choublak

My boyfriend's paternal grandfather was an alcoholic. He died at about 55 years of age, in the hospital, the doctors had told him he had five months to live but he said the doctors were wrong and drank himself to death trying to prove the doctors wrong. My boyfriend hadn't been born yet.

This grandfather was also in the Army as an officer, and a chemist. He received certificates of recognition for various things, and this is true because my boyfriend's grandmother showed them to us. He also served at least 20 years because the grandmother now gets some kind of military benefits pension from that.

Now the million-dollar question is, how does a person go from getting awards/recognition in the military to being so "possessed" by alcohol that it goes through their mind to drink themselves to death all in an effort to stick it to the doctors?

And how did he serve that much time in the military without getting caught or reported?

I know some will probably say "alcoholism does that" but that's exactly what I don't comprehend. Alcoholism runs in my family as well.

My great-grandfather was an alcoholic.
He could not keep a steady job.
When he did have a job, he spent every penny on alcohol. Blew his paycheck at the bars, went home, beat up my great-grandmother until my grandfather's eldest sister would interfere and actually fight back. He eventually left and never came back, was homeless, died like in his 40's. No military (or any other) recognition whatsoever.

Fast-forward a few decades. Several of my uncles have inherited the alcoholic gene. Some of them did 4 years in the military just for the money. At home, which was basically at my grandmother's house and in that town, they were known by the police. Police made frequent visits to my grandmother's house. My uncles didn't go to college until later on, so I kind of had this notion that alcoholics didn't go to college right out of high school because they were too busy drinking to get decent grades. Dumb, but that has been up until very recently (like the past few years) my limited knowledge of alcoholism. The alcoholics in my family drank EVERY DAY, when they were active. They weren't really in denial about it either, I even remember being like 8 or 9 years old and one of them telling me, "don't be like me".

This whole thing that alcoholism "did" to my boyfriend's grandfather is completely foreign to me.

undertowzen

I see you have several thousand replies, and I have less than 10 most likely, all on my own initial post. However dealing with substance abusers and alcoholics all my life on a daily basis, I have to say to you that there is no real thing you can pull out of a hat to say this is why someone reacts a certain way to day to day events.

I've came to the conclusion over time that you can only spot the problem, address the problem, and ask deeply for the problem to be corrected.

If the person can not respectfully agree, and you remain within their vicinity, you will become part of their problem.

If you know of these "problems" within the family ahead of time to you can know that they could eventually show up, but not guaranteed.

Its just like a disease/cold you never know if it will catch on, or at all. If it does, catch it early.

Good Luck!

ninja07

Is there any hope? I want so much for the monster that took my best friend to be gone so we can have our lives back... All of my relatives were alcoholics but I have no interest in it. I guess it's just a roll of the dice.

undertowzen

Again I feel so virgin trying to empathize with anyone here given my limited experience on this forum. I can say sadly there is no early detection signs that the person you or anyone you know is around will become the person they eventually become.

I have seen people go through alcohol and other substances, while completely wrecking everyone around them, come out on the other end ok. Others, well they do not. It all depends on the person. I'm very sorry to hear that you have someone caught up in this. No matter what "this" may be.

Like you said the outcome is a roll of the dice for hose inflicted. All anyone can do is let them know people love them enough to get better. Eventually if that isn't enough I'm not sure how much is. They must be willing to help themselves and you must realized "support" musn't be enabling. You must keep enough between the love and support part that you don't feel the need to feed their habbits in order to not see them hurt.

Justfor1

choblk, I have noticed that you often seek concrete, practical information and answers. The thing is alcoholism has no logic. People with low intelligence can become addicted to alcohol yet doctors and scientists get addicted also. Alcoholism is a very complex brain disorder. It is amazing that it is 2013 and we have advanced medical breakthroughs yet the best option for alcoholics is to attend treatment and/or 12step meetings. Sadly, the success of those treatments are not good.

laurie6781

((((choublak)))))

Hell I am one and I have no answers. I am an alcoholic, and my sister is not.
Yet we came from the same parents, go figure. There is alcoholism on both
sides of the family. My sister married a man from an alcoholic family. He
was and is Not an alcoholic. Of the four children, the youngest one has a
problem with opiates, brought on by a major health problem.

So why does one person become an alcoholic and another does not?? That I
cannot answer. I do know, for me, that it literally crept up on me. It seems
like, now when I look back, that one day I could have stopped and the next
day I HAD TO HAVE IT. The alcoholic CONTROLLED me, instead of me being
able to control the amounts I drank and when I drank. Alcohol had become
my master.

Alcoholism took me from an excellent job, making $50,000 a year when
most men weren't making that in '75, at age 30, to a falling down drunk
woman, living on the streets of Hollyweird. Yes, alcoholism is very pro-
gressive and I could not stop it. I had to have alcohol in my body and if
I didn't keep it at a certain level, I got dangerous doing anything I had to
do to get more booze.

No, after all these years sober and clean and working with others, I still
DO NOT UNDERSTAND IT, but I have come to accept that this is what
alcohol does, it triggers the addiction. Most of the folks I talk with and work
with do not understand either.

What I have learned is that I cannot 'fix' those A's in my life, whether they
are in recovery or not. The only person I can fix is ME. And boy has that
been a job, roflmao

Oh and as far as your BF's grandfather, I was 29 when the doctor told myself
and my family if I did not stop drinking I would be dead by 30. My attitude
was: "I'll show him!" And I guess I did, I found recovery 3 weeks shy of my
36th birthday, and died during withdrawals several times, and the ER Doc
was writing my Time of Death on my chart, when my heart started on its own.
I am 67 1/2 now, so I guess I did show that Dr. However, I would not wish
the hell I went through on my worst enemy.

I share with my Alanon friends and the newer members seeking 'help' to:

"Please stop trying to understand 'why' your A is doing this or that, and in-
stead work on you. Live your life the way you would like to see your A live
his/hers. You will find serenity!"

Just my humble opinion, based on my own experiences.

Love and hugs,

redatlanta

Why are some people functional and other not? Genetics maybe, rationalization of their alcoholism maybe. Or maybe its nothing to do with the alcoholism. We all have a tendency to attribute everything to it. Is it unreasonable that an alcoholic could have drive and ambition? No, its not. I have certainly seen it many times.

As far as Grandpa drinking to disprove the Dr's - you are getting your information second hand news about a man who was dead even before your bf was born. You are hearing someone else's recollection and there is always your side, my side, and somewhere in between the truth. Did he actually verbalize 'I am going to drink to prove the Dr's wrong"? Who knows. Who cares. He did what late stage alcoholics do - he didn't stop.

Have you seen the movie Flight? RAH and I watched it last night. I think it is a fantastic and accurate portrayal of functioning alcoholism and what happens as a person spirals down from functioning to not. RAH has often talked to me about the moment of clarity that all alcoholics must get before they can get sober - this is also demonstrated in the movie (gives me chill bumps) - watch it. It might answer some of your where, why and when questions.

Justfor1

redatlanta, I think that if a person has a mental illness, in addition, to alcoholism that it makes a person harder to function in society. Also, the type of job has an effect. For example, it's easier for a construction worker to come in smelling like booze than an office worker.

LexieCat

I "functioned" for a few years after my drinking took off. I always had a tendency to overdo it in the drinking department--I drank way to excess in college, for example, and often was the person sick in the toilet at the end of the night. Then when I got a job I straightened up. I still drank too much at parties and stuff, but I rarely had alcohol at home. Then when my first husband got sober the year before we got married, I rarely drank for most of the marriage. When it started to break up, I started hanging in bars with my friends and usually someone else would buy drinks so I was off to the races again. When my SECOND husband almost died of alcoholism, I stopped drinking to support his recovery. When he went back to drinking and we split up, then I said "Eff it, I can do what I want." And what I wanted was to drink. That was when my alcoholic drinking began--and it progressed steadily until I had my own "moment of clarity" four and a half years ago. My active, progressive drinking lasted about nine years. So I was lucky in a way--I didn't do as much damage as some people who drank heavily for decades.

What got me to stop finally was the realization that I was losing the ability to function at work. My daily withdrawals were so bad I was miserable all day and could barely focus. My career was extremely important to me, and the thought of losing it unbearable. The day I had to have a colleague drive me home because I was so sick from withdrawal I felt like I was about to pass out was my big dramatic "bottom". It was one of the "nevers" that had finally come to pass, and it wasn't a huge thing compared to what some people go through, but it was enough for me. I have a feeling, though, if I had struggled through it and kept going, bad, bad things would have been just over the horizon.

I can't say why that's all it took for me to be scared into quitting, and why it takes some people much more. Maybe I scare easier than some people. Maybe it hadn't completely affected the part of my brain that cares about consequences. The way alcoholism manifests itself varies from person to person, although we have enough in common that the same recovery programs work for most of us.

choublak

I'm going by what my boyfriend's father, the grandfather's son, said. He "battled for a decade" to try to get his father to get help. Nobody really knew how bad his alcoholism had gotten until it was too late. My boyfriend's father was in a fraternity in college and his father (the grandfather) used to leave the hospital and show up at his frat house to drink there, usually when BF's father was away. The fraternity brothers would keep him there until BF's father showed up.

FifiRhubarb

I feel you on this one, choublak. It is mind-boggling for me. I know I have an addictive/habit-forming personality, and that is one of the many reasons why I have never touched the stuff. Someone very close to me had a father who was addicted to drugs and alcohol 30 years ago, and still is; she went through a phase of partying a lot, but hasn't been a drinker in almost 10 years. She has been through a LOT and has never turned to alcohol as a crutch. Her husband, on the other hand, whose parents and sister all have drinking problems and who has PTSD, is a raging alcoholic. It is just so hard to wrap my mind around. My ex boyfriend had a rough first few years (abuse, foster care, etc) and seeks solace in the bottle. I have a friend who had just as hard of a life, with at least one addict parent, who is productive and healthy. It just makes no sense.

This may be a little off topic, but I am so sick of alcohol. I hate it. I hate it so much. I am tired of seeing it ruin lives and families. I all of a sudden feel furious that I, as someone who has never had a drink in her life, have felt so much pain from alcohol.

choublak

It's not the alcohol's fault though.

That's kind of like blaming junk food for obesity.

FifiRhubarb

Except that would mean I had never eaten junk food in my life, and yet was blaming it for my obesity...? That doesn't really make sense. The pain is mine. What caused it is the actions of someone who has given himself over to alcohol. I had nothing to do with that.

choublak

Not your obesity, the obesity of your loved one.

SullyS

I wish I could provide a reply that would ease your mind on this but unfortunately, I don't think I have that power. I do feel and understand the pain this causes you though and it just reminds me how bad the disease of alcoholism really is and how it reaps havoc in the lives of anyone near it.

The AA literature tells me that one of the consequences of untreated alcoholism is death and that is hard to swallow but in my experience and from what I have seen since I got sober is that this is true. I know that it doesn't matter what the persons life situation looks like from the outside, if they are a true alcoholic and do not treat their alcoholism it will kill them.

As was mentioned earlier, I think consistently trying to figure out WHY will only result in more suffering and the true way to get relief from this suffering is to work on your perspective of this unfortunate situation and I think Al-Anon is a great resource to help do that.

In all honesty, if someone one here posted something really amazing that made you understand why, do you think it would bring you any relief? And would it change the facts about what happened?

choublak

I know that untreated alcoholism can kill.

But it's the whole concept of, for example, the grandmother continues to get military pension money because of her alcoholic husband's time in the military. So she has some financial security.

Very rarely do financial security and active alcoholism go together.

This man has taken "high-functioning alcoholism" to a whole new level, in my eyes.

SullyS

I am sorry to tell you this but this is simply incorrect. Alcoholism doesn't discriminate and there are plenty of millionaire celebrities that suffer from it as well as people that are verrrrry well off financially speaking.

Rich people suffer from alcoholism just as much as poor people and in some cases it is harder for them to realize it because they are so financially well off and it is easier to deceive themselves and think their is no problem.

velma929

I was having work done on my house. One of the workmen showed up and I told him the tub was 1/4" too long to fit in the space built. he moved the wall - with a sledge hammer. He had been drinking.

I later asked a friend who had done construction in the past, "Hey, if you needed to move a wall, would you do it with a sledge hammer?"

"How far?"

"A quarter inch."

"Oh, all the time," he said.

I was quiet for a moment. "Do contractors typically drink a lot?" He sighed. Sometimes they do, he said, but then they're not contractors for long, especially if they screw up. "They become roofers. It's dangerous work, and most people don't want to do it."

No offense intended to sober roofers.

My husband was a functional alcoholic up to the age of about 40 or so. The company he worked for was taken over, and his job was eliminated. He would have rather drunk than work, so when unemployment benefits were extended, he took his sweet time getting a job. (Applied for jobs he knew he wouldn't get, didn't apply for jobs he would get.)

He got a similar job, but not quite to his liking. Beggars can't be choosers after all, and he'd waited until his benefits were about to run out to seriously look for work. His drinking got worse over the next 13 years.

Around year 12 he was put on probation for something or other, he didn't tell me about it for almost a year. He was on a salary, so he had to be at the office during "core hours" but wasn't strictly required to work a 40 hour week. I did know that some days he left for work at about 8:30, and was home by 4:00, and with a half hour drive each way, that didn't make for a full day. One of the things his colleagues complained about (it was mentioned in his annual review) was that he seldom answered his phone. Well, he wasn't there much, and when he was, he spent a lot of time outside the building, smoking, trying to calm his nerves til he got home to drink.

That takes us more or less up to the age of 53. He was fired from his job. He spent the next six years cycling from unemployment to entry level jobs from which he was fired.

By the time he was diagnosed with cancer he was drinking (I'm guessing here) in excess of two six-packs of beer a day.

choublak

They may be rich initially, but then they spend all their money on alcohol.

SullyS

That is incorrect. I think you assume every alcoholic looses everything when that isn't the case at all. There are tons of alcoholics that are perfectly normal in all of their affairs, including financial affairs, but when it comes to the drink they simply cannot control it. Meaning some of them are CEO's of huge companies and they are very, very successful. On the outside it everything looks perfect but on the inside their disease is killing them and causing them to drink. We call them functioning alcoholics.

I think your concept of an alcoholic is that of a skid row bum when in reality there are just as many rich alcoholics that appear perfectly normal on the outside.