Alcoholism Affects Mental Health

by jef safi

Is it that alcoholism affects mental health or mental health creates alcoholism or both? It is both possibly but I don't think that you have to have mental health issues to be an alcoholic but sometimes alcoholics do have mental health problems.

One thing that is pretty well scientifically proven is that consistent heavy drinking affects health generally and also mental health. And at the moment I have real concerns for Jane because she seems to be suffering from memory loss and more...

I won't and can't go into detail obviously but it seems that alcoholics binge on and on without seeing health problems for years. OK, their lives are messed up but health can seem, sometimes, to remain intact until one day after it has crept up on them, ill health suddenly becomes apparent. And it is a bit of a shock. I have always thought that ethanol alcohol gradually breaks down the body. Think of George Best the footballer. At the end his body simply gave up.

The signs of memory loss, I think, can be slurred speech or not being able to find the word, even a well used and simple word. Our dictionary of words (in our heads) are part of our memory. If memory fails the power to recall words fails too and the person struggles to find the word, appearing stupid.

Alcoholism damages memory and when the damage is significant the person has signs of what seems like a mild stroke. That is my theory and it didn't come out of a text book so please don't quote it as gospel truth!

Alcoholism affects mental health over time and one day that fact is recognised and it is shocking. Today I am feeling down. I wonder if it is the feeling of doom hanging over the home with Jane's health? Maybe I have this all wrong. Maybe she is just drunk and fooling me again and again? I don't think so though. But I am feeling down. It all seems a bit hopeless tonight. Just found this video after I wrote this. So it is rare...OK.

Do Alcoholics Learn to be Insincere?

Living with Jane as I do, I have come to realize that alcoholics learn to be insincere. This is forced on them, it seems, because of their addiction. An alcoholic wants a drink but has to cover that up from friends or loved ones. That means lying and if you do that for long enough it becomes a way of life and part of the person. I think they lose their bearings; the boundary between lying and telling the truth or a belief that they are telling the truth breaks down.

In fact the alcoholic learns to rewrite history as well. To turn things around to defend themselves. And the degree of insincerity can be awesome. The point is that they don’t realise it. Jane uses the health services a lot; too much and sometimes in a bogus way in my opinion. I think she leans on doctors etc. as a kind of mental crutch. Health people look after her or at least that is their purpose.

Today we went to see a doctor about her general ill health. I went with her. She agreed to this. The main reason why I went was to put across an unbiased third party type view of events to make sure the doctor got the right information as Jane tends to muddy it all up. Anyway without going into detail one thing we agreed on was to improve diet. This is not surprising as a lot of alcoholics are bad eaters and Jane is not exception. She is thin and the doctor made that clear.

Actually, I think Jane was a little drunk when we went to see the doctor. Well, we got back home and I proposed a proper healthy diet and had my ideas. The intention was to put on a stone (14 lbs) in weight and eat properly. Jane tends to eat badly. She agrees a proper diet and things look positive. I do my best to motivate her and to try and get some positivity into her life and the family (me, Jane and my cat!).

Within 30 minutes of agreeing things etc. Jane is out cold on her bed, drunk sucking on a hard boiled sweet with a packet of them by her bedside. She is ready for a long session in bed, eating next to nothing but boiled sweets, wasting her muscles (because they won’t be used) and going backwards in regards to general health. And in complete defiance of all the doctor’s advice on diet and drinking bla bla bloody bla.

What is the point I told myself. I go to the hospital with her to help and motivate. I say I’ll pay for good food and prepare it. I formulate a plan to make sure she gets the right day that works around her job’s hours and bingo……a total waste of my time. No commitment. No sincerity. Jane just seems to be going through the motions, playing a game. Do alcoholics learn to be insincere? Yes. But they don’t know the truth from lying and that gets in the way of being sincere.

However, her memory seems to be poor as are her cognitive skills and I am wondering if all the booze has damaged her.

 

From Do Alcoholics Learn to be Insincere? to Home Page

Alcoholic Chat

It has been a long time since I made a post on this blog. One reason why I haven't is because I have some doubts about it; about its morality. When I started it, it was out of desperation. I had to do it to talk to someone. To express the anger inside. The powerlessness and anguish. Every emotion possible. As I may have said somewhere else on the blog, it is like living through a long slow motion car crash. And your partner is dying in the process. When she drinks it is as if I am waiting for her to die, either by falling over on a hard surface (one of her favorites) or getting hit by a car when she stumbles out to the local shop to buy a couple of bottles of Mr V.

But I think on balance that the site is fair and useful. Useful to me and to some visitors. I gives a clue to how the victim of the alcoholic lives, in constant fear of the unexpected, the chaos. Pick the worst possible moment for Jane to drink and she will drink on that occasion. It is almost as if she does it deliberately to create the maximum amount of harm to herself (i.e. she will upset the most number of people who will be p*ssed off with her). So, this blog might inform some alcoholics as to how their drinking affects their loved ones. Mind you they probably already know that and it doesn't do a damn thing to change things.

It is this lack of change that creates the hopelessness in the victim, the partner. Anyway, I have moved into the main bedroom, with Jane's encouragement, in fact. This makes for a better bolt hole where I can keep out of the way when she is on a binge. And on the subject of binges, Jane has only had one shortish binge recently over a longish period of about 3 months. That is great and I have praised her for it. It has also meant that her job is more secure. However, she does drink slightly differently as a result; usually a miniature or two after work on the way home. So she comes in a bit drunk and is asleep within a couple of hours. That translates, for me, into not seeing her that much! Or at least interacting with her less because she is asleep. Jane is nearly always tired and sleeps like a log.

Her health is not good. Mine isn't that great either, come to think about it! But for her I get the gut feeling that her body is at last complaining about the 25 plus years of punishment it has taken in alcohol abuse. Although a binge is less damaging than constant trickle soaking in alcohol as the body has a respite to recover.

So, at the moment she is not that well. That is another fear of mine. Last night I went to bed thinking that she might die in her sleep. Irrational perhaps. But it is the kind of thought that is generated when you are a victim of an alcoholic. This is my diary.

I am going to put some videos on. Here is one of a celeb who could be drunk?

Still Calm

It is still calm. I have nothing to say. No blood and guts. No near death scenes. Just fairly normal. It seems my ultimatum did some good but this will not last. We are talking about me moving into the main bedroom as a bolt hole so when the next binge does take place I can keep out of the way and live my life fairly normally while the storm blows over!

Alcoholism Chat

Peaceful currently - photo by fabry...

Here is a quick update, some more alcoholism chat. For the very few who follow this blog, the reason why I have not made a post for a while is because things have been quiet. This is mainly because after the last binge I kinda gave an ultimatum that unless the binge drinking stopped I would have to leave. Jane took that to heart and has put in an extra effort to stop. Also she has been away on holiday on her own for the past week so it has been lovely and quite for the last 7 days.

Did I miss her? Yes, despite the waring and the binging and the living hell when she is drinking, memories are short and the terrible moments one goes through when she is binging are forgotten until the next time, when it all comes very quickly back.

Jane returns from holiday tomorrow and it is highly likely that she will be fine for a reasonable time as she will need to work for a while to prove to her employer that she is worth employing. Then, when she feels comfortable on that front her mind will no doubt turn to Mr V and gradually the desire will build to embrace Mr V with a vengeance. I expect that to happen in about 4 weeks time or so. We will see. I will be glad if I am wrong.

Mr V = Vodka

History of Vodka

This, too, is an extract from French Wikipedia, translated by Google, on the history of the alcoholics favorite beverage, vodka. We can blame the Russians:

It is distilled from the fourteenth century, but a century later, Prince Ivan III (1462-1505) prohibited the production of strong alcoholic beverages. Czar Ivan IV (1533-1584), said Ivan the Terrible built the first tavern in Moscow and establishes the principle of distilleries and places of distribution of state. It had a monopoly on the production and sale of vodka, which has enabled the state to reap substantial profits. During this period, the vodka is a very important role in culture and the Russian economy.

In 1894, Emperor Alexander III decreed that the standard of the title alcohol Russian vodka is 40 °. It builds on the work of the chemist Dmitri Mendeleev who had previously shown that the best vodka headline to 38 °, but the fees for the time being calculated on the alcohol, is the title of which was 40 ° retained to facilitate the task of tax authorities. (note: this last sentence probably means that the tax authorities in Russia insisted on vodka remaining at 40 percent proof for ease of calculating tax).

There is a museum of vodka Mandrogi in Leningrad Oblast in Russia.

Ethanol

Ethanol - this is a Google translation of French Wikipedia on ethanol, just for an experiment. It is totally unabridged except for the word catabolisé, which Google should have translated into catabolized or for Europeans catabolised. I am trying to figure out what that word means!

Ethanol (CH3CH2OH), the active ingredient of alcoholic beverages, is almost always produced by fermentation - the carbohydrate metabolic pathway of certain species of yeast in the absence of oxygen.

It had been argued that alcohol impurities (congeners) were the cause of hangovers. However, it is more likely to be caused by ethanal, an oxidized intermediate form produced by the liver where alcohol is catabolisé.

Alcoholic beverages with greater than 40% of the volume are highly flammable.

In chemistry, the term alcohol refers to all organic compounds in which a hydroxyl group (-OH) is bound to a carbon atom, which in turn is connected to other carbon atoms or hydrogen. Other alcohols such as propylene glycol and polyols may be present so common in food and beverages, but it is not them alcohol. Methanol (one carbon), propane (three carbon), and butanol (four carbons) alcohols are all very common, but none of them can be eaten because they are toxic.