Leaving a late/end stage alcoholic
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Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Lake Luzerne
Posts: 1,786
I guess I'm not making myself clear. Life doesn't always give us choices. Sometimes it does and whatever a person chooses has to be right for them. I do not feel if someone decides to be present in the last days of a loved ones life, they are a failure in recovery.
If someone decides not to be there, that's fine too.
You are right, my choice.
We are talking about the end stages of this disease.
If someone decides not to be there, that's fine too.
You are right, my choice.
We are talking about the end stages of this disease.
Recovering Nicely
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 935
The end stage of this disease, IMO, is the hardest to deal with. They not only lose their health, but sometimes their bodily functions and most times, especially in late stage alcoholism and alcoholic liver disease, they lose their minds (encephalopathy) too. They can become agitated and violent, incoherent, etc. And if they are still drinking, it's even worse, combined with blackouts and Werneckes Enceph/Korsoff's psychosis. It's not a pleasant picture and in the end, it takes a toll out on the family also. What if he went on another 5 years or so like that? That has been known happen. It's called "lingering". By that time, the spouse/caregiver's health and emotional state has suffered immensely. I, personally, used to struggle with the same issue of staying or going. I know now I could not, nor would I want to, put myself thru that. It's not a matter of love or no love, to me it's a matter of self-preservation. Nobody does deserve to die alone, but then again, who created the "aloneness" in the first place?????
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Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Posts: 5,075
Originally Posted by mallowcup 
You can reenter his life on a different level. If we can watch anyone die alone and feel any sense of recovery in losing our campassion, I think we have to check ourselves.
I don't see the equation. I have chosen not to watch someone kill themselves with alcohol. That does not mean I have lost my compassion. To the contrary, my experience, including making the difficult choice to remove myself from it all, has made me a more compassionate person. I under this disease in ways I never did before. I have NOTHING but compassion for someone who suffers from it.
Everyone chooses their own path. It's when the judgments start - that I am less compassionate than another because of my choices - that I take issue.
Take what you like and leave the rest.
Recovering Nicely
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 935
I think I'm compassionate. I would never want any harm to come to my AH, I wish this disease would not take such a terrible toll on him, causing him such suffering. It actually breaks my heart. But, it breaks my heart and spirit, to where I was almost reduced to a depressed shell of a person (and I don't even drink!) to stick around and live with it. As much as I have compassion for him (and all alcoholics), I also MUST have compassion for myself.
Wipe your paws elsewhere!
Join Date: Dec 2004
Posts: 3,672
After Richard passed away, it saddened me deeply that he ended up dying alone in his apartment. I also felt quite a bit of guilt for not having the strength to be there for him during his last days. I expressed this guilt in a private message to my friend, Equus, a former poster on SR who helped me immensely during the time of Richard's death. As was the case with so many people who post on this forum, she was instrumental in helping me get through a very difficult time in my life. I pray nobody else here has to make the same choices I did.
Equus' response made me realize that some people choose to die alone and that I'd made the right choice for me. Here is a portion of what she wrote to me. I hope she doesn't mind me sharing, but her words were so helpful to me and I believe they may help others who may find themselves making one of life's most difficult choices as well:
Look at the kind of help people offer to strangers from the goodness of their heart every day on SR. What a blessing this site is. What a blessing Equus was to me. I miss her and think about her every day.
I don't think our paths have crossed here on SR by circumstance. They've crossed for a reason. Sometimes life changing lessons are taught by the weakest, lowliest of people. My lessons came from an end-stage alcoholic who managed to love me enough to give me one last gift of not witnessing his death.
Even in the wake of tragedy, there are lessons to be learned and there are a gifts.
Equus' response made me realize that some people choose to die alone and that I'd made the right choice for me. Here is a portion of what she wrote to me. I hope she doesn't mind me sharing, but her words were so helpful to me and I believe they may help others who may find themselves making one of life's most difficult choices as well:
I read what you wrote and something seemed to be missing, Richard. He could have tried to ring five times a week but didn't, he could have checked into a hospital but didn't, he could have tried to white knuckle it again but he remembered the last time and didn't. This person typing to you grew up thinking alcoholics are like elephants - you remember? I grew up where they wound up when they had long lost or left family but there was something I knew in my heart. They didn't leave the doss house my parents owned because they couldn't pay rent - the state paid - or because they weren't allowed to drink, they were, or because they were told to go, the other men didn't push them away BUT the alcoholics went off to die and I believe that was because of the little girl who lived in the cafe and they cared for. What I FELT/KNEW when I was 6,7, or 8, is that they went away from those THEY loved. In the last place on earth there was still a little girl so they didn't stay to die. D also went when he thought he wouldn't make it, and remember I let him with NO contact.
You made decisions, what benefit would have come from deciding to keep him? Do you think he really wanted you to watch? Do you think he'd have wanted the last thing he saw to be your destruction? I believe you KNOW he had gone past where he could stop, a risk with every relapse and eventually there is no stopping. HELL IT IS SAD, it's heart breaking but it didn't happen because you stopped sharing a house, it happened because alcohol effects the brain, it happened because people hurt and die, it happened because life can be as hard as hell and we can't make the probems go away - I can't take your grief away.
Think it through Jill, it wasn't just you making choices, and what part of loving you would have made him want you to watch what was going to happen?
You did the right thing - he knew full well you loved him, love is just like that, just like I knew the old men when I was a kid loved me - it stays through decades and heart ache, through all the changes life has, it stays and is the most important thing in the world.
That last phonecall, he didn't make it on purpose, let that be in your heart - he was choosing too and with good reason. You think the old men that wandered out of my childhood made a mistake? Do you think they should have stayed because I'd still have talked to them, because I'd still have laughed and played and known when to stand clear because they were going to fall or puke?
I grew up in the last place people wind up, no happy endings - at least not in the traditional sense but hell when I look back I know it was the happiest ending of all because I carry them in my heart, and I've lived with their love all my life. Elephants actually care very much, there's a deep gentleness sometimes in distance.
Does this make sense?
You made decisions, what benefit would have come from deciding to keep him? Do you think he really wanted you to watch? Do you think he'd have wanted the last thing he saw to be your destruction? I believe you KNOW he had gone past where he could stop, a risk with every relapse and eventually there is no stopping. HELL IT IS SAD, it's heart breaking but it didn't happen because you stopped sharing a house, it happened because alcohol effects the brain, it happened because people hurt and die, it happened because life can be as hard as hell and we can't make the probems go away - I can't take your grief away.
Think it through Jill, it wasn't just you making choices, and what part of loving you would have made him want you to watch what was going to happen?
You did the right thing - he knew full well you loved him, love is just like that, just like I knew the old men when I was a kid loved me - it stays through decades and heart ache, through all the changes life has, it stays and is the most important thing in the world.
That last phonecall, he didn't make it on purpose, let that be in your heart - he was choosing too and with good reason. You think the old men that wandered out of my childhood made a mistake? Do you think they should have stayed because I'd still have talked to them, because I'd still have laughed and played and known when to stand clear because they were going to fall or puke?
I grew up in the last place people wind up, no happy endings - at least not in the traditional sense but hell when I look back I know it was the happiest ending of all because I carry them in my heart, and I've lived with their love all my life. Elephants actually care very much, there's a deep gentleness sometimes in distance.
Does this make sense?
I don't think our paths have crossed here on SR by circumstance. They've crossed for a reason. Sometimes life changing lessons are taught by the weakest, lowliest of people. My lessons came from an end-stage alcoholic who managed to love me enough to give me one last gift of not witnessing his death.
Even in the wake of tragedy, there are lessons to be learned and there are a gifts.
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Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Lake Luzerne
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We don't have to be the ones giving the care. We can care from a distance. They don't have to live with us. I can drop off a casserole.
All I'm saying is that if someone decides to help a dying person, they needn't feel like a failure in recovery.
What I mostly referred was prayer for another. We can pray.
All I'm saying is that if someone decides to help a dying person, they needn't feel like a failure in recovery.
What I mostly referred was prayer for another. We can pray.
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Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: London
Posts: 219
My aunt was told she had 2 weeks to live for the1st time about 20 years ago. As a A that binges for months on end she has been told this again on many occasions. Her liver has been so bad that if it wasn't for her age you'd swear she was pregnant.
Though you certainly don't wish him dead he may hang in there for years with you on tender hooks waiting for the end to come. You'll do what's right for you but that's huge pressure to put yourself under
Though you certainly don't wish him dead he may hang in there for years with you on tender hooks waiting for the end to come. You'll do what's right for you but that's huge pressure to put yourself under
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Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Lake Luzerne
Posts: 1,786
I can. I will. I am able. These are huge recovery mind sets for me. They are true.
It would be a mistake to be involved in a dying persons life if we haven't changed our mind sets and their alcoholism still defines us.
I can't. I don't want to. I don't feel like it. I shouldn't have to.... are not mind sets I was willing to settle for. It is also not what a dying person needs and a person should stay away who is still fighting to seperate themselves from this disease.
I am a nurse, by choice. Not all alcoholics are the same.
At 83, after a lifetime of drinking and hurting my family, my father died a tiny crumpled up little man small enough for me to pick up and carry. The days before his death had nothing to do with me being a nurse.
When they can't hurt you anymore. There is nothing to run from.
There are combative nasty end stage diabetics who probably are best left in the hands of professionals and they get no benefit from loved ones.
Not every alcoholic is like the one in your particular life. This poster has asked what she should do based on her alcoholic not yours.
I say that respectfully. I don't come here to be challenged and my approach to many things are gentler. I am doing well. I am 20 years into my own recovery so I have my feet confidently on the ground.
An alcoholics behavior defines them, not me. They can drink, fall down, swear, whatever.
So what. My house, my boundaries. When I have had enough, I'll act on it.
There's alot we can do. I can call his doctor and get some pharmacutical intervention, I can take him to the mental health unit at the hospital, I can see what county agencies are available, I can pray, I can send a minister over.
If anyone in my home is not mentally capable of taking care of themselves and has little or no self preserving instinct, I will act on it instead of live with it.
None of us is the be all, end all. I can call an ambulance. I can call the police. I can call the doctor and say this person is out of control.
I have been spit at, kicked, choked, slapped all by choice I guess.
That wasn't from most of the alcoholics I have taken care of.
We try to have conversations with people who are drunk.
We are just as sick as they are and yet we develope an arogance that if we seperate ourselves from them, everything is on the mend.
When we fix ourselves, there isn't much we can't do.
Sure they have a problem. So do we.
I am strong, confident, able and pretty much unflappable at this point in my recovery. I am not mad or bitter. I am not an alcoholic. I define myself. I am not a reactionary or a whiner. I am not at 100% but well on my way after a lifetime of living with alcoholics.
I have never felt better about myself. I can be myself with out becoming the hub of the recovery universe.
I wake up feeling great and I am well able take my life in the direction I want.
It would be a mistake to be involved in a dying persons life if we haven't changed our mind sets and their alcoholism still defines us.
I can't. I don't want to. I don't feel like it. I shouldn't have to.... are not mind sets I was willing to settle for. It is also not what a dying person needs and a person should stay away who is still fighting to seperate themselves from this disease.
I am a nurse, by choice. Not all alcoholics are the same.
At 83, after a lifetime of drinking and hurting my family, my father died a tiny crumpled up little man small enough for me to pick up and carry. The days before his death had nothing to do with me being a nurse.
When they can't hurt you anymore. There is nothing to run from.
There are combative nasty end stage diabetics who probably are best left in the hands of professionals and they get no benefit from loved ones.
Not every alcoholic is like the one in your particular life. This poster has asked what she should do based on her alcoholic not yours.
I say that respectfully. I don't come here to be challenged and my approach to many things are gentler. I am doing well. I am 20 years into my own recovery so I have my feet confidently on the ground.
An alcoholics behavior defines them, not me. They can drink, fall down, swear, whatever.
So what. My house, my boundaries. When I have had enough, I'll act on it.
There's alot we can do. I can call his doctor and get some pharmacutical intervention, I can take him to the mental health unit at the hospital, I can see what county agencies are available, I can pray, I can send a minister over.
If anyone in my home is not mentally capable of taking care of themselves and has little or no self preserving instinct, I will act on it instead of live with it.
None of us is the be all, end all. I can call an ambulance. I can call the police. I can call the doctor and say this person is out of control.
I have been spit at, kicked, choked, slapped all by choice I guess.
That wasn't from most of the alcoholics I have taken care of.
We try to have conversations with people who are drunk.
We are just as sick as they are and yet we develope an arogance that if we seperate ourselves from them, everything is on the mend.
When we fix ourselves, there isn't much we can't do.
Sure they have a problem. So do we.
I am strong, confident, able and pretty much unflappable at this point in my recovery. I am not mad or bitter. I am not an alcoholic. I define myself. I am not a reactionary or a whiner. I am not at 100% but well on my way after a lifetime of living with alcoholics.
I have never felt better about myself. I can be myself with out becoming the hub of the recovery universe.
I wake up feeling great and I am well able take my life in the direction I want.
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Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Posts: 5,075
Originally Posted by mallowcup
I can. I will. I am able. These are huge recovery mind sets for me. They are true.
It would be a mistake to be involved in a dying persons life if we haven't changed our mind sets and their alcoholism still defines us.
I say that respectfully. I don't come here to be challenged and my approach to many things are gentler.
I am doing well.
P.S.
There is a wonderful novel by Margaret Laurence, one of my favorite authors, called "The Stone Angel." If you don't have time to read the book, it was also made into a film starring Ellen Burstyn. I recently saw it again on a plane. I won't give away too much of it, but at the end I did not think "what an idiot she is." Everyone's circumstances are different.
BTW, I was introduced to this Canadian author by xAH. Her work has brought a lot of joy to my life. So did he.
Last edited by denny57; 09-18-2008 at 10:35 AM. Reason: add book
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Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Posts: 5,075
Originally Posted by mallowcup
Wow! you win.
I value your input here very much, Mallow. I also very much admire your commitment to your work and the compassion you have for all the alcoholics in your life.
FWIW, I am in no way offended by what was shared in this post. It wasn't my intention to imply this was about winning or losing and I apologize if that is the way my responses read.
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Aug 2008
Posts: 163
Yes actually you have
You have hurt me to the core mallow. You have hurt me to where I do not care if I am banned from this board forever.
"When they can't hurt you anymore. There is nothing to run from."
How dare you? How dare you assume that sitting by and watching "on a different level" my husband die a miserable painful death would not hurt me?
Let me tell you something. I and I alone was there for TWO AND A HALF YEARS while my mother circled the drain with diabetes. When the aids didn't come I was the one who went to the cart and got the supplies needed to change her. I was the one who sat by her bed in the ICU when her miserable ******* of a husband lay in his own bed in his own home because "he couldn't deal with it". I alone was the person who's hands she grabbed at her final rally. My eyes alone are the ones she stared into when she said her final words. Would you like to know what they were, Mallow? i will tell you. She looked me dead in the eye and said, "You were a miserable bitch to have for a daughter and I wish I had never adopted you." Good thing she was dying and couldn't hurt me any more, don't you think? I guess if I had actually gone to work for a hospital after passing the state boards I too would be able to think about my husband of eight years illness on a "different level" but I chose something else.
My husband knows where I work and he knows my work phone number. He also has his fathers address and phone number not to mention his sisters. HE HAS CHOSEN TO NOT CONTACT US as much as I will damn sure not be bringing him a frigging caserole that he would most likely not eat and throw up if he did.
You don't think I pray for him??? I fought the entire state of Texas to get his ass out of prison and I won and if you think that doesn't take prayers well move there and find out. How dare you insult my intelligence or my compassion or my love for my husband. You don't suddenly come to love a spouse on a "different level" dear. We were supposed to sit on our front porch in our rocking chairs growing old together. I DID NOT CHOOSE FOR HIM TO DRINK NOR DID I ASK HIM TO BLACK BOTH OF MY EYES TO THE POINT WHERE I HAVE PERMANANT VISION DAMAGE. He chose to do that.
I came to this board for guidance and support as I work toward recovery not for someone to say "I don't think it is a stretch for a creative, half way intelligent person to incorporate some support systems to a dying person. Want examples?" ACTUALLY YES MALLOW. I WOULD. I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW HOW YOU WOULD RE ENTER YOUR SPOUSES LIFE AFTER YOU HAVE LOST YOUR HOME, WATCHED HIM GO TO PRISON AND SUFFERED THROUGH HIS INTERMINAL BULLSH1T FOR EIGHT YEARS. I'm pretty damn creative and I know I am very smart would you like to know what I scored on my state boards???? I would love to know how you would do it-show me baby.
"When they can't hurt you anymore. There is nothing to run from."
How dare you? How dare you assume that sitting by and watching "on a different level" my husband die a miserable painful death would not hurt me?
Let me tell you something. I and I alone was there for TWO AND A HALF YEARS while my mother circled the drain with diabetes. When the aids didn't come I was the one who went to the cart and got the supplies needed to change her. I was the one who sat by her bed in the ICU when her miserable ******* of a husband lay in his own bed in his own home because "he couldn't deal with it". I alone was the person who's hands she grabbed at her final rally. My eyes alone are the ones she stared into when she said her final words. Would you like to know what they were, Mallow? i will tell you. She looked me dead in the eye and said, "You were a miserable bitch to have for a daughter and I wish I had never adopted you." Good thing she was dying and couldn't hurt me any more, don't you think? I guess if I had actually gone to work for a hospital after passing the state boards I too would be able to think about my husband of eight years illness on a "different level" but I chose something else.
My husband knows where I work and he knows my work phone number. He also has his fathers address and phone number not to mention his sisters. HE HAS CHOSEN TO NOT CONTACT US as much as I will damn sure not be bringing him a frigging caserole that he would most likely not eat and throw up if he did.
You don't think I pray for him??? I fought the entire state of Texas to get his ass out of prison and I won and if you think that doesn't take prayers well move there and find out. How dare you insult my intelligence or my compassion or my love for my husband. You don't suddenly come to love a spouse on a "different level" dear. We were supposed to sit on our front porch in our rocking chairs growing old together. I DID NOT CHOOSE FOR HIM TO DRINK NOR DID I ASK HIM TO BLACK BOTH OF MY EYES TO THE POINT WHERE I HAVE PERMANANT VISION DAMAGE. He chose to do that.
I came to this board for guidance and support as I work toward recovery not for someone to say "I don't think it is a stretch for a creative, half way intelligent person to incorporate some support systems to a dying person. Want examples?" ACTUALLY YES MALLOW. I WOULD. I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW HOW YOU WOULD RE ENTER YOUR SPOUSES LIFE AFTER YOU HAVE LOST YOUR HOME, WATCHED HIM GO TO PRISON AND SUFFERED THROUGH HIS INTERMINAL BULLSH1T FOR EIGHT YEARS. I'm pretty damn creative and I know I am very smart would you like to know what I scored on my state boards???? I would love to know how you would do it-show me baby.
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Join Date: Feb 2007
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Originally Posted by FormerDoormat
Each person has the power to choose their own path and I've learned to respect the choices of others, even if I do not agree with the path they've chosen.
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Join Date: Aug 2008
Posts: 163
Mallow
First of Hi! Second, arguing on the internet makes everyone look stupid. I am sure that you have your reasons for what you said and now that I am not quite as big of an emotional mess there is a part of me that completely understands where you are coming from. You are right, no one deserves to die alone. My husband had a choice. He could choose to seek recovery or he could choose to loose his family. He has to live with that choice and or die with it if that is to be the case. I worked in geriatric nursing for many years so I do understand what you say when you say no one deserves that. I am sure that we have both seen wonderful people pass away and the only ones who cared where the staff. That is such an unfair thing to happen to anyone.
I was very combative in my post which I could have stated the same things via private message. Since I did not have the good sense to attack as I did in a private message I feel that I should at least publicly apologize if what I said hurt you. I don't know anything about you or what you are going through nor you me. It is unfair and unkind for anyone to assume that we know the best way to handle a situation. Although we may be in very different circumstances we are on a very long hard road with the people we love. We need to be there for each other when we can and if we can't be of a same mind set we need to at least care for each other.
Wishing you peace.
First of Hi! Second, arguing on the internet makes everyone look stupid. I am sure that you have your reasons for what you said and now that I am not quite as big of an emotional mess there is a part of me that completely understands where you are coming from. You are right, no one deserves to die alone. My husband had a choice. He could choose to seek recovery or he could choose to loose his family. He has to live with that choice and or die with it if that is to be the case. I worked in geriatric nursing for many years so I do understand what you say when you say no one deserves that. I am sure that we have both seen wonderful people pass away and the only ones who cared where the staff. That is such an unfair thing to happen to anyone.
I was very combative in my post which I could have stated the same things via private message. Since I did not have the good sense to attack as I did in a private message I feel that I should at least publicly apologize if what I said hurt you. I don't know anything about you or what you are going through nor you me. It is unfair and unkind for anyone to assume that we know the best way to handle a situation. Although we may be in very different circumstances we are on a very long hard road with the people we love. We need to be there for each other when we can and if we can't be of a same mind set we need to at least care for each other.
Wishing you peace.
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