The Diary of a Victim of an Alcoholic

Secrets - photo by Tonyç Is Alcoholism a Reflection of Our Interior? What the hell do I mean? In the last post I referred to our dark interior. The space inside us that only we see. No one ever sees that except us. All of us present the outside of us to the world. Some people present a whole person to the world that is completely different to the person they are. Others modify the interior and present a more acceptable exterior to the world. None of us show our dark interior to the world. That is why it is our dark interior that only we know. Sometimes, though it leaks out of us like a poison. It becomes visible. This might happen when we have had a drink and are more open with our feelings. But sometimes the pain of our interior is reflected in the need to kill it through the chemical ethanol alcohol, which is dressed up to hide the fact that it is a chemical designed to kill the pain in our interior. There is not one person on the planet that does not have a longing for something bet...

You may not get all the answers - by vaXzine Are Victims of Alcoholics Outsiders? I am a victim of an alcoholic's alcoholism. Or am I? Am I a victim of my own deficient character? If you could see me you'd see a person who looked perfectly normal, well balanced and together. But I am not totally together. I have worked all my life and been moderately successful. But I have never felt as if I fitted in. If I did I would I have been very successful financially, I believe. You have to like money and be a pack animal to be successful financially, I also believe. I don't meet either criteria. I recently made a post about myself. It was brutally honest and I deleted it because it gave a false impression about me. Everything in this website is the absolute unvarnished truth but it seems we cannot say everything about ourselves. We must leave something to ourselves, to our dark interior that only we know about. The truth about being a victim of an alcoholic or why we live with an a...

Waiting (for the miracle) - photo by by Ekler We are both playing a waiting game. I have told Jane that I am exploring arrangements to move out, which I am doing (surprise). Jane knows I am doing this and it seems she is making an effort at least for the time being to behave. I just know that the time will come for me to go. It is just a matter of time and I have mentioned this before over and over again. It is just so damn complicated to get out of here both emotionally and practically. I am playing a waiting game to see if she improves. Yes, I know she won't. Jane is also waiting to see if I actually take more tangible steps to move. The mood is OK because she is showing me some respect for once. At last she seems to understand the pain caused not only to me but her relatives. I sense a more responsible attitude but will it be sustained. Well we all know it won't. So, just enjoy it for the moment, is what I tell myself and when the inevitable ghastly binge comes along with al...

Alcoholism Chat -- 2 pm Saturday 24th January: Jane: "I feel sleepy" Freddie: Says nothing. He has heard this before. It can only mean one thing. Jane has had a little slug of the clear stuff, her best pal, Mr. V. Thirty minutes later Jane goes to the toilet for a pee. Freddie notes this mentally. Booze is a diuretic. More evidence of a little secret session with the bottle. He says nothing. Thirty more minutes elapse. Jane: "I feel sleepy, I'll just have a nap". A good three hours later Jane awakes from a deep slumber. "I just had a little nap. I felt sleepy because I woke up early this morning". Freddie unable to contain his thoughts any longer, in a gentle non threatening way having learnt to tread very carefully when discussing the dreaded booze: "You haven't had a drink have you?" Jane: " No, no, I never drink after a binge". Freddie: "Anything goes with you when it comes to booze." Jane: "Yes, I agree."...

All is Well - or is it? Just a matter of time...photo by Denis Collette...!!! After the last horrendous binge (11 days) and the aftermath (hospital 1 week, still off work 3 weeks later - is it 3 weeks?, I lose track), I had a serious talk with Jane about moving out. I really have come to the end of the line. It will be difficult on an emotional and practical level but the agonies of living with Jane when she is drunk has made up my mind. At the moment all is well. After telling Jane my serious thoughts she became more helpful etc. etc. after shedding a tear or two. Jane is currently sober. For how long? It is genuinely sad. I don't want to live alone and I have settled here. I know the area. I have routines etc. But leaving is really is something that I must do as all the visitors have made clear. OK, no one has said "leave" but they say so in so many words. And I have said I am going to leave after each binge and don't - pathetic. Anyway I won't bore people. Jane...

Despair -- emptiness -- madness - Photo by Jano De Cesare I don't know if Jane is approaching the end game but right now it feels like it. It is highly unnerving. Jane came out of hospital after an 11-12 day binge about 5 days ago or more. She slept most of the time and barely moved from the sofa. She ate what I gave her but it is never enough because she is a poor eater. She is weak. She is too thin. She started to binge again. No real break. No getting back to work. Just straight into the 'ole routine. She looks like she has given up. She really does. Heavily depressed with an air of complete hopelessness. She is erratic and frankly dangerous. She is histrionic and creates scenes and trouble, which I find almost frightening. Jane has fallen over on to the hard floor about 4 times, twice when sober but I suppose dizzy through weakness. I told her to get up slowly and progress carefully. I sit in my room and wait for the crash and cry. The thump then stillness. I wait for the...

Photo by Bright_Star The anger and bile coming out of me has subsided since my last posting . I've just read it and it reminds me how bad I feel during and after one of Jane's binges. I have tried ringing her at hospital and only on two occasions managed to talk to her. This is because unsurprisingly she is very tired and the hospital drug her, calm her down with sleeping pills and tranquillizers. This combination means that she sleeps a lot, which is good for her but it also means I cannot realistically visit. Went to Al-anon about 3 days ago and found it hopeless. The first meetings helped but now I find I cannot say what I want to for fear of upsetting people. I talk too much and that upsets people, the ones in charge. I feel it is not worth going again and this made me feel very depressed when combined with Jane's alcoholism. That's life, I guess. The anger though has subsided as it always does until the next time.

Pain - photo by Dude Crush Yes, Jane is in hospital as she couldn't stop vomiting after a massive binge. The hospital is about 3 miles away, not far. But I do not want to go and visit. Visits are always depressing, not constructive etc. Anyway, I am totally p**ss*d off with her. I want out. Why visit the person who makes your life hell? I agreed to pick her up and bring her home. I am a carer and lodger, no more. I have sealed her room as it stinks horribly with vomit, piss, mess, rotten food and god knows what. I have emptied the bucket that was full of piss and vomit and added bleach. The room still stinks. I bleached a bowl she used to be sick in. The room still stinks. I opened the window to ventilate the room exposing myself to burglary, which is bad in London and it still pongs. So, I closed the door and sealed it completely with a large roll of wide industrial tape - true. The smell is much reduced. The smell of death and crap and hell. It is a most awful smell, believe me...

The Vomit - the horror - photo by funkandjazz The smell of an alcoholic who has been lying in bed amongst her piles of mess, binging on neat vodka, vomiting, barely eating, peeing in a bucket blah blah blah is quite horrific. She ponged. She was skeletal. Jane could barely walk. She wasn't and isn't the person I loved or my partner. She is some kind of mental patient in a dark dingy far away institution. She came out of her room looking for more Mr bloody V or wine, anything that contained ethanol alcohol, literally anything, and I hid some wine I had and refused to buy any booze. I also turned my head away and told her to go back to her dark den as her appearance disgusted and shocked me, which it did. Jane is now in hospital. As I said her vomiting after the long, long heavy binge was too bad. She was groaning and moaning all the time until 1 am in the middle of the night until I could take it no more and called emergency services and asked for an ambulance. I almost had a r...

As a victim of an alcoholic I live with the possibility of the death of the alcoholic that I am living with. Jane was in a fetal position for long periods during the last binge of some 11 days and 11 bottles of neat vodka. It is like living in a slow motion car crash. It is traumatic. It is unnerving. It is something we should not travel through. Jane is now in hospital because she could not control the sickness after the last 11 day binge. The whole experience was, as usual, traumatic and I don't want to live through it again. It damages me. I become used to it. I lose compassion. I learn to hate. I learn to disregard. And in doing so I lose a bit of me.

Andy Warhols Orange Car Crash Fourteen Times , 1963. Waiting for Jane to stop binging is like waiting for an imminent car crash. Photo by wallyg Sometimes the press talk of alcoholic binging in a misleading way. Non-alcoholics binge at the weekend, for example. But an alcoholic binger is quite different. This isn't about letting go at the weekend. This is about a need to to go to bed for 11 days (this last binge) and drink neat vodka from the bottle every day at the rate of at least one bottle per day - and I am talking about a woman. Jane has been binging for 11 days and she asked me to go and buy some more vodka yesterday evening. I refused this time. This is one of those borderline decisions. Up until yesterday I agreed to buy the vodka as it saved her walking to the shops in an appalling state with the risk of falling over and/or getting mugged etc. But after a while one is simply feeding the habit, making it easier to sustain, so I refused. She is now making herself sick at r...

Photo by ratterrell Can we blame an alcoholic for being alcoholic? Yes, slightly. Alcoholics are born predisposed to alcoholism. This predisposition is either inherited genetically and/or learned through early experience..... The video above is just meant to be a change from words; something else to look at, that's all. .....The person who becomes an alcoholic does so quite slowly. He/she drifts towards the wire, that horribly barbed wire and when it is crossed there is no going back. Once crossed the person who is predisposed to alcoholism has become an alcoholic and at that point is addicted. All that remains is to try and control it; the eternal struggle until death. There is though a window of opportunity during the drift to alcoholism when the enlightened alcoholic to be could and should take steps to arrest the slide towards the wire. If they don't they could be blamed for not doing so. The choice is a tough one and the task of arresting the slide is hard and the drive t...

Chips for breakfast, chips at 1 am - photo by Derek Farr ( DetroitDerek ) Jane my alcoholic partner is still drinking. This is a big binge. They seem to get longer. Back in the old days she used to binge for about 5 days or so and now they are creeping up to more like ten days. She started this one just after Christmas and is still going strong. She calls out from her bedroom mess all the time for food or booze. She sobered up yesterday and asked for two bottles of Vodka and if I didn't buy it she'd either ask our neighbor to buy it or she'd buy it, she said. Both unacceptable so I bought it. Actually I bought a big two liter bottle which saved me £4 (gotta think money as alcoholism is very expensive - loss of job, canceled holidays etc.). Within less than 24 hours, Jane has got through the entire bottle (almost). That is more than usual. I actually asked her if she'd drink some in front of me as I had never in 10 years or so seen her drink. She said, no, and them she...

A photo titled "Conversatons II by Ferran. Jane (calling from her bedroom, the black hole where she has laid comatose drunk since last Sunday four days ago: "Freddie.....", silence. Freddie (watching TV and replying loudly): "Yes...", silence. Long pause, nothing happens. Freddie: "What do you want?" Nothing happens, not a sound is heard. A full 10 ten minutes later Freddie goes to Jane's bedroom, where she is lying amongst her mess, utterly silent except for the occasional faint sound of the unscrewing of the top of a Vodka bottle and the faint "Ahhh..." that occasionally follows. Even for the most experienced alcoholic neat vodka from the bottle can be a bit hard to take. Freddie (said with a little aggression and exasperation): "What do you want?" Complete silence. Nothing emanates from the darkness, the black hole, the smelly mess. Freddie (louder and with more exasperation): " What do you want?" Jane (after a del...