Getting out and staying out - saving your life

Old 11-01-2007, 08:31 PM
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Getting out and staying out - saving your life

This is just an update about me. I posted here almost 2 years ago - about my situation. If you search on my name you will see my story.

I married a man I dated for 3 years at the age of 39 and left him 7 months later after learning he was an endstage, abusive alcoholic. I tried repeatedly to get him into rehab because I thought HE would beat the odds and the statistics. I thought I could save him - but he just kept drinking. He never drank around me before we were married - once we were married he drank 5 nights a week, came home hammered from work - he would stop off and by liquor and just drive and drive and drink. I use to catch him sitting in bank parking lots - staring off into space bombed out of his mind. I'd find every liquor known to man hidden, throughout our basement. I could not believe my eyes - could not recognize this person. He even looked different when he drank not to mention how he acted. But I stayed as long as I could, went to alanon - looked around the room at all the pathetic, sad people who were living with addicts who were trying to recover - and all the years it took off their lives, you could see it in their faces. I bet they looked worse then the addicts themselves. I decided I was too young to sit around and watch him kill himself, someone else or me. But I waited - until his 2nd episode of esophageal varices put him in the hospital. the first instance occurred years before we met - only he always told me it was an ulcer.

When he was in the hospital I spoke to all the doctors and nurses and they confirmed my worst suspicions - that this 39 year old man had been drinking for many, many. many years - WELL before he met me. They said if he stopped NOW - his liver could heal and he could live a normal life. So I tried and tried and tried - everyone said he would not get better until he hit his bottom. And he would tell me again and again that he hit his bottom, only for me to find more liquor- realize he was telling more lies.

Leaving was very hard - but fear drove me out. Fear that he would bleed to death and the scars that would leave me with. As it is seeing all the blood in the toilet and the sink filled to its capacity with blood will never leave me. Seeing him vomiting fresh blood in the ER and crying and apologizing to me will never leave me. Seeing him drunk and talking to himself, and losing his temper with me and verbally abusing me will never leave me. Those are all the reasons and many more that told me to GET OUT! Told me I could NOT save him - he had to save himself.

After I left - and tried to help him from afar, he continued to accuse me of walking out on him, of being a crack ***** and an alcoholic myself (not true), of having affairs and on and on.

2 years ago this month he then began to stalk me at work sitting out in my parking lot, following a friend of mine home - walking around my car as I sat inside my building - all in a serious drunken stuper. He was arrested on my employer's property - found with open containers of beer and champagne in his car, urinated in his pants - yet still driving a car around a heavily crowded parking lot - could easily have killed someone.

I got a restraining order as I feared for my safety. He was an excop (fired from the job many, many years before we met) and I was told he had weapons in our former home. He was ordered to turn in any firearms but never did. 2 months later they found a gun in his desk where he worked - but he was in rehab at the time so they could not prove it was his. I had already filed for divorce, it became final 2 months later. All total it took me 4 months for my divorce to be final - I had just cause, plenty of just cause in my state to get a divorce granted to me.

He still violated the restraining order but was sneaky about it - used a calling card and left me messages but his words were jumbled, because he had been drinking. He was charged with four counts of contempt of court and it only went to trial this past August - our judicial system is SLOW. The jury found him not guilty - I had to take the stand and I shook the entire time. I had not seen him in almost 2 years. He was enormous and looked as sick and drunk as ever - unemployed, difficulty walking etc. It was very sad and upsetting for me to see. Because he was found not guilty - I lost my restaining order but still had one that was good in the bordering state where I also happen to live.

2 days ago I got a phone call - he was found dead in his home. It was the news I always sort of suspected I would get but still the shock was still mind boggling. I believe he had been dead for almost 7 days - - the third time the esophageal varices killed him and he bled to death.

I don't have to be scared anymore, avoid a lot of towns where I feared I would run into him, make sure I have a restraining order or worry he will come find me.

But I will forever be sad for him - sad for this loss of life to such a horrible, insidious and out of control disease that kills so many people. Sad that under all that alcohol was a genuinely good person but alcohol changes people - it changes their minds, their moods, their entire persona. Sad he suffered for so many years unable to recover, life for him must have been hell on earth. I hope he is now at peace and out of pain. I hope one day I can forget all those scary, sad, painful memories I have of my life with him - - one day I will.

God Bless all of you - those living with this disease in one way or the other. Stay safe and be strong.
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Old 11-02-2007, 04:26 AM
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Thank you for sharing your story.
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Old 11-02-2007, 07:58 AM
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(((dreamygirl))) Thank you.

Hope the future brings you peace and great happiness.
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Old 11-02-2007, 08:05 AM
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Thank you for sharing your story. I lost my boyfriend in a similar way five months ago. The scars will heal in time but our lives are forever changed as a result of our interactions with alcoholics.

The saddest part about looking around the room in Alanon and seeing all the sad, pathetic faces is knowing that this life wasn't forced upon the partners of alcoholics. They choose to live that way. Hopefully, in time Alanon will help them understand that.
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Old 11-02-2007, 08:07 AM
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Thank you - it took me a while but I got past it. I no longer have any love for him, he ruined all that with his abusive actions. Regardless of whether he could control his behavior he COULD control how much he lied to me before I even married him.

I have slowly but surely healrf - as we ALL do and moved on with my life. I have fallen in love with a wonderful man who supports, understand and sympathizes with all I endured.

It is sad that my ex died, but it was also to be expected given the way he conducted his life. I shared the story so others can see there is hope and life after a relationship with an alcoholic. To sit around for years and hope they will quit or think you can save someone who shows NO promise in recovery will only ruin your own life.
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Old 11-02-2007, 08:10 AM
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Originally Posted by FormerDoormat View Post
The saddest part about looking around the room in Alanon and seeing all the sad, pathetic faces is knowing that this life wasn't forced upon the partners of alcoholics. They choose to live that way. Hopefully, in time Alanon will help them understand that.

I AGREE! And that is what got me to very quickly GET OUT! Well that and the abusive actions and the continuous lies. The meetings I attended at alanon did not teach anyone or encourage anyone to get out - they taught people how to deal with existing with an alcoholic. That just was not for me. It would have slowly killed me and that is what it was doing to the people who were enduring it year after year.
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Old 11-02-2007, 08:30 AM
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Dreamygirl, Thank you for posting your story. As you can see, I just recently got an order of protection against my AH and we will be divorcing very shortly. He also has alcoholic liver disease, although no varices yet, just some fibrosis but no cirrohsis, and I can't just sit around and be there for him anymore. Your post and story centers me in what I already know, but sometimes refuse to admit or don't want to admit. Thanks.
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Old 11-02-2007, 09:10 AM
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Wow, that was a powerful story....so glad you are happy with your life now, you obviously did the right thing. Thanks for sharing x
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Old 11-02-2007, 09:45 AM
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Spectacular story. You are quite the survivor and I hope you never have to go through anything remotely like that again.

I also want to add that I hope others who are considering attending AlAnon or are currently attending (like myself) don't take your statement about being "sad and pathetic" personally. Everyone who makes their way to a meeting has a different story or agenda about their particular alcoholic, but all of us need support on our respective journeys.
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Old 11-02-2007, 11:38 AM
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Originally Posted by queenteree View Post
Dreamygirl, Thank you for posting your story. As you can see, I just recently got an order of protection against my AH and we will be divorcing very shortly. He also has alcoholic liver disease, although no varices yet, just some fibrosis but no cirrohsis, and I can't just sit around and be there for him anymore. Your post and story centers me in what I already know, but sometimes refuse to admit or don't want to admit. Thanks.

Trust me I was EXACTLY in your shoes. I had people who were not even involved in the situation (therapists, doctors, nurses, people on various message boards) tell me things I really did NOT want to hear - in others the plain, cold, hard truth. Everyone said - eventually you will get out and they said there was NOTHING I could do to help him - HE was the only one who could do that. I was convinced he would beat the odds and he would stop drinking and he convinced me of that (lie) many many times but then I gave up. I didn't waste a lot of time though - and thank goodness I did not because as you can see he did not recover and became another one of the very sad statistics of this devistating disease.

Hang in there - I promise you, your life will change for the better once you are no longer living with someone in the active stage of alcoholism.
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Old 11-02-2007, 11:41 AM
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Originally Posted by DetachMe9 View Post
I also want to add that I hope others who are considering attending AlAnon or are currently attending (like myself) don't take your statement about being "sad and pathetic" personally. Everyone who makes their way to a meeting has a different story or agenda about their particular alcoholic, but all of us need support on our respective journeys.

Sorry -that was a poor choice of words on my part. I can empathize with their sadness and take pity on those people because I was briefly living it myself. I suppose that is why I used those words because I was sad and pathetic myself - I truly was. It was only once I got out and took a long hard look at the REALITY of my situation and the extremely small odds I had of ever getting him to recover and how much my life improved when I was no longer being pulled down by the disease - that I was able to see what almost happened to me and my life.


People do need support during each of their journeys - I just chose to get it from my family and friends. I did not want support from people who chose to stay with active alcoholics - and just about everyone in the various groups I went to did just that. The few that left - were also very sad people. Personally I needed to purge it and then try to put it behind me. Talking about it after a while no longer helped.

Hearing that he just died has brought back SO MUCH of the painful memories - but eventually that will fade away.
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Old 11-02-2007, 12:10 PM
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dreamygirl, I thank you for your response, and I know you loved him. How did you get over it. Sometimes I get so sad that I know I'll never have the man I fell in love with. My AH was sober at one time over 14 years, but now he's late stage (last 6 years) and there is absolutely no hope. How did you deal? How were you able to put it aside and not look back???? I too go to Alanon and I find it's not helping me much right now. It's all too much at the moment. Thanks.
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Old 11-02-2007, 12:22 PM
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Here is something that really rang true for me when I first read it. It's difficult to accept, but so true.
It is so much easier to accept life as it is and make the best of it - there is a catch however. When we accept reality, and let go of trying to force our will on life and other people, there are feelings to deal with. One of the reasons we keep trying to control someone else (to get an alcoholic to stop drinking for instance) is because with all that frustration and anger, mental obsession and rumination, we don't have time to stop and feel how much it hurts, or how scared we are, or feel the grief of letting that other person go. The reason we try to control other people is to protect ourselves from our feelings - and it is important to admit that. Of course we want what is "right" for them, what is good for them - but we don't know what their "right" path is. Some people are supposed to die of Alcoholism - that is their path. --Robert Burney
Thanks for sharing your story dg. You are living proof that no matter what choices the alcoholic makes, it's your own choices that determine the outcome of your life.

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Old 11-02-2007, 12:53 PM
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Originally Posted by queenteree View Post
dreamygirl, I thank you for your response, and I know you loved him. How did you get over it. Sometimes I get so sad that I know I'll never have the man I fell in love with. My AH was sober at one time over 14 years, but now he's late stage (last 6 years) and there is absolutely no hope. How did you deal? How were you able to put it aside and not look back???? I too go to Alanon and I find it's not helping me much right now. It's all too much at the moment. Thanks.
It took time to put it behind me. I tried therapy initially before I left him - but they all told me what I did not want to hear - to GET OUT. My medical doctor told me to get out - that he saw all too many people like me in body bags eventually. He was very concerned for my safety simply because people who drink in excess or do drugs are unpredictable and he had made a few threats against me. He also turned into a mean, nasty drunk.

I was with him for 3 years before we married. A lot of people could not understand - they would say 'how did she get mixed up with him' or 'how did she not KNOW he was an alcoholic'.

I suppose only those of us who have lived this nightmare know. Because they are masters at maniupulation, charming, cunning liars! When we met he was finishing his masters degree and working a full time job. I tend to think he was on the wagon - briefly at the time. NO ONE ever mentioned to me he had a history with alcohol. He was only 36 at the time - but he had already had an episode of esophageal varicies at age 31, (THIRTY ONE and already had EV's!!!! That is due to many many years of HARDCORE drinking!) but he lied about that - told me it was an ulcer. He told me alcohol did nothing for him - once in a blue moon he would have a drink. He could control it that way. And in time I look back and now realize he began to drink again but never when I was around - well, when I was around he snuck it and I never suspected. But again I look back and recall him disappearing down in the basement where he kept all his clothes and stuff - and I assumed he was doing wash or whatever and he would come back up. I get angry at myself for being fooled - I can understand how it happened but it pisses me off that I was manipulated and lied to for sooooo long! And I married him under false pretentions, he never disclosed his history to me.

Once we married it was living hell. I honestly could not believe what I got myself into - it was an absolute nightmare! I left my dog (who is my baby) behind at my parents home because his dog (who I also considered my own) was dying of cancer and I did not want to upset him further because he did not get along with other dogs. For the first 3 months of our marriage I came to the realization that my brand new husband had a serious drinking problem and at the same time I was caring for our dying dog. I thought about leaving but - I could not leave this poor animal alone to deal with this drunken man as it was before we married and I moved in that dog must have suffered some horrible misery! THEN my husband euthanized the dog one night out of the blue without me ever getting to say goodbye, that nearly killed me. EVERYONE who loved me was absolutely blown away he could do such a thing to me.

After that - I thought maybe his drinking would slow down. Maybe he was drinking to deal with the pain of his dying dog. (DENIAL on my part.)
But it just continued - I could tell you some wild stories. And night after night he did not join his brand new bride in bed - instead he slept in a cold, damp basement with his booze - rarely even getting up to go to the bathroom and urinating in his pants.

Every week I would leave for a night or two and stay by my parents and go see my own dog to escape the horrendous life I was living - simply to go be with people who really LOVED me. I did not feel any love from him -when you ask me how I left, in time it became easier and easier because I just did not feel loved. I felt neglected, abused, criticized on a daily basis, called a *itch, a *****, accused of cheating and many other things. All lies. He also would not permit me to bring my dog to live with us months after his dog died. Making meals each night for a man who would not even enter thru the front door but rather came home and stumbled down the back stairs into the basement. I began to fear for my life - wondering what he might do to me at night or whether he would burn our home down. I also knew he had guns previously and I wondered if he still did. I would go into the basement when he was not home and pour out bottles and bottles and bottles of every kind of liquor you can imagine- but mostly CHAMPAGNE and BEER. Urine soaked pants were in our brand new washer - food scattered everywhere, candy everywhere because they crave sugar - tons of porn videos were found and I discovered he would go on the internet and look at preteen websites of clothed girls posing - legally - for the camera. But you ask how or WHY I could leave? Well I still hung in there, I made excuses - figured it was the drink that made him this way and if he could just stop. (DENIAL once again - this was a sick, sick man!)

So by July -when my parents went away on vacation for 2 weeks - and we had another week of his not sleeping in bed with me - I said I am leaving, I will be caring for my dog for the next 2 weeks and not coming back here, and I don't know if I will ever return. A few days later he called me to tell me he began to bleed - I told you the rest of the story and my horrible discovery. Him getting angry when I spoke to doctors and then being forbid to talk to them. But I already knew he was an alcoholic. I read every bit of info i could on the condition - I had hopes of saving him. Sending him to some expensive place, I would have paid for it (yeah like $20K - my nest egg would have been gone!) but he would not go. I took him to one place and he freaked out and made me take him home. They would not release him for 3 days as it was state facility but somehow he got out of it and they let him go. He drank again that night. I tried again - he went into a hospital rehab program for one week - but he got angry at me when he was there too. He lied to all the therapists, they could not believe I would stay with him, and thought he was nuts for not getting better in order to salvage our relationship. That was in September of 2005 - we were not even married a year yet (only 9 months) - and I was done. I could not talk to him anymore - because he just continued to turn it around on me over and over and over again trying to make ME believe I was the addict, that I was ruining our marriage, that I did not love him, that I did not care, that I was a witch, and a nut and everyone hated ME.

I just could not do it anymore - NO ONE, not you, me or anyone else on here should be forced to live like that - THAT is not love to me. THAT is not how I want to live. THAT is not a normal way of life to me.

I walked away - i said my piece through a letter and he ofcourse said I was crazy. He began to stalk me at work and was arrested on my work property for DUI. I got a restraining order - and filed for divorce. I told you about the trial 2 months ago and how horrendous he looked. Had not seen him in 2 years and he looked even worse. He had no job and was obviously still drinking.

I found out today that he drank himself to death. There were empty champagne bottles and beer bottles everywhere and vomit and blood all over. They say it was a horrible, very very bad scene. THAT is very very very sad. A sad way for a very sad soul to die. And a very sad way to leave those who love you - imagine his family and friends and the vision of his death that they will have to live with for the rest of their lives. I don't even love him anymore - I lost any love for him years ago, he gave me no choice. But I did not want to see him die - and even though the love is gone, the vision of his death will haunt me for a long time.

Alcoholics leave enormous scars on everyone whose lives they touch. The difference is my scar is healing, I believe I got out in time - others are not as lucky.

Get out for you - you owe it to yourself, you are worth it! You deserve to live a happy, loved life. You won't get that with him. Not now anyway. I told him to get sober for one year and come back to me - but he could not even last a week in a program. That said it all to me.

Take care and God Bless you.
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Old 11-02-2007, 01:06 PM
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((((hugs))))

You are an inspiration. Detachment at it's finest.

I like LTD's post
The reason we try to control other people is to protect ourselves from our feelings
There is so much truth in that for me. For so long I needed to control the outcome because I didn't know how to deal with the other person's consequences as well as my own.

As Jazzman said to me once - we are sometimes just holding up a domino in a run for a time. When we walk away, the run continues. Problem is, sometimes when we stay, the weight of the domino is so heavy for us and we feel we can't move from that position and so are stuck. It is up to the other person to put the rest of the dominos back in the box - we can't do it for them. Sometimes, walking away is the only option if one life is to be lived. I did it too without knowing what would happen. As it is, he found someone else to keep the domino from falling. One day he might not.

Glad to hear you are doing good, but sorry your return is under these circumstances.
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Old 11-02-2007, 01:10 PM
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dreamygirl, you have described alot of what I have witnessed lately w/my AH. When I was first w/him, he was drinking daily. After 3 years, I left him for 3 weeks, he went to rehab, got sober and was sober for over 14 years, during that time we got married and he was a great husband and father to my kids (his stepkids). When he relapsed 5 or 6 years ago, it wasn't that bad at the beginning and has gotten progressively worse. He has turned into a mean, nasty drunk. Liver dr. told him he had 5 years at best if he continued to drink, did that stop him, no. In May he was taken to the hospital w/a blood alcohol level of over .4 (usually comatose or lethal). After that, he went to rehab, which gave me hope for the future (considering it cost over $4500). I visited him every weekend to support him. He was sober for 98 days and has been drunk ever since. When he is drunk, he sleeps upstairs like your XAH, for weeks on end, doesn't care if he ever sleeps w/me, rather chose drinking over sleeping and sex, I just don't get. Yes, this is no way of life for me. I am lonely and depressed. My kids don't visit often (they can't put up w/him) and if I go out, I just have to deal w/him when I get home. Even though I am not in love w/him anymore, I do care alot about him, and it truly hurts me what our marriage has become and the sad fact that it is over. I need to grieve it, and then stay with family and/or friends like you did until it is finally over. Thank you so much for your post.
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Old 11-02-2007, 01:25 PM
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So sorry you are going thru all this. No need to thank me - I am happy to share.
I will pop in from time to time - I wish you all the best.
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Old 11-02-2007, 02:03 PM
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If I were to get nothing else out of Al-Anon I am so grateful for the 12 steps. For me, they are a terrific blueprint for self discovery and awareness. It makes me sad to hear some people only have meetings available to them that are not about self.
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