Minnie: Also check out http://www.GettingThemSober.com website . Toby Rice Drews who owns it (she is a teacher at Johns Hopkins for therapists,etc dealing in family recovery from alcoholism and author of the Getting Them Sober books) monitors the site and answers lots of questions like biology of the disease,resources,etc. She also recommends "Under the Influence". She also has a free email newsletter..it just arrived.

Minnie...That's what I just thought,too about the "volumes" I have written here.
Is it too late to move, or does it matter?

I am not sure how that work, but I really didn't mean to hijack this!

If nothing else this helps us to get to know one another and our situations!!

I have the first (I think) volume of the series - in fact, I got that before I found SR. I posted a link a while ago to some free book extracts of hers and, whilst I wholeheartedly agree with 85% of what she writes, there are what sems to me to be several glaring contradictions in her writings. I also have "Under the Influence" but am finding it heavy going, tbh. I am also slightly puzzled as to why a book that was published in 1981 (I think) is seemingly ignored by the medical establishment, but that may possibly just be my own naivety and ignorance.

Want me to help by saying something about quantities? Re-rail it I mean.

Something occured to me on the drive home. People with alcohol problems are still individuals physically and psychologically. I could be wrong (but doubt it) but I believe if D had drank some of the amounts here he'd be dead or hosptialised within a couple of days. Sure I saw his tolerance rise but to about the level of a heavy non-addicted drinker. However that was enough to effect him so severly mentally and physically that if he hadn't stopped alone his GP would have hospitalised him.

It possibly saved him from withdrawal symptoms such as seizures but it didn't save him from dependency, waking up drenched, shaking and a whole pile of other stuff.

I'm pro the clinical criteria both for abuse and dependency, it takes into account individual differences while giving clear parameters. I'm also pro the idea that we don't need a diagnosis to get help for ourselves, perhaps when that's the case we simply don't need it so shouldn't do it! I suppose it's almost impossible for me to know what that's like, D had been diagnosed before we got together - so take all with a pinch of salt!!

Better off in a PM.

Oops.

You ain't lived til you see a man take a full pint of vodka
and down it in about 10 minutes flat.....
Cold, room temp it didn't matter.....
Seriously, he did that so often it was mind boggling.
I too am trying to re-rail to the original request....
Since he is now out of my life I don't have to eye witness
this type of thing any longer, but it is something I will never forget.

equs: Good point abut the individual differences in amounts and effect. I guess that is one reason people like me start to wonder initially "how much is too much" and the answer is vague. But I do believe it progresses; tolereance rises different rate and speed of increase and then at some point, I hear the tolereance "reverses" and not in a "straight line"; I guess due to physical damage,etc. It is all very puzzling!

Watching D drink even his first pint was URGH!! He would sit and look at it for ages, an attempt to keep slow, he would set out to have 'just a couple', when he started to drink it half of it would disappear as it met his lips, then he'd stare at the rest a while. Once the first pint was down numbers 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 were shortlived.

Watching him drink since he came back was watching someone lose a battle. Watching him the decade before was watching someone who'd given up on life, but 10 years later it was a losing but hard fought battle. The one thing he thought gave him freedom to be was the same one thing that kept tearing up his life - if only he could control it and still have it I could HEAR that desire in his breathing.

I've seen people who drink a bottle of spirit (not that fast though patty!!) but for me it was the sense of someone getting squashed by it that hurt - whether by that first pint or a bottle of spirits.

Blimey its just taken me over an hour to read all of your replies!!!

I am so glad I started this thread, a bit like most of our lives by the looks of things..On the rails, off the rails..what fabulous writing from you all.
Maybe we should put together some sort of book (just from this thread alone would be a best seller!)

Seriously, it seems that my opening question has had you all stop and think indifferent ways, and I know for myself reading all your replies has been extremely helpful, as I hoped it would be.

To the ladies that thought it wrong to de-rail, I say don't feel bad about it and open another thread because this has been a big eye opener.

I guess one of my main reasons for starting this thread was down to the fact that as I have lived this way with AH for so long I had lost touch with reality and had started to believe that it was 'normal' to drink around 500 units a week (UK) when the recommended is around 21 !!
He is continually telling me that hes sick of me complaining at the amount he drinks. Trouble is he turns from Mr.Nice to Mr.Nasty within minutes which affects us all.
His reason for drinking so much ? Who knows... Some of you that may have read previous posts of mine will know that I lost my son with cancer and probably think that could be the cause. Sadly no, he wasnt his natural father and in some respects I wish he was as I'd maybe be able to understand better.
D and I only moved in together 10 months before my son was diagnosed , during this time we were going through the 'honeymoon' period and so his drinking habits were well and truly hidden.

It has only been since Tony's death that the full extent has been exposed.Due to grief my head was buried in the sand and I did not could/ would/ want to see the 'real' extent of his problem and over the years have tolerated his behaviour for an 'easy' life. He has admitted that he has had a problem with alcohol for about 30 years and this was the cause of 2 other relationship breakdowns.
It is now becoming a big issue for me as his drinking and health have spiralled out of control.

This week I have taken my doctors advice and asked him to leave, not an easy decision to make.
We are currently sleeping in seperate rooms until he goes.....

Ive just realised Ive gone off track ....I am so sorry!!!!!!

Sharon xx

PS Sorry but I had to write Tonys name I hate talking about him as if he wasnt real

Sharon: I am glad you posted this,too.

You are right about Tony's death. (I am so sorry about that,too. My son has had heart surgery and mostly gotten better. My mother had cancer, I helped care for her daily at home; she did not get better. I can only imagine your grief.) Your AH probably "dealt" with that by not dealing with it and drinking...my AH and A sister did during my mother's illness and death, son's surgery and complications, and any other medical crisis.....and there have been others of a serious nature. Just makes it that much harder for us who are left to pull their weight,too and not have their support for ourselves either.

I am glad you are here and posting. Please keep doing it. You have really helped me alot in this thread to see how much AH's disease has been operating in our lives and my thinking.

Take care.

(As for saying your son's name; I can understand that. I lost a baby late in a pregnancy, and it bothered me because it was almost as if it was a bad dream.......and I never even saw that child. My mother's best friend (she and mom are both gone now) had a daughter that died when we were about 9 years old. Merilyn told my mom once that it meant so much to her when we or someone else, during a conversation, would mention something about Kathy, or say " the reminds me of Kathy", etc.....that someone else still remembered her. Especially as she got older. As if when Merilyn died, no one would ever remember that Kathy had ever existed. I can understand that, and now I do not hesitate to say something for fear it will "remind" the loved one about their dead child,etc.........as if it was not there with them all along.) Sending you a big hug. Especailly now. One day or hour or minute at a time....

Everyone should be savvy enough to be financially independent of their SO, in this day and age

Yes, and we should all have a crystal ball that will allow us to see our futures. But we don't. All I had for my second marriage were my experiences and lessons learned from my first marriage. Oh if only all addicts or potential future ones were required to wear flashing neon signs alerting us to the danger. But they don't and I for one certainly don't like it when anyone, even without them meaning to, makes me feel like some kind of fool because I love one. To some of us, the addicts we love are not "throwaway" people.

Nicely said.


Sharon xx

That really means a lot to me knowing that I am least helping someone else even if it is in a very small way xxxxxx

I'm sorry to hear that something in this thread has made you feel a fool, Tom'sGirl. I've re-read it and I don't understand where that stemmed from.

And I don't see alcoholics as "throwaway people", but by the same token, I don't like to see two (or more) lives ruined by alcoholism. I was heading towards the cliff on the runaway train driven by my ex. I couldn't get him off it and I chose to jump. I still loved him then - love had nothing to do with it, unless you count that smidgen of love I still had left in me for myself. I'm not a throwaway person either.

I, too, take exception to the "everyone should be savy enough to be financially independent" statement. In an ideal world that should be true but most of us know that we don't live in that world. What about families with children where the mother doesn't work outside the home, what about disabled people who are unable to work. There are many, many situations where it is almost impossible to be financially independent. To make that statement is unconscionable, belittling and downright wrong.

Jo

Oh Minnie, no need to be sorry, no one thing in this thread made me feel like that. But some of the posts on this board and also, some of the attitudes of people in my life give me the impression that the A's in our lives are worthless and a waste of our precious time. I know some here have to deal with terrible stuff from their A's. Compared to my first husband my husband now is a prince. And like you I hung on to my first husband until I realized that he was never going to change and therefore, life with him was never going to get better so I too let go so that I could save myself. I just don't like being made to feel foolish at times because I care. Being told not to think about them. To only think about myself. I think about my husband all the time and that's because he is still in my life and more importantly, in my heart. But what I do or don't do in regards to him is dictated by how I've come to feel about myself. And on this board I just tell what I have done and what works or hasn't worked for me. I have no bitterness towards my AH. I have no bitterness towards my first husband. I guess when I see it in others it just brings back bad memories of seeing it in my mother towards my father. (My father wasn't an A.) I love my mother with all my heart but that pent up bitterness sure did make her an unlovable person. And once my father had a stroke and couldn't fight back, so to speak, my mother let it all out on him, full force. Oh well, I ramble. Sorry

I am sorry, yes, we say things like, they lie all the time, they don't love anything but the bottle etc. I know this sounds judgemental and as if they are scum, but that isn't it. That isn't what I mean. We are just saying how the alcohol affects the brains of those who drink too much for too long.
It is what alcohol makes the A do, often against their wishes, or what they become due to the alcohol. I know I don't make it clear enough that they are not bad or evil, it is just what happens.
I believe we need to love them, forgive if possible, understand. but sometimes we cannot live with it. Also we have found that detachment helps them as much as it helps us. Strange but seems very true.

I know TomsGirl , that sometimes it seems cold, hateful, etc. but you do know by now what we mean. Some days it hurts. They are never throwaway, HUGS