Shocked and amazed by physical appearance from drinking ??? Anyone else
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Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: where the streets have no name
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Shocked and amazed by physical appearance from drinking ??? Anyone else
I recently had an encounter with xAW and literally did not recognize her.
The body and face is quite bloated, the contours I knew before completely different. She drinks beer and smokes.
I asked her who she was and subsequently was floored.
Anyone else have a similar experience?
The body and face is quite bloated, the contours I knew before completely different. She drinks beer and smokes.
I asked her who she was and subsequently was floored.
Anyone else have a similar experience?
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Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Australia
Posts: 281
Hi Steve,
I've had the same experience with my XADFH. Not to the point of being unrecognisable to me, but our little daughter hardly recogised him. She kept looking at his face, touching it and moving it side to side to have a better look. His face becomes very bloated, red and puffed up especially after a binging for up to a week. And his stomach becomes very bloated. It's very sad...
I've had the same experience with my XADFH. Not to the point of being unrecognisable to me, but our little daughter hardly recogised him. She kept looking at his face, touching it and moving it side to side to have a better look. His face becomes very bloated, red and puffed up especially after a binging for up to a week. And his stomach becomes very bloated. It's very sad...
To thine own self be true.
Join Date: May 2009
Location: U.S.A.
Posts: 5,924
Yup. Shocking. Nope, did not recognize him. Scary. It was so severe, like you say, it made me panic and run around like a crazy person doing whatever I could to try to convince and help him to get sober. That took two whole years out of my life and yes, he's still drinking.
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Originally Posted by Learn2Live 
Yup. Shocking. Nope, did not recognize him. Scary. It was so severe, like you say, it made me panic and run around like a crazy person doing whatever I could to try to convince and help him to get sober. That took two whole years out of my life and yes, he's still drinking.
My reaction was " wow, I apologize, I am so sorry I did not recognize you" Then, to my great NON surprize, began to reel off more nasty, arrogant and twisted versions of her reality. She has become an even more angry alcoholic after I obtained an "adultery" based divorce.
I wonder if the alcoholic looks in the mirror and knows something is dreadfully wrong?
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Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Australia
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My XA says he doesn't notice the difference...but it's very obvious to others. One of my friends literally reeled back when she saw how he looked after a binge... Where I come from, the only legal grounds for divorce we can apply for are that the marriage has irretrievably broken down. I think we used to have other grounds. Maybe they changed it because some people got very cranky? 
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Join Date: Feb 2009
Posts: 2,064
I see people all the time that are normal people that aren't involved in addictions that have gained 50 pounds in 2 years or has some illness that changed the way the appeared, I don't focus on what they look like I figure life has been hard on them. I gained 15 pounds after finding recovery so people might very well think I look worse but don't know that inside I've changed so much. Or maybe I'm still delusional and I look better now. It is what's inside that counts.
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Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Australia
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That's true Mediation. I've put on 8 kilos myself this year and can hardly do up my jeans! It is what's inside that counts. From what I'm gathering from the posts and replies, it's not really about judging the way our A's look, it's just that the way they look can be an indicator of how far the disease has progressed because it's obvious (to us) it's the result of drinking. When my XA has had bouts of being dry, his blood pressure goes down, his bloating goes down and he starts to look healthier.
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Join Date: Feb 2010
Posts: 218
I had a digital version of this not so long ago. I was updating an online photo album and some photos of my last trip with XABF were in a file. Hadn't seen them since the trip. One photo was taken side-on and he looked about eight months pregnant with the bloating. I didn't notice this at the time (ugh).
His face was also like a water balloon after he had been on a binge - just totally changed shape. He had been a completely different person when we met and he was sober. I really hadn't registered the physical changes that happened during the year we were together (denial? seeing him so often?) but I dug out photos from the beginning of our relationship and in 12 months, he looked like a distinctly different person.
Then again, so did I - I was so anxious and sick that over that same year I looked about a decade older and I was a bag of bones by the time we were finally through.
His face was also like a water balloon after he had been on a binge - just totally changed shape. He had been a completely different person when we met and he was sober. I really hadn't registered the physical changes that happened during the year we were together (denial? seeing him so often?) but I dug out photos from the beginning of our relationship and in 12 months, he looked like a distinctly different person.
Then again, so did I - I was so anxious and sick that over that same year I looked about a decade older and I was a bag of bones by the time we were finally through.
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Join Date: Jan 2008
Posts: 133
I saw my XAB for the first time since May....he's lost 60 lbs., hair is thinning, looks like he's got two black eyes, and he looks to be in his 70's, easy. He is 47. I seriously just wanted to cry. It was a shocking moment. He hadn't showered in a week either. No haircut in 6 months.
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Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: USA
Posts: 1,118
Funny you should say that, because my AH came in the other day, and his face looked like a worn leather saddle. It freaked me out a little, and I couldn't help myself--I couldn't detach. I just asked him if he wants to live or if he wants to die. He looked a little shocked, but I was just as shocked looking at him.
I remember someone at an Al-Anon meeting had said she stopped drinking when she was told, lovingly, by her husband, "I can see the liquor in your looks."
I remember someone at an Al-Anon meeting had said she stopped drinking when she was told, lovingly, by her husband, "I can see the liquor in your looks."
To thine own self be true.
Join Date: May 2009
Location: U.S.A.
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My Dad is a horrible mess, late-stage bloating but skin and bones everywhere else, looks 20 years older than he is. I could tell you more but honestly, it feels wrong to talk about him in that much detail.
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Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Kansas
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I think it was late last year when I was at the grocery story shopping. I pushed my cart past a short guy with his back turned to me. He glanced my way, and I did not recognize him. He said "Hi DeVon." I stopped, looked, and realized it was the EXAB I relapsed with over 20 years ago.
I just said hi and kept on going. He was once a strapping young man, very stocky and muscular, worked as a welder.
Now he has a huge pot belly from all the beer drinking. His skin was grey that day. I literally did not recognize him at first.
He hooked up with another active alcoholic/addict after we both relapsed, and they are still married to this day, drinking/drugging themselves to death.
It's sad, but that's his choice.
Thank God I made it back into recovery, and chose life.
I just said hi and kept on going. He was once a strapping young man, very stocky and muscular, worked as a welder.
Now he has a huge pot belly from all the beer drinking. His skin was grey that day. I literally did not recognize him at first.
He hooked up with another active alcoholic/addict after we both relapsed, and they are still married to this day, drinking/drugging themselves to death.
It's sad, but that's his choice.
Thank God I made it back into recovery, and chose life.
Living in a Pinkful Place
Join Date: May 2006
Location: Louisiana
Posts: 7,545
to me the saddest part is to see the darkness of the disease in their eyes especially once you have seen the light of recovery in those eyes -
it is the most heartbreaking thing I have ever witnessed to slowly watch that light die, as the disease took back the recovering person's life.
- prayers for those ones still out there and HUGS for their families
it is the most heartbreaking thing I have ever witnessed to slowly watch that light die, as the disease took back the recovering person's life.
- prayers for those ones still out there and HUGS for their families
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