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Alcoholism Betwixt Life And Death

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 victim of the alcoholic, in this case me, in a similar situation. The victim is not placed in the twilight zone between life and death but in a parallel universe where a lot of the norms that we should be used to are shattered. For a start there are the constant lies driven by the alcoholic's desire to try and hide the alcoholism. Lying about booze leads to lying about anything, which in turn undermines everything including that most precious of qualities in a relationship - trust.

Then there is the weird experience of living through a kind of slow motion train crash as the alcoholic tries to almost kill themselves while the victim looks helplessly on, unable to do anything but wait and see if he or she is living the next day.

There have been times when I thought I would wake up to find Jane cold and blue in bed - over and out - walked through that door. That is an odd feeling and not one to recommend.

For a victim of an alcoholic to live like that for a week or more is very unnerving indeed. It is also very stressful.. The "fall out" from a full blown alcoholic binge is enormous. It is like a comet's tail. The after effects of a binge for Jane can last 4 or more weeks - and then she might start again. You see, it puts the victim in a parallel universe of abnormal living. The victim becomes acclimatised to it and forgets what normal is (whatever normal actually is).

For me true alcoholism does put the alcoholic betwext life and death. The alcoholic probably doesn't want to live but neither does he or she want to die. Alcohol puts them where they want to be, between the two.

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