Tonight
It is late, and you are the only one awake.
This is not the night you fix it. It is the night you get everybody through to morning without anything happening that cannot be undone.
This page assumes it is late, he is drunk or asleep or not back, and you are the only person awake in the house. Everything on it can be done in the next ten minutes.
First, the three things that are not about the drinking
- Anyone who cannot be woken — who is breathing strangely, who has hit their head, who has had a fit, or who may have taken alcohol with other drugs or medication — is urgent medical help now, not a conversation. Do not wait to see how they are in the morning.
- If you are frightened of him tonight, that is the situation, not the drinking. The safety page names the routes, and you do not need proof or certainty to use them.
- If a child is awake and frightened, the child is the priority over the argument, every time. It can be handled in two sentences: this is not your fault, and you are not in trouble.
Then, what actually helps between now and morning
- Do not start the conversation now. Nothing said to a drunk man at midnight is remembered accurately, and what he says back will hurt you and will not be true. You will have the same conversation twice, and the second time will be harder.
- Do not go looking for the bottles. Counting them at one in the morning is a way of making the night longer. Whatever the number is, it will still be the number at nine.
- Put him on his side if he is asleep and leave a light on. That is it.
- Do not hand over the car keys if he is going out, and do not get in the car with him. If he insists on driving, that is a situation where other people are at risk and it is reasonable to say so out loud.
- Write down what happened. Not for a court, for you. The next morning does a thing where it makes last night smaller, and your own note is the only reliable record of what you were actually dealing with.
- Eat something and get some sleep if you can. This is not self-care advice. You are going to need the next twenty-four hours and you cannot do them on nothing.
The thing about tonight
Tonight is not the night you fix this. There is no version of tonight that fixes it. Tonight is the night you get everybody through to the morning without anything happening that cannot be undone — and that includes what you say.
The conversation belongs to daylight. What to say, and when is the next page.
If there is nobody to talk to
At one in the morning there usually is not. The guide on this site is an SI (super intelligence), it says so, and it is awake. It will not tell you what to do with your marriage. It will keep you company while you work out what tonight actually needs.