Alcholism Gets Worse With Age

Parallel Universe -that is where I am - photo by yhancik

If you have been an alcoholic for say 30 years and are say about mid fifties, I believe that you are more likely to become a worse alcoholic if you are not so called "recovering" (a euphemism for managing to control it - just).

This, I feel, is the case with Jane. Her binges are slightly different. There is more an air that she has given up. And giving up is not the thing to do if you are an alcoholic.

As I write this she is in the 8th day of a binge. As a reminder, for her, a binge is:

• to lie in bed almost permanently
• to consume about one 75 ml bottle of vodka per day (wine bottle size) (update: this means 75 cl or a wine bottle size)
  
• to eat extremely little
• to lose weight (she is a poor eater and thin anyway)
• to make herself sick
• to sleep in an horrendous smelly mess
• to make death rattle noises in the night
• to give me the feeling that I am living with a corpse
• to go out to the shops to buy more booze looking like a dirty drunk tramp inviting a mugging
• to make me very anxious
• to make me feel that I am in a parallel universe
• to make me want to leave and I will bloody leave this time
  

The parallel universe...

Fit Alcoholics

I wonder if there is such a thing as fit alcoholics? Sounds absurd and it is all relative. But one thing for sure is that Jane is running in a charity race tomorrow and it is a 5 kilometer race. Jane has been training for it and I (the world's master trainer :-) have been supervising nutrition and training!

Jane can certainly run much further than me. She can do the 5 k distance in about 35 minutes. Now that is pretty damn good for an alcoholic!! I actually think that the purpose and target that training for a race such as this imposes on the person is good for an alcoholic. It injects a distraction and a focus. These are very important as in my experience alcoholics (and non-alcoholics of course) can tend to drift a bit and think negatively. A more positive outlook and a goal helps to clear the mind and drive out the demons. It also helps to delay or at least put a temporary break on alcoholic binges.

This is particularly the case if the race is a charity event with people sponsoring the runners. There is a responsibility to turn up and do ones best.

Anyway, just as an update, Jane is doing not bad. She had a minor binge about a week ago but it was about half the duration of previous binges and this seems (touch wood) to be a bit of a trend. She binges for 4 days where once it was 7 - 10 days. The shorter binges have much shorter recovery times while a ten day binge can damn nearly kill her. She has been close on occasions.

Shorter recovery times means a greater likelihood of retaining a job, which is all very positive. It is not utopia but she could be said to be one of the few fit alcoholics! Certainly fitter than me if the measure is how far you can run.

So one little element in the recovery of an alcoholic is training for a charity race.