Alcoholic suicide in extended family
 

It's taken me almost a week to find the energy to write about this...last week, one of my AW's aunts committed suicide. She was an alcoholic. Her condition had destroyed her family to the point that her children had broken all ties -- one of her sons didn't even go to the coroner's office. There was no funeral or memorial, because there weren't enough people who would have cared enough to travel. It was a tragic story.

She died the way she lived: by alcohol. She swallowed every pill in the house she could find and drank whatever alcohol was left in the house.

I share this story in the hopes that others may find it in a time of need, and find the strength to begin or continue on a path to recovery. For the addict, there is an opportunity to save yourself and salvage your relationships with the people who love you. For the people caught in the whirlwind of an addict's self-destruction, the worst-case scenario is real and you cannot choose the addict's path. You can only choose your own, and how much suffering you are willing to endure to feed another person's disease.

May she finally find peace with herself.

Terribly sad story that is all too common. How is your wife with all of this? Thank you for sharing with us.
M

That was the most disturbing part to me...I think I was more shaken up by the story than she was, and I never met the woman. AW just thought of her as "the crazy aunt." I would have thought that if I had an alcoholic relative kill herself while I was in rehab that it might have something of an impact.

I'm so sorry. What a sad thing.

jayscott,
i think your wife is still numb. (and dumb). as a recovering alcoholic, if i received news that an aunt died from alcohol, i would not be surprised, and probably think to myself, ha! glad it aint me.
now, i read that news, and i feel compassion and sorrow for the "crazy" aunt who died alone with pills and alcohol.
my entire family is riddled with alcoholics, so a death like this would not be surprising.
so, it might not have an impact now, but it could have an impact later.

i do understand why you are confused by her reaction though.

beth

Sorry to hear of this tragedy and my heart goes out to her loved ones.

Yes it is.

Sorry to hear that, Jay.

That's actually one of the things that scared me sober--not so much dying (and I was never seriously suicidal) but the thought that nobody would bother to come to my funeral. Oh, my kids would, my immediate family, even my first husband, but I had no friends and no life outside of work, and I wasn't close to anyone there. Basically, I don't think anyone would have cared that much. And I was doing it to myself.

As for your wife's reaction, it may have hit a little too close to home (in more ways than one).

While I have never been suicidal in my Alcoholism, I almost died from it anyway many times. One of my Best Alcoholic Friends Committed Suicide. It wasn't until I got into the Late Stages on Alcoholism and Chemical Dependency that I really understood this. The decent into the Black Hole of Lonliness, Anxiety, Depression, and Mental Illness causes Unimaginable Suffering. I chose a different (albeit difficult) path to end it though. I decided that out of all the ways there is to Die, this (drinking) was one of the worst ways. I cried out to God "I don't care where you take me as long as it isn't here".
Sober since Aug. 5th 2010.

I am that crazy aunt, mothe, grandmother and wife. I am losing relationships, respect at work my health to alcohol and frankly if I had pills and enough booze i would end the pain too. So selfish, but I hurt physically and mentally all from my own doing. I just finished driving 300 miles drunk. Not killing someone or getting pulled over. Of course I am too chicken **** to hurt myself and let those around me be free. I have been in 2 treatment centers and I see no end in site big worthless f....in baby :c020:

I'm sorry that this happened. Maybe your wife will eventually see this death as a potential. My ABF still justifies drunk drivers, and I just tell him he hasn't been to enough funerals.

Lushly -- one moment at a time. You're here, you saw this, and it may lead you to making different momentary decisions.

- Sylvie

I'm sorry for your loss. I feel sorry for the poor woman.

Thanks for posting this. I found in the last few months after moving clser to my mother that she has been drinking again, in spite of the fact she's already damaged her brain with it in the past. Currently I am the only family that still talks to her and she's lost most of her friends as well. I get frustrated at times but if anything this reminds me of why I need to keep talking to her. Don't get me wrong, I don't enable her. She gets nothing but food from me. But I still talk to her and hopefully she will never feel so desolate and lonely that she'd have to do something like this.

I was talking about this with my therapist earlier today...her first reaction was that it was probably too painful to let close to her heart at the moment. She has plenty of other things that she's working through right now.

lushly, if it helps at all, it was only 3 weeks ago that my AW sounded similar to you. Now she's in a rehab program (her second) that she found for herself. Will it be a new beginning? Who knows. But it's given her at least 30 days of peace, which must be worth something.

((Hugs))
Thank you for sharing and I am sorry to hear these news.

I'm confused. Are you saying this is you? Or is this sarcasm done poorly?

iam in too pain to be sarcastic poorly done or other wise. I am sorry if the message appeared as such. It is just so painful to get to the point that you realize you will die alone of you own volition. I feel so much n common with that person i ment no disrespect for toward her or her family. She had hopes and dreams and a life once too.

I was that woman also.

ANd I ate every pill in the house
and drank the last of all the booze
and somehow

I woke up.

I'd lost my kids
job
friends
reputation

everything.

I felt exactly like lushly posted.

I know something scarier than dying.
And that's trying to die
and not being able to.

But I've managed to turn this life around
through the Grace of God and
the program of Alcoholics Anonymous
nothing about that life exists any more
except the vivid memory....
my kids are part of my life
I'm in school
implying that I"m looking forward to having more life...
I'm clean and sober...

it is possible to change everything, lushly.

I am the walking talking typing proof of that.

What are you doing for your recovery?
You don't have to wind up like this woman.
What are you doing, today .... to have a different story?

jayscott,
Sorry to hear the news.

How other people react to this death is none of your concern. Sometimes I try and wonder why my AW does or doesn't react certain ways. Then I catch myself and detach from it and start focusing on my own feelings.

Yes, very bad habit of mine...projecting how I would react in a situation onto another person and not understanding why they behave differently. "but...but...if you could just see X and Y then you would decide Z!" I'm much better about it than I used to be.