Ask Dr. Bill

Dear Dr. Bill,
My husband is a binge drinker; he can go four or five months at a time without a drink. Eventually, he will have a drink in the vain hope that he can just have "one or two" and then not drink anymore. Each time he says that he "can handle it." Inevitably, the "one or two" leads to a horrific binge lasting several days. Then, after having upset the whole houshold, he'll finally stop, becoming remorseful and irritable, swearing that he won't do it again. He has sought help from a psychiatrists, several treatment programs and AA but he says they "just don't work for me." He's also a cigarette smoker...puffing like a chimney, particularly when he is on a binge.

We would like to have a child but I'm afraid that my husband's drinking and using will cause us to have an abnormal baby. I know that both alcohol and tobacco use can cause problems for a fetus but, I wonder, can they can they also cause defects in my husband's sperm?

Anonymous

Dear Anon,
I answered a similar question over five years ago. If those of my readers who may have read that response will bear with me, I'll repeat some of my answer as, to my knowledge, there has been little added to the literature on the subject since I originally wrote it. If someone out there has an update, let me know, and I will share the info.

Unfortunately, studies designed to examine the possibility of paternal alcohol consumption as causing mental or physical abnormalities in their children has, so far, received little attention. Research on male rats shows that alcohol intake appears to have long lasting effects on their progeny. Other studies suggest that alcohol, itself, may directly poison sperm causing subtle, but definite, deficits in the offspring of alcohol exposed fathers. It has been assumed, for example, that sons of alcoholics inherit some genetic trait that puts them at higher risk of becoming alcoholic themselves but few researchers have considered the possibility that these deficits could be due to alcohol being a direct gonadal poison or the cause for a baby to be born with developmental malformations. I have no info regarding a direct deleterious effect of nicotine on the sperm but I would bet the tobacco industry has some... (hidden away, of course!).

This is still scary stuff! I remember when even obstetricians pooh-poohed a suggested connection between maternal alcohol use and FAS (Fetal Alcohol Syndrome). The early evidence of that relationship was just as tenuous... but just consider this: question: How many babies could have been born normal if we physicians and young mothers had acted earlier to make a normal baby more important than the need to have a drink?

I don't imagine that my advice will make me popular with drinking or tobacco smoking fathers but, it would seem to me that a wise course for men would be to avoid the use of either drug for a reasonably long period prior to seeking conception. I would suggest at least three months of strict abstinence if a husband really wants to be more certain of fathering a normal child.

I suggest you call Alanon for support...living with a periodic is a strain...you never know when the next shoe will drop. (Call Ala-Call/Addictions Hotline: 1-800-322-5525 for the location and time of nearby meetings). Your husband is stuck in a severe state of denial, thus his resistance to attending meetings or seeking further help. At the very least, it would be wise for both of you, together, to get some knowledge about the disease process of addiction...attend the free lectures offered by our Institute, get literature from the support groups and published material from the library and the internet. Even if you both follow all the rules and you give birth to a physically normal baby, unless your husband finds true sobriety, your child's mental health will inevitably suffer as living in a home with an actively using parent is the pits.