tpen

The movie is half way done and this thought keeps echoing in my head. I want to ask it. Bill Wilson is portrayed as a very, very drunk person and that is when all the fighting occurs. Is this true with every alchoholic? I ask since my XGF was never drunk like that except twice in two years. I only saw her on weekends so there was a three day period to perhaps not drink much.

I'm new to alchoholism, but am affected deeply by it. I would appreciate any feedback on this please. Are are achoholics drunk and stupid, or can they drink alot without being noticed as being drunk?

Ceres

In my experiemce, yes, mostly. But, when sober I'd be in a pissy, pissy mood anyway. Didn't necessarily want to argue, just wanted you OUT OF MY WAY. My mother was the same way too, twords me. (ugh!)

Oh, I'd have to drink an obscene amount before I'd say it was noticeable. The dark periods were really late at night when I was really, really, gone.

kv816

The "monster" was more apparent in xabf when he was drinking. I'm not sure I'd even consider him drunk when Hyde came out (probably would have miserably failed a breathalyzer but still was not 'drunk' for him).

BUT, about 6 months ago he accepted a boundary of 'don't drink around me'. We'd spend a few days together, and he'd be dry the whole time. There was never a set amount of time we were staying together at my place but I always knew it'd only be 3 or 4 days tops. By that 3rd or 4th day, withdrawal would start setting in and he'd get angry and Hyde would come out, even without the alcohol.

I recently met a guy who I found out a few days ago is 4 years sober. I asked him what made him clean up and he said it was when his 7 year old son told him he became a mean, monster daddy when he drank. Served 90 days for a DUI that night. Never drank again.

Kittyboo

I could never tell when my XA was drunk....even when he was drinking for hours with me on the phone, he never slurred, or rarely, and it was when he was drinking that he was the most gentle, sweetest guy....that is really the only guy I know.
I don't know him sober I think.
He wasn't drunk all of the time of course, but the times we have gotten in arguements have typically been during the day when he's not drinking.
When he told me I was insane and pulled the blame shifting was in the morning during work.

So, I don't know, I feel with him drinking actually makes him sweeter. Drinking calms him....it's how he copes with memories of the war too. So he has a violent side, but I never really saw it. He would tell me about fights he got in though when at a bar. And even when he would tell me about it, I had a hard time picturing it because I couldn't imagine him to be that way. Then again I have no idea who he really is.

I think I am no help here. LOL

Thumper

Well, my husband was not a mean drunk. He didn't every say mean things to me. He was emotionally manipulative and undermining in many ways but he did not say unkind things. We rarely had an arguement and when we did it wasn't to big of a deal. No screaming or anything. He drank every single day. For years it was 6-12 beers a day with much more on the days he hung out with friends or with his brother. During those years he would sometimes get drunk with his buddies but by and large he'd drink the 6-12 beers at home and hardly ever appear drunk. I could tell looking at his eyes and there was a minor shift in his communication style but most people did not know. A few times a year he'd drink so much at home he'd slur words or stumble a little bit. Eventually he quit doing as much with is friends/brother but he bagan drinking more on a daily basis. In the last year or so he was drinking *at least* a 12 pack of tall beers a day. Sometimes more. It was probably more then that because he hid a lot of the drinking I found out after. We went on a vacation and he was drunk much of the time - odviously so. That is an enormous amount of beer for him. Even then he didn't get mean or out right abusive. That came after I rocked the boat and filed for divorce.

Kittyboo

Thumper- that's one of the things that I have been struggeling with as far as taking responsibility for ruining the friendship as he told me I did.
He also never said mean things to me. He was never disrespectful with the things he said...but he was incredibly emotionally manipulative. I think that is one of the things that makes it confusing in such a deceptive way....
Sometimes I start to think that maybe if they aren't mean and cruel verbally then MAYBE they aren't too bad?
But I quickly try to remember the lies and the manipulations.

True with me too....he did not become outright mean in what he said to me until I stood up for myself and said what I wanted to say first. That's when the tables turned. But he still never cussed or yelled at me....just blamed me.

Thumper

The emotional manipulation and underming are very deceptive. I couldn't wrap my brain around it. I didn't listen to my gut at all. I used to wish he'd hit me, or pray he'd cheat. I wanted him to do *something* that was the equivalent of holding up a neon sign and I could point and say "There. He did this thing and this thing is not right." I have a little more time away then you - and I had more years with him so I have a nice long list of things that made living life with an alcholic extremely difficult and painful, even if they didn't cuss me out, so I am not struggling so much with that I guess. At first it was really hard though

Now I look back and I wonder how on earth I ever became that woman. How did I let that happen? How come I did not hear, listen to, or respect my inner voice? How did I not value myself? I have more anxiety over that then I do anything else because that is not something I can divorce. I carry that with me everywhere...and it scares me.

MissFixit

Binge A's are harder to pinpoint than daily drinkers. MAybe she is a binger.

Kittyboo

How did I let that happen? How come I did not hear, listen to, or respect my inner voice? How did I not value myself? I have more anxiety over that then I do anything else because that is not something I can divorce. I carry that with me everywhere...and it scares me.

I hear that!! And I too have found that it's forgiveness of ourselves that often seems the most difficult.
BUT, all of those things you just said, there is a lesson in them, and it shouldn't scare you. At least I look at it as a lesson showing you that there is nothing to be scared of because you are aware of your inner voice. It's just that at the time you chose to ignore it for certain reasons (as did I)....but now I will take my inner voice more seriously, and acknowledge it.
Your inner voice is a GREAT thing, and that is what we carry with us.

BadCompany

Actually you kinda nail it. The alcoholic drinks to calm the restless, irritable and discontent that comes with this disease. Early in our alcoholism it works, but as the disease progresses there isn't enough alcohol in the world to make the goblins go away. End stage alcoholics are just drinking to blot out our consciousness. That is the only respite we get.

Page 25 Big book.

tpen

Makes sense. She took anxiety pills at night. After reading above posts would think it was to calm herself. Learning more and more.

FlipflopGal

Speaking for myself, I was nicer when drinking because I was doing things *my way* which comes from the selfishness that was once in me. The only times I ever got mean when drinking is when I was in a relationship with another alcoholic. Then we both were trying to do things our way and it was clashing to say the least. As an above poster said, alcohol calmed me. I felt *at ease* and that huge empty hole inside of me was being filled with alcohol.

What a difference it has become after finally being 100% willing to work the 12 steps!

barb dwyer

Bill W. *WAS* a very very drunk person.

You had to be EXTREME to get locked away that many times back then.

Bill W. also suffered - and I mean - SUFFERED with depression for all his life.

I know as a bartender I learned
NOTHING is nastier than an alcoholic when confronted with what they don't want to see.

Then again -
I've never met anyone who doesn't turn to dookie when faced with their own truth
in a way they can not control.

I mean,
Bill and Dr. Bob ... Ebby...
all of 'em were in the 'lockdown'
strapped down in asylums with the full blown D.T.'s...

... more than once.

At the end of my own drinking -
I was taking pills in the am to 'get going'
meaning to stop my shakes so I could work...
and pills at night
to 'calm down' enough to sleep.
Pills to control diahreaah (-sp)
and pills for 'stomach upset'.
Pills for headaches and aching bones....

My own boss the bar owner
would talk to me while we both drank at the bar -
he'd tell me time and again
that I just didn't drink like they did
and I should slow down...

...and I actually thoguht
he justy didn't understand me
because I wasn't born and raised here in this town.
That he didn't UNDERSTAND that the only thing
that made me different was because
he'd never lived anywhere else.

Yeah.
A man who's owned a bar
a HEAVY DUTY DRINKER bar
for over forty years.

barb dwyer

we will say and do whatever we need to
in order to continue.

Frankly I'm surprised Bill DIDN'T get violent.

JoeVet

I didn't notice when my AW started drinking. She got fired from her job and ended with acute liver failure and I didn't know. After that she just let herself go and drank to where she was incoherent or passed out altogether. She just started getting belligerent this year. I think this is because I have learned to detect the subtle slurring of speech and I call her on her drunkenness. Ever since I stopped helping she has gotten vile and nasty.

IamSaved

Every person who has been with an A has a different experience, but the core of the problem is always the same.

Whether the A is mean, abusive, sweet, kind, slurred, etc, the sad truth is they all HIDE behind the alcohol. They are not present, they are not their true, real selves. You never get the 100% of who they are. You may get 10-20% of their potential, the rest is all alcohol. The moments my A was sweet, I forgot the 90% of the time he was drunk. Amazing how our minds work right!?

My A has SO much potential. The guy he was 10% of the time was the one I wanted for the other 90%, but I never got. The 10% guy is the one I loved, the one I miss, the one I wanted to share my entire life with.

The sad part is the 90% guy is who he REALLY is. Drunk, angry, resentful, self-loathing and unwilling to change. He will never realize his full potential, so sad.

When I realized that, it was easy to walk away and let him live his life his way. I was disillusioned by what was NOT real. What never existed. I walk with peace, now that I can leave Mr 90% behind. I still miss the sweet, gentle soul that exists deep in his soul. Unfortunately, that man doesn't have a chance against the alcohol.

Alcohol sucks.

CAPTAINZING2000

Could it have been possible Bill suffered from PTSD from WW1 ??


I had a lot of fights no alcohol involved. I used drinking as a way of coping with a wife suffering from being Bipolar

Learn2Live

Assuming your second "are" was meant to be "all": Some people drink and you can't even tell. Some people have one drink and they are very obviously tipsy. Every person is different in how they are affected by alcohol. Women do not metabolise alcohol as easily as men. We also change according to what stage of alcoholism we are in.

SecretLife

Relatively new to recovery, my ABF states that HE doesn't even know himself because he has been an acoholic for over half of his life. All I know is now when I tell him something from our past together, he says it's like starting a whole new relationship because he is not drunk.

He never slurred, never stumbled. I think it was a little over a year before I knew the scope of his drinking. We did not live together, but his late night, after hours, stops at my house, interrupted my life and my household. In the beginning, he was not comfortable stopping by at 3 or 4 a.m., but it got to that point eventaully, too. I told him, then, my feelings for him were changing, and he tried to quit FOR ME. Of course, that didn't last but 31 days.

Now he has quit for himself, the reasoning is not all clear to me, but he's doing it, and committed himself to it. He's recently changed other addictions that he had held onto for his "crutch" while not drinking. I hope and pray for the best. But I'm still "trying to help" him. My error of ways, that I intend to get a handle on by reading/ posting here, and Ala-Anon.

I'm so glad I watched the movie by myself. I did alot of reflecting, and I'm so grateful to see something so powerful aired! Incredible this program worked then, and continues to work today! Lois' mom's comments while on her death bed, were bone-chilling to me!

JenT1968

much of the time I think it would be nigh on impossible for anyone to tell that my xAH had been drinking. I can tell most of the time, a very slight change in his voice as if his toungue had got slightly thicker. A slight change in his posture, some tell-tale habits. But even I couldn't always tell and this was after 9 yrs living together and a very developed hypervigilance with regard to his state of drunkeness.

I once left him in charge of our son for 1 hour in the morning whilst I went to the gym, I watched him and was convinced he hadn't been drinking (and I asked him and he said he hadn't) I returned 50 mins later and he was passed out on the kitchen floor with my son screaming next to him.

I have had conversations with him that were increasingly bizzare, where I would be second guessing myself over some hurt attitude that he had and find myself apologising for something that I did that he worked up into something entirely different, I would feel crazy then walk back in to him 10 mins later and he would be passed out on the chair.