The Diary of a Victim of an Alcoholic

Diary - Photo by kevinspencer I think it is worth making two points about binge alcoholism. The newspapers frequently refer to binge drinking in the UK. For the most part these people are not alcoholics. They are just drinking excessively at the weekend. Some may develop into full blown alcoholics. This will happen when they cross the wire . They won't know they have crossed it until one day it dawns on them. Secondly, Jane plans well ahead when she is going to binge. The appropriate days will be holidays. The classic free days for a binge are at Christmas. She almost always had a binge at Christmas. She will make extensive plans to do x, y and z and then go to bed for the entire duration and drink neat vodka out of the bottle. Washout Christmas. True binge drinkers are planners and plotters. They may also trickle drink in between binges. There are no clear boundaries between abstaining from drink and boozing. It merges slightly.

Photo by dpwk Is there such a thing as a normal relationship? Probably not. But there is such a thing as a positive, hopeful relationship. A positive relationship is one that is constructive. It is one where you go forward and improve your lives together. In a relationship with an alcoholic it is not possible to go forward, to build for the future. This destroys hope. Alcoholism prevents a constructive way of life because it constantly erodes relationships, finances, jobs and health. It holds the alcoholic and the relationship back. You tread water. It is nice to be able to look to a better future. It makes life more bearable. All of us need to think that there is something better in the future; that we can make things better if we do x, y and z. That does not apply to the alcoholic environment. An alcoholic's life if about just getting by. Not losing your job, if you have one. Trying to stay healthy. Making exorbitant health insurance payments because you sure as hell ne

Photo: by ex_magician I'll tell you how alcohol affects the pancreas for Jane. Rarely for Jane her alcoholic binging causes pancreatitis. The rarity level is perhaps, at a guesstimate, about one time in 25 binges. However it is a very serious, life threatening condition. This is not chronic pancreatitis. For Jane it is acute pancreatitis brought on by a particular binge lasting about 7 days. She will have have pain in her stomach area, which is a sign of pancreatitis. Of course this may be muddied up by pain in her stomach due to inflammation of the stomach by the neat Vodka. She will have to go to hospital after some long binges. An ambulance is called and she is wheeled out of the home (literally). The hospital visit will last about a week and recovery at home afterward will be about 10 days. The way the doctors cure acute pancreatitis is to have her stop eating and drinking as I recall. It would seem to be nil by mouth for a few days. The pancreas heals itself. I am

It will never be right. I guess that is obvious. It is obvious to me but I have learnt to put up with it - until I just can't take anymore. Jane is at the end of the line at work with her absenteeism and with me. If she binges again it could push both me and her employers over the edge. She probably wouldn't get another job. One of the many problems is that Jane binges when she is off work. So from my perspective she is either at work when I can't do things with her or drunk in bed when I can't do things with her. In practice I am almost living alone already. The number of great days she has missed is enormous. Sunny, beautiful days when we could have gone out and done something really nice. Instead she has wallowed in her own urine and feces in her moldy bed with empty bottles scattered all around. The whole room pongs to high heaven after she has been binging for five days. And that is another point. The whole home starts to smell because the horrible smell that

The roller coaster continues. I am jerked hither and thither not knowing what the hell to do. She has just had another binge. Her bedroom still stinks. But she says she may be the world's untidiest person (she definitely is) but she is clean (she definitely is not). You cannot be clean if the floor is covered in everything, literally everything is on the bloody floor. She hoards manically. She does this because she is scared of everything. She panics at the drop of a hat, at anything. She defends the indefensible and argues at anything. She provokes arguments. She is only happy when she is sad. Madness. An upside down word. She is losing her job. At last! Her employer has been jerked along by her lies about absenteeism - always an illness but of course never alcoholism. She must be the most ill person at her place of work. No one has had as many illnesses as her! And they take a month to get over. Errr..no her binges take a month to get over. My mind wanders to a calm place whe

As all the commentators to this site have said, things don't change for the true alcoholic. Maybe they do for some but it is rare and Jane is not one of those who will ever change. She had another binge recently. The whole episode lasted three weeks, from a week's binge, a week's recovery at hospital and home and a further weeks recovery and sorting out getting back to work. She is still off work and going back Monday. She has been lazy. A lazy mind leads to alcoholism. Did I say work!? Not much chance of that for the future. Her employer is very tolerant but she is heading for the sack. It is a question of time not if. And it is a decent job for her. Of course I am used to her alcoholic binges but they are hard to deal with. This time she missed three important events one of which concerned me (and very important to me) and I said I will never forgive her for it. I won't. She does feel very bad about it and says sorry but saying sorry is pointless.

A nice person asked me to write more on this blogger site, so this is for you. I live day by day and ask few questions. It is best that way. The fact that I stayed has motivated Jane to stay sober but that does not mean she is always sober. She has had one 5 day binge since I discontinued searching for a new home. Not bad really. We came to an agreement. I would stop putting her down and she would stop drinking. It helps. Not that I was actually putting her down - perhaps occasionally but that was due to her behavior. Anyway, there is no point in finding fault; just got to look forward and stay optimistic. I have decided that living with Jane is better than living alone. If she can improve a bit it will help stabilise the relationship. She wants me to stay although she says horrible things when drunk - don't we all though? Days off are a trigger for her to drink. She plans ahead. Jane has found one (of many) technique to stay off the bottle when she has some days off (she

Yep, feeble I might be but I have failed to buy a new property to live in to escape living with Jane. I had all the good intentions and got to the point where I was to contract to buy an apartment but the landlord would not agree certain terms relating to keeping a domestic cat so the transaction feel thorough. I then tried buying a house. And in London houses start at about half a million pounds. That also fell through because.....I just can't see myself living alone. I have tried it and it gradually kills me. My motivation to move has waned and has been lost. I more or less decided - it was forced on me in the heat of decision making while preparing to move - that I cannot live alone and be content. I would rather live with a binge alcoholic hard though that can be at times, than live alone in a nice house. And I do love her. It is hard for me accept that part of me too. But there is something inside Jane that makes me love her. Perhaps it is a reflection of my weaknesse

Look, I know that it is a bit extreme to call myself a "victim" as I put myself here. But it is not all about free choice. The emotional ties are strong. You are in a very difficult place when you get stuck with an alcoholic. You know you have to leave but you find it very difficult. However, as I said, I am leaving because it is the right thing to do - hard though it is. I am buying my own home. I am struggling with this because it is sh*t buying a place in London, England. It is competitive and very expensive and....I could go on. I expect to be out of here in about a month or two. Then this diary will become something different. I intend to still see Jane but not as an alcoholic lying in her filth. I want to see only the good bits of her and only have the nice experiences. I feel depressed about it and worried about it all. I must go on. It is the only way forward.

Jane made herself sick for a straight ten hours every five minutes after stopping her latest binge at about midnight. True. It started at about midnight last night and continued until ten this morning after she called a doctor to stop her. The only way to stop her at that stage is to give her an injection of a drug that chills her out and breaks the cycle. The drug is aloso an anti-sickness drug. Where Jane binged and made herself sick- image deliberately modified using "ink outlines" The point is this. She makes herself sick by stuffing her right hand down her throat. As her stomach is empty she drinks milk or flavoured water so that she can at least sick something up. Even with the flavoured water not much comes up. There is a massive amount of painful retching with nothing coming up. She cries out. She is in pain. She wants to be in pain. She wants to hurt herself. It is a form of self harm. Self harm born out of a disgust of herself. It is beyond low self esteem. It

I thought I would share this little snippet of information with you. Alcoholics fall over a lot. If you live in a home with hard floors this can kill you especially as the alcohol in booze is a diuretic. You have to go to the bathroom, the room of shiny tiles and hard basins. Over the years and with constant pestering by me, Jane has learned to crawl around the home when drunk. She has had some bad falls in the past - nasty breaks. Crawling looks and is undignified but an alcoholic will never break anything when crawling. Safety always comes first. I found it unnerving when Jane walked (staggered) to the bathroom. I would wait for the dull thud as she hit the floor. She would lie there stunned or knocked out. Eventually she would wake up and calmly carry on! I shan't tell you the list of injuries she has incurred while walking and falling. She is a expert crawler now...

Escape from this life - photo by Jhon Ceceña Alcoholism is essentially a habit. It is a very strong habit because it is the operation of a chemical (ethanol alcohol) on the brain. It is extremely direct. It is a habit nonetheless. This is a controversial point. Alcoholism is described as a disease. I don't believe this. This is a politically correct term to help alcoholics. People who drink, say everyday, without being alcoholic (and I mean this objectively) are able to recognize the stage at which they are during drinking. They understand and keep in mind the downside, the headache and dehydration etc. In other words the brain although enjoying the moment is aware of the situation. The alcoholic will ignore the downside. They take every drink of vodka (usually) as if it is the first. The first drink that gives them that rush of pleasure. They seek that. They want to recreate that. The pleasure is "getting out" for a while. They seek that rush. That opt-out from

Yes, it is true. I am leaving Jane at last. I am moving out. I am in the process of buying a new home. It is not that far away, which I guess carries some dangers but I will be alone in my place, a place that Jane can't mess up. And she will no longer be able to mess me up too. Of course she is upset, big time upset. But she even says that she understands why so that is some recognition by her of what she has done and is like. She has had two huge month-long binges recently that have finished me off. I just can't take anymore. My brain has told me to go, get out. It is a pure survival thing. I almost have no choice anymore. It is go or something bad will happen. There have been times when I have genuinely wanted to kill her - strangle her to death with a smile on my face. She has pushed me 90% of the way to that feeling and that is scary, believe me as I am not some sort of alpha male violent person. In the last binge she pissed, defecated and vomited into her own bed a