My (47m) partner (46f) of 7 years has always enjoyed a drink but I never really worried about it as it didn’t seem excessive. About 3 years ago, our friends and us did a one month challenge to not drink alcohol - with a twist - we set up a bank account that everyone had access to and anytime someone chose to have a drink because they were out at an event or whatever they had to pay $20 into the account, on top of a weekly amount of $20. The idea was that the end of the month, we’d have a decent chunk of money for one helluva night out together. It was this experience that started me thinking she might have a problem. You see she ended up paying about $300 in “penalty fees” which we all joked about at the time but somewhere in the back of my head I worried that she couldn’t stop even if she wanted to and literally paid the price for drinking.

Over the last few years, I’ve become more aware of her drinking habits and two years ago started to count how much she was drinking. At this point she drinks between a bottle to two bottles of wine a night during the week and on the weekends it can go up, adding in cocktails and champagne, etc. About a year ago, I confronted her about it and suggested that perhaps she has a problem and that she might want to try and reduce how much and how frequently she’s drinking. She agreed at the time that it’s excessive and that she’d cut back during the week (as a start). This lasted about 3 weeks and she “cut back” to only drinking 3 nights during the week with the view to reduce more as the weeks went on. Before the first month was up her drinking had increased again to every night.

Now, the other day I had a frank chat with her and outright said, “you have a problem and I’m worried you’re either on the path to becoming an alcoholic or you're actually an alcoholic”. I mentioned that 1-2 bottles a night was excessive and she denied that she drank that much (but did admit to one bottle). The truth is it’s usually a bottle and a half.

She never drinks in the morning or really at all during the day (unless it’s a weekend lunch event). It’s when she finishes work but the problem is she doesn’t just have a glass or two of wine with dinner. She starts as soon as she’s done working (works from home most days) and continues through the night until she’s ready for bed.

Is she an alcoholic or is she on the path to becoming an alcoholic and she might still have a chance to save herself from “never being able to touch a drop again”? I enjoy a drink from time to time but I rarely drink during the week and only every now and then drink excessively on the weekend. I want to be able to continue to do so with my partner but I’m worried that if she IS an alcoholic this will no longer be possible. If she might be classified as just “on the path to” then perhaps she can get help to curb it and not become a full blown alcoholic.

Any advice or insights would be really appreciated.