whispers and dementia
 

about 2 years ago I experienced an amazing year of sobriety and was feeling on top of the world---my sobriety was the most important thing to me--then---I met someone and fell hopelessly in love ---of course--he was an alcoholic.
But unlike the other aalcoholics I had dated over the years--he drank so heavily that one night after having lived with him for 4 months he claimed that he was hearing wispers and that they were coming from ME???!!
He claimed I was throwing my voice and saying awful insulting things to him---and that I was making him go insane.
of course I had NEVER in my life heard of this sort of madness and for a spell I even considered that I might be doing it in my sleep---but I quickly realized that there was no way that I was capible of that kind of cruelty.

Months of tears and screaming ensued and I finally moved out--but during all of the madness I saught the help of several doctors who specialized in drug addiction and NONE of them knew anything about what the wispers might be--UNTIL i read in the AA book that was given to me 3 friggin days ago. In there was a story called "tightrope" and it told a story of a recovered alcoholic retelling his experience with hearing wispers in his last days of drinking heavily...

WHY IS THIS NOT WIDELY KNOWN???I coul d have been spared a years worth of agonizing confusion had someone just simply said --a man who drinks a fifth of scotch every night is going to experience hullucinations and dementia!!
He still to this day drinks as heavily and claims that my wispering caused us to fail as a couple.....

Has any recovering alcoholic out there ever experienced this and if so---WTF???How do you go about treating it??????????Or telling the alcoholic that hes losing it???????

great.....
once again..I get nothin...

i guess it is a pretty scary subject---

but its a real subject and I believe its a real part of how some people process alcohol.

I guess the powers that be want me to ride solo on this one--

Cupcake...

I'm here for ya...

I have never experienced drinking the the extent of dementia that you describe... but... I can easily see it happening.

In my drug and booze infested days... I would see and hear things that caused me to startle... but it was because my nerves were shot from non nutrition, no sleep... drinking and drugging every day... and lots of cigarettes... as well as dysfunctional relations with men.

I could be angry as well for not having someone jar me out of my dysfunction... but... I now believe we hear the message when we are damn good and ready to hear it.

All things that happen in life can be used as a learning experience ... and that's the only way to turn a negative like what you experienced into a positive.

Alanon can help put things about your guy in perspective. There is an Alanon board a little further down the forum. Lots of feedback there.

Glad ya stuck around... ;o)

hi cupcake.......

Wow, I'm sorry you agonized for so long over this, but glad to know you did become aware that it wasn't you!

I've never expereinced this form of dementia, but in the last part of my drinking I had similar experiences to bikewench. Lack of sleep can drive one nuts :-P.

I'm glad you stuck around too!

Cuppy cake, just reading this post gives me shivers. I'm not sure if your bf's experiences are similar to the ones I had during my heavy using time, but it sure sounds like it. Although I didn't drink too much I was a heavy crack user and I can remember the voices in my head of those close to me. After being on a 3 or 4 day binge I can recall specific instances where I would be in a grocery store or hiding in my bathroom and hear whispers from my wife and kids and even parents. It would drive me crazy thinking they were in the next isle over whispering goodbyes or other hurting remarks about me. Although i have heard stories about seeing people that arent there "shadow people, dream police" and other hallucinations I have never heard anything that mirrorred an aspect of my experience so much. I dont know if this helps you much considering the difference in DOC, but it has stirred some feelings for me. I never wanna feel that paranoid or out of touch again, thanks for the reminder.

mike

Mike...

Interesting avatar...lol
Not an A-Rod fan? ;o)

thanks for the response guys---

its a crap issue to confront if you relate at all to both witnessing it and actually experiencing it.
Thanks for having the courage to reply to this post--
ill shut up about it for now--

oh--and id be happy to go to al anon but--im a full blown alcoholic and need this kind of support first--
yall rock!

One time, about 10 years ago I woke up from a dead sleep to hear what I thought was my significant other whisper really hurtful, cruel things to me. I went into a full blown panic attack and obsessed about it for a long time. I didn't mention it to him, thank god, and finally realized that it was my subconscious mind making me hear what I was thinking about myself in my head. And the funny thing is that I was not drinking or using at the time. Go figure, huh?

You're right, dear. Getting help for yourself is the most important thing right now. Be strong for YOU.

jojo

Hi Cuppycake -

thanks for pointing out "tightrope" in the Big book. I haent seen that yet...

I went through a similar period of "hearing voices" during the last month of my acvtive addiction...

I have a strong gratitude to the fellowship for sharing their experiences with the second step.

I just read this again, the other day - from p37 in the BB - More about alcoholism

"whatever the precise definition of the word may be, we call this plain insanity. How can such a lack of proportion, of the ability to think straight, be called anything else?
You may think that this is an extreme case. To us it is not far-fetched, for this kind of thinking has been charecteristic of every single one of us. We have sometimes reflected more then {jim} did on the consequences. But there was always a curious mental phenomenon that parallel with out sound reasoning there inevitably ran some insanely trivial excuse for taking the first drink, Our sound reasoning failed to hold us in check. The insane idea won out."

Today i believe, simply, that the insanity is in picking up the first drink.

The treatment, for this alcoholic, was to stop drinking... And work the steps...

If you would like to PM me, i'd be glad to share more of my experiences.

-Aaron

Totally Aaron--
Id love to hear your experiences---I feel like a friggin anvil has been lifted from my head and heart--
all this time Ive had suspicions but no concrete affirmation that his hearing my voice whispering insults was a result of excess drinking--I thought.....scizophrenia maybe but.....hes a functioning successful lawyer and the moments of clarity with him are quite often---often enough to keep me in a permanant headlock of WTF???

please give me the heads up on how to PM--I need these stories!!
thanks all for sharing!

Hey CC--To send a PM you can just click on a members name and you will get a prompt to send a personal message. Just click on that link!