The Diary of a Victim of an Alcoholic

Yes, despite all the vitriol, all the pain and disappointment. The piles of agony. This is life and I love her. She has a wonderfully tender interior. It is too tender, too vulnerable, which is why she has a hardness sometimes that is at odds with her true self. When she has a binge, as must be expected, she is a different person. Yes, slightly mad and definitely bad. She admits it. She hates it. She does it and it hurts her self-esteem something terrible. What I like most about Jane is this tender childlike interior, hidden away so deeply inside her and almost invisible; certainly well protected to the point where it is hardly expressed in behavior. But it is there. I must nurture this. I must praise her. I have praised her. Compared to the way she was about 13 or more years ago she is much more stable. She was chaotic in those days, out of control and just hanging on. She, like all of us, finds life hard sometimes. She gets tired and depressed. She expresses a desire to end...

When I look at Jane today and last night during a binge of sorts, I see an insane person. I don't mean barking mad and obviously insane but a person who is definitely not normal, v.slightly insane, 10 percent insane, call it what you like . When Jane is drinking she acts like an insane person. I know that none of us are "normal" as there is no definition of a "normal person" but we can tell when a person is not normal. The usual symptoms are borderline personality disorders and the like. And don't get me wrong I am not being critical. I am sympathetic in fact but it needs to be said. She just does not get some things. We will agree that doing something in a certain way will help and the next minute she is back to her old ways. She has no understanding of her alcoholism at all. After 30 years of binge drinking she still doesn't have the faintest idea as to the underlying cause. She had a mini-binge for two days and then stopped and I think she has re...

Alcoholism is linked to dementia. I think alcoholism can cause a type of dementia. And it is not uncommon for alcoholics to eat badly too. A lack of a good diet can be an exacerbating factor. Then there are the bloody pills. It seems that if you are alcoholic you might also be depressed and if depressed you might lean on pills more than others. Prozac comes to mind and anti-depressants such as amitriptyline (help sleep and other things). OK lots of pills and booze cannot be good for the brain or the body. Jane ingests all this stuff and she is beginning to pay the price it seems to me and it is very worrying for us both. Although I am not completely sure, it seems that Jane is suffering from at least memory loss but it may go wider than that. There may be cognitive loss too or even dementia. This may in part or in whole be due to a recent botched operation (long time under anesthetic). I think it is a combination of all these things. It is motivating Jane to stop binge drinki...

Alcoholism puts the alcoholic betwixt life and death. It places the person in a kind of twilight zone that is not truly living and neither is it death. Although the person pushes the door to death ajar from time to time, he or she usually doesn't pass through. Eventually knocking and pushing on the door enough times results in the door opening and the alcoholic passes to the other side. Jane has been in a near death situation on a few occasions. This is usually due to pancreatitis. Heavy drinking damages the pancreas. I am not sure how and I can't research it right now as my internet connection is extremely poor. If the pancreas stops working so do we it seems. From my perspective the alcoholic removes themselves from the world when drinking heavily but not quite to the point where they kill themselves. As I said it is a sort of in between zone. Well that is the case with Jane. She just doozes throughout a week long binge. What is unfortunate is that the alcoholic places th...

Alocholism puts the alcholic betwixt life and death. It places the person in a kind of twilight zone that is not truly living and neither is it death. Although the person pushes the door to death ajar from time to time, he or she usually doesn't pass through. Eventually knocking and pushing on the door enough times results in the door opening and the alcoholic passes to the other side. Jane has been in a near death situation on a few occasions. This is usually due to pancreatitis. Heavy drinking damages the pancreas. I am not sure how and I can't research it right now as my internet connection is extremely poor. If the pancreas stops working so do we it seems. Form my perspective the alcoholic removes themselves from the world when drinking heavily but not quite to the point where they kill themselves. As I said it is a sort of in between zone. Well that is the case with Jane. She just doozes throughout a week long binge. What is unfortunate is that the alcoholic places the...