TeM

I'm new here, and my problems don't seem quite so severe or urgent after reading some of the other posts. However, I feel like I'm in a slow motion train wreck, and need to tell somebody about it. From reading other threads, I'm assuming the abbreviation AW stands for Alcoholic Wife, so I will use it here. If that's incorrect, somebody please tell me.

I've been married 29 years; things were okay at first, but AW was diagnosed with OCD early in the marriage. Her obsession was cancer... any little bump or pain would send her into a dibilitating, obsessive panic. She finally went to a psychiatrist and started taking Prozac, which seemed to help. That was just the beginning, though. She now takes 21 prescription drugs for depression, panic, OCD and numerous physical problems related to obesity.

Eventually she reached the point that she couldn't work, and was able to get disability and Medicare. I feel guilty about having to take government assistance, but her meds would have bankrupted us years ago without it.

The drinking has been there in the background the whole time, I guess. She always liked beer, but would only have two or three at one time. After she stopped working, she drank more often and in greater quantities, maybe because of the boredom. She doesn't do housework, has no hobbies... just sleeps and watches TV all day.

A few years ago she started drinking Crown Royal. I first learned how much when I came home and our daughter said AW had fallen and broken her glasses. AW was in a stupor and smelled like a wino. Daughter and I checked the cabinets and found fifteen or twenty of those little blue velvet Crown Royal bags. I knew she had been drinking the stuff, but it was that day that I realized she was an alcoholic.

I confronted her the next day and she said she'd stop. For a while it seemed like she did, or slowed down. She would still drink beer, but not the hard stuff. About a year ago she started drinking Jack Daniels, and would be drunk when I came home about twice a week. I confronted her again after another fall, and she promised to stop... again.

Same pattern... she drank beer but didn't get sloppy drunk. Then, a few months ago, she tried Vodka, and has been drinking it ever since. Now, when she does switch to beer, it's virtually nonstop.... 10 to 12 cans in a day. She's back on the Vodka this week, and I believe it's the longest I've gone without seeing her sober. She's been drunk every night this week.

I've come to face the reality over the past couple of months that she's probably not going to quit. Whenever I bring it up, she tells me to stop making such a big deal out of it. I can't even get her to discuss it with her psychiatrist; she's in total denial.

Daughter is 17, and she's totally disgusted and embarrassed. AW has been drunk in front of her friends several times. I, too, am disgusted and embarrassed... even angry. I'm feeling a little ashamed because my feelings for AW have undergone such a drastic change. It's like living with a total stranger. After dealing with the OCD and the drinking for all these years, my sympathy reservoir is about dried up.

Sorry to ramble on so long. I know that nobody can tell me what to do, or solve my problem. It's just nice to know I'm not alone, and others have gone through similar situations. I'm just recently coming to grips with the magnitude of the problem and it's implications for the future. I know we've got a long road ahead.

Thanks for listening.