Lizzieloulou

Only 5 nights ago it was carnage here with a tirade of anger and smashed kitchen utensils! Today, he picks me up from work asking to pop into the supermarket for something for tea...we walk out with our tea PLUS a bottle of bourbon! Tonight I have the usual spiel about how he is going to 'moderate' his drinking, come off the computer (as gaming and drinking go together for him), that he will embrace golf more and return to the gym...YAWN!! Wake me up when you actually say something I can believe!! There was a new sympathy tactic today though...new one for me...quote:" If I had cancer, people would pity me and be sympathetic...because I have an 'addiction' people should sympathise and not judge me..." As you can imagine, I didn't sympathise!...I stayed very quiet and, frankly, stunned! The only thing I did say was "outsiders maybe, but it's the people who live with addicts who find sympathy an elusive emotion!" Sorry...just felt like sharing this and getting it off my chest! Is anyone else out there just numb to these empty promises?

Kboys

Yep, been there. We get to a point that we just can't sympathize like we used to, and can no longer support the new strategies, because we've heard them all before, or some variation of them, and been disappointed....

I just read your last thread. He sounds dangerous and abusive ... and a lot like my separated AH...

Please take care of you tonight. Can you get out of the house and go do something else? Go stay the night somewhere else?

BitingTheBullet

Oh yeah! My AH has decided that his drinking is due to his anger issues. So he doesn't need AA he needs anger management counseling. Now its he just needs to read anger self help books not go to counseling. Which has progressed to he can drink as long as he doesn't get angry. Its never ending.

letitend

Lizzie - I became numb to everything. And when I wasn't numb, I was just mad, short-tempered, impatient and wanting to run away and hide under a rock somewhere. Moderation is a misnomer. Moderation, to the alcoholic, is some lie that he/she tells those around him/her. It is told only so they can continue drinking and not have to face any responsibility for their choice to continue ... drinking.

My xa has been out of the house for 3 weeks now. I feel sooooo much better, like I can breathe again. My patience with my son and dog are returning. I am smiling more at work. I am taking care of my appearance more. I am losing weight again. I don't have to sit and watch a person pug down 12-18 beers a night and then some and listen to him calling me names and making me feel bad about myself.

There truly is another way of life. One just needs to open the door and come to the realization that we do not have to stay trapped in perpetual alcoholic isolation.

Hangnbyathread

Yeah as much as I want to give the whole "This is a disease" argument support, it is just seems to be used as yet another way to take the focus off the fact that they are effing up everyone's life, and can crutch off the disease argument.

I actually do think its a disease. No addict wants to be an addict. The root physiology I support as a disease. The rest of the b/s......not so much.

MyLoves

been there. now when the bf starts to make promises i just tell him to save it and walk away. his words about his drinking mean nothing to me.

as far as your dh's argument :" If I had cancer, people would pity me and be sympathetic...because I have an 'addiction' people should sympathise and not judge me..." from someone that is battling her own drinking issues and is 11days sober - that's such horseshit!! the difference between cancer and being an addict is that the person with cancer doesn't have the choice. they don't wake up in the morning and think - you know what, i think i'll have cancer today!! but the addict does have a choice. they may have to make the choice several times a day not to have that drink - but the choice is still there.

ladyscribbler

If someone with cancer (or any other disease) was rampaging through my home destroying things I would have every right to remove myself (or them) from that environment. Having the disease of alcoholism and terrorizing your family are two separate issues. Booze might grease the wheels for some of the worst episodes, but it does not CAUSE that behavior, whatever excuses come out of someone's mouth.

LexieCat

I believe it's a disease, too--one that no one chooses to have--but that's not an excuse for bad behavior. People with cancer, or other serious diseases, usually run straight to the doctor to be treated (and hopefully cured) of their condition. They don't say, "Well, I've got cancer, so I might die and I can do anything I feel like doing and people have to excuse it and feel sorry for me rather than hold me accountable for my actions." I mean, geeze, even Walter White (for Breaking Bad fans) wouldn't claim his cancer EXCUSED his actions making meth and selling it.

Lilro

So he pulled the ole I have a disease card Huh? You're right! YAWN.....

dandylion

Lizzie.....it is good that you know enough to not buy the goods that he is trying to sell to you!

tomsteve

as a cancer fighter and survivor, the LAST thing I wanted was pity and sympathy.
as a recovering alcoholic, the LAST thing that was going to help me was pity and sympathy.

cancer didn't cause me to be a selfish,self centered egomaniac whining when people didn't show me sympathy or pity and cause me to treating people like dirt.
alcoholism did.

id be more than happy to sit down with youre hubby on that subject and call him on his BS about it.

theuncertainty

AXH went a step further than yours, Lizzieloulou: He actually lied about having cancer, and had me drop him off at the front of the cancer center at a hospital for "treatment" on my way to take our DS to surgery. Not that this is a contest; I really don't mean it that way. It's an attempt to deflect attention and gain, if not approval, then at least a not-to-be-held-accountable.

AXH's cancer lie was a hugely calculated attempt to garner sympathy and to try to take my attention off of DS. At the time, his behavior confused me. Now it just ticks me off to no end.

I lost 3 aunties to cancer between grade school and college. Each time it was very hard and heart-wrenching and I can't even imagine what it was like for my uncles and cousins. But I know that having cancer did not make them become self-centered, callous people, who treated their spouses and children like c***. But that is exactly what alcohol and drugs did with AXH.

Wait.... That's not quite true. That's just who AXH is. The drinking and drug use just gave him an excuse to behave that way, something to blame his behavior on and it let him expect that his family would accept his behavior.

Kboys

Wow

3littlebirds

This made me laugh it just sounds all to familiar!

Don't you just love how suddenly they just don't need help anymore and they can just somehow handle it?? lol

Lizzieloulou

Firstly, tomsteve; respect to you for maintaining such a balanced and selfless attitude after all that you have gone through! People could learn so much from your excellent example, and I sincerely hope that you are completely well and enjoying life! Secondly, the uncertainty; I was actually reading your reply with my mouth open! It is beyond words that someone can actually feign 'cancer' in order to be 'let off the hook!' Like another post said, I have lost not only relatives, but two girlfriends under the age of 40 to cancer, so to me it is despicable and incomprehensible that someone could do this! To mirror the general opinion of this thread, bad behaviour is 'the person;' alcohol just unleashes it more! Is alcoholism a disease or choice?....mmmm? Again, like others have said, an addiction is not a choice, but like any other illness, normal people go to get treatment! One thing is certain though...no man is an island, and for every action there is a reaction...also a consequence! If alcoholics don't wish to accept this, then they're on their own!

Lilro

Feigning Cancer...... Sounds like an episode of Real Housewives to me!

theuncertainty

I hope I'm not threadjacking, but IKR? Sometimes I wish I made it up or imagined it. It'd be easier to see some of the good things about him without that in the way. (And sometimes I do need to see those -- DS does occasionally ask about his dad.)

I suspect that at a certain point in our relationship, I'd have pushed that series of events back so far that I could be gas-lighted into thinking it didn't happen or wasn't a big deal. And it is. I completely agree, Lizzieloulou, that it's a completely despicable thing he did: to fake having a terminal illness to get a free pass. It's weird to look back and see that I could have been convinced to diminish its gravity.