“I know about this firsthand,” Esti continued. She looked me in the eye. “My husband, you see, is one of them.”

Esti’s husband, Avi, started drinking for relaxation. But today it has gotten to the point where he’s completely addicted. “I feel like I’m a single parent, because he’s incapable of handling anything in our lives,” Esti says. “I’m shell-shocked. It’s the last thing I thought I’d be dealing with in my marriage.”

Esti proceeded to tell me her story in detail, and I was so taken aback I felt compelled to share it. I also went to find out what professionals and experts have to say, so that we can put the brakes on drinking before more wives find themselves in Esti’s shoes. I wanted to focus on the antecedents to alcohol addiction: the kind of problematic Shabbos, Yom Tov, and simchah drinking that gets out of hand and may eventually lead to a full-blown addiction.