It's a long, dark night
After spending a couple of fruitless hours trying to sleep, I thought I'd wander over here and try to get some of the heartache out of the system. My AH drinks every day, but sometimes he binges on top of it -- and right now he's working on day four of staying passed out whenever he's not "refilling," and there's enough alcohol left for a fifth day at least. Tonight he got up for a little while, ate a little (the first in days), and sat down in our office for a little while before stumbling back off to bed. He still hasn't had any fluids except what's in the beer and whiskey, and I know the alcohol more than offsets that.
What haunts me more than anything tonight is that while he was up, I saw a look -- the loose, papery, yellow skin, the sunken eyes, the blue-white fingernails, the dull stare -- that I've only ever seen once before. It was the exact look my uncle had the last time I saw him, ten days before he died from the complications of long-term alcoholism.
My husband is 51, has been an active alcoholic for about 30 years (maybe a little more...long before my time) and I've seen so many disturbing signs of failing health before. I've recognized that he doesn't have a bottom, he doesn't want help, and he will die from it. I am not anywhere near the point where that would be a relief. That said, reflecting on it has made me face the fact that the person I love more than my own life is as good as dead already -- he's been replaced by an alcohol-induced zombie, and he doesn't want to find his way back.
These are not easy thoughts at 1:30 a.m. Right now I have so much going through my head. My son will be here on Thursday and he'll be staying for a month, and the thought that keeps popping up is that I don't want him to be here when AH dies. When we married, and then again when I found out I was pregnant, I had so hoped that I would be able to raise my daughter with a daddy that loves her every bit as much as I do. I wonder, if this is the bout that finally does him in, how long I'll regret how I've spent the last week. In the past, even when he was drinking, I still slept next to him every night, and rarely got up or went to bed without kisses and hugs. Right now I've scarcely been near him, talked to him, or touched him in days, and I've been sleeping in my son's room. The first couple of nights were a blessed relief, I slept better than I have in a long time -- and my 7-month-old daughter did too, surprisingly enough, even though she sleeps on the other end of the house anyway so you wouldn't think it would make that big of a difference. Tonight the waves have come crashing in, and I don't know if it's because of all the mixed feelings finally catching up with me, or if it's because of that look.
I don't really have any specific questions or requests for advice or anything, I just needed to -- for lack of a more palatable term -- do a little emotional vomiting. It helps knowing that others who can really understand will read it, and maybe in the morning I can re-read for myself and try to make a little more sense out of everything.