Jane is huddled in bed with Mr Vodka, her long time companion and best friend and amongst her mess. She's binging again. Falling over when she goes to the bathroom again. Cracking her head on the hard floor again. A mess again. Getting thinner and thinner. Wasting away again. Blah blah blah.
She said she wouldn't drink over Christmas. Are we still in Christmas? Yes, she started a day after Boxing Day so she is drinking over Christmas. Well of course she is. She never does what she promises when in comes to good ole Mr. Vodka her best mate.
She said she wouldn't drink over Christmas. Are we still in Christmas? Yes, she started a day after Boxing Day so she is drinking over Christmas. Well of course she is. She never does what she promises when in comes to good ole Mr. Vodka her best mate.
My dear Freddie Fox - I was so excited and happy to hear Jane spent a decent Christmas with you. Alas a glimmer of hope! However, it's seems to be such an "on again, off again Jiggity Jig" for Jane and yourself. Overhearing her on the phone talking drunk talk with your Mother was infuriating for you and now she's gone back to Mr. Vodka. She's literally being eaten away with this stuff by choice.
ReplyDeleteAs I have determined previously, it's your life I think about. I don't know much about you except your love for animals and the desire to save the innocent and abandoned creatures.
I would love to see you happily pursue your selfless mission without having Jane the Monkey on your back. I believe this will happen someday.
I also think this blog should be published. It would be such a learning tool for so many others in your position.
PS. Send Jane a signed copy.
Linda in Pennsylvania
Thanks Linda,
ReplyDeleteYes, it is off and on. This is not my style normally. I feel I am being jerked about, manipulated. I went to Al-anon yesterday evening. There were two of us there, the Chairperson and me. She helped me. I am pleased to receive input from people. I need it.
I may stay, in fact (more on off stuff) but the arrangements must change. I'll post about this.
Linda, thanks for giving the time to make a comment.
Freddie
Hi again Freddy Fox,
ReplyDeleteI was hoping you'd give an update as to if Jane was still living with you. I'm curious if she was somehow 'provoked' into her rabbit hole again...I guess it's just out of my own curiosity. This sort of thing happens to me time to time, especially if somthing is really eating me up. You sort of punish yourself because you cannot cope with life's problems. Or did her binge happen when all was well, just out of the blue? I'm sorry if I ask too many questions, I guess I'm trying my best to relate to Jane.
Whatever the reason, there's no excuse for what she has done to you. It almost seems as if Jane needs to be put into rehab for months and learn how to re-live life again. I know there are programs out there that offer this sort of help, but Jane needs to be willing to go.
Hi Pebbs
ReplyDeleteJane just starts up without any apparent reason. She actually drinks a bit every day and binges big time every 2-3 weeks on average. The binge lasting 5-10 days (totally comatose).
An alcoholic will always find a reason to drink. It could literally be any reason but the truth is the only reason is that they are addicted to alcohol. She always drinks at Christmas. She lasted until two days after Christmas day this year. Stress increases the chance of drining but getting up in the morning for an alcoholic is stressful.
Thanks for the comment.
Hi Freddie, or whatever your name is, I know that's your pseodonym. I have been reading your blog for ages but this is the first time I have ever responded. I am an alcoholic though i think I may be younger than your partner (35). I loved what you wrote about alcoholism being the annhiliation of hope and that this begins in childhood I agree. I believe that this disease is genetic (alcoholism is rife in my family). I don't believe it is to do with the way you are brought up, my sister is completely normal, it is nature as opposed to nuture.
ReplyDeleteI have been sober for 10 months now, after years of seeing doctors, alcohol counsellors and the like. I know you said you don't believe in a higher power, maybe because you view that as the usual conception of God. I view my higher power as the group I belong to, I see people in there, some of whom have been sober for many years, I follow their example and just for today I remain sober. Believe me many people in my AA group have been much more seriously alcoholic than me.
I am pleased that Al-Anon is doing you some good. I would point out that when my parents became members of Al-Anon they were adised to throw me out (I was living with them for a while when I was really bad) as they were enabling me to drink. I'm still not sure whether this was the right thing to do, but it did force me to take responsibility for myself and to seek help for myself.
I will continue to read your blog and I do wish you well for the New Year.
Jules
Jules, I loved your comment - uplifting. And thanks for the bit on nature/nurture, I appreciate and learn from that. I also like the idea of the Al-anon group being a higher power, group power. Yes I like that. It's a good and sensible thought, I feel.
ReplyDeleteJules, I wish you well too. Stay strong and live in the moment.
Freddie
i must disagree with my new friend who calls "jane's" behavior CHOICE. it is not. we have no more idea as to why we pick up that 1st drink than we have about why the sun rises or the moon sets. we're in the grip of a devastating illness whose ends are always the same: jails, institutions, or death.
ReplyDeleteas for me, i have been privy to all three though being shocked back to life did not bring about the change one would have guessed for me. i believe my drinking was just a gateway to suicide. i was raised catholic and was so terribly unhappy in the parochial world, maybe i felt the suffering that comes from an alcoholic death would somehow make me a less dispoable girl/woman.
everything bad that has happened to me has been due to drink. without too much factual info. i will tell you at one point i was abducted taken to an abandoned house and raped by many men over a 3 or 4 day period.. they left eventually but not before gifting me with hepatitis b and scars from the crowbar used on me. i will never, ever marry. to know me is to know a damaged soul and so i live here in my loneliness and pray one day i will not feel so much like tarnished, bargain basement goods.
please find some happiness where you can and let your God--should you have one--protect jane and grant you peace....... devon
Hi Devon, thanks for the comment. Please try not to feel bad about yourself. You are clearly a smart woman who is thoughtful and understands things. That in itself puts you above a large part of humanity!
ReplyDeleteThe "gateway to suicide" term is apt I think. Jane lives between life and death, on the very edge of life sometimes, almost reaching out for release into the afterlife. Jane believes in the afterlife but tells me that she cannot kill herself as it would prevent her entering it. She wants to go there but it confused as to how to achieve it.
Yes, alcoholism is totally nihilistic, highly destructive of the person, physically and mentally although the alcoholic is already damaged mentally. I believe though that we are all to varying degrees damaged mentally. Alcoholics also damage (poison the relationship) people around them.
Freddie