The Diary of a Victim of an Alcoholic

This is a short post out of respect for Jane. She has taken an overdose in an attempt to end her life. She is in hospital. It is serious. My love for her that is so beaten up by her addiction is still intact deep inside me as is the beautiful core of her heart. I am fearful and anxious. Many times I wanted to be free from her and now it seems I might be. And I feel empty.

Vodka bottles - post edited by me - original by Scorpions and Centaurs I say to Jane, "You are awful when you are drunk. You lie and sneak booze in to the home. You lie in bed for days on end in your mess, piss and crap. You fall over when you go to the loo and injure yourself. This scares me. Your bedroom stinks. You are horrible."....and so on...! I add the odd swear word as you might imagine. Jane says, "I know but I can't help it". Then she says, "I know you love me deep down...in your own way".. All of it - true. So she can't help it. I guess we all knew that. It is called addiction. Sometimes in the past her family would ask. "what brought on this last binge?". I would reply, "addiction to alcohol". It is that simple at its core. Of course there are a lot of subtle psychological problems that gradually drive someone to drinking alcohol to excess which leads to addiction. But it is the addiction that then takes o...

by AmericanVirus Slippage is the sort of terminology you use for building works or some sort of project. But in this case I am using it for Jane and her battle against alcoholism. Actually, is she battling? I don't think she is. All I know is she has started to binge again after about 5 months of no binges except for some fairly minor sessions. I don't think an alcoholic can keep the devil boxed up for ever. The genie pops out of the lamp at some time. It is bound to. You know...there is one thing that forces her to stop a binge these days. It is the big stick! And the stick is the loss of her job. She knows that finding work today is hard because of the dire financial state of the country and Europe as a whole, and she likes her job. She is not young. She would struggle to find work. Jane is concerned about finances (everyone is except the rich chief executives and the politicians). It is these things that overcome her desire to lie in bed and remain totally sloshed ...

I'll tell you what is happening this minute - 28th May 2012 at 16:55. Jane is doing the predictable and has just started up again. If Jane goes through a good patch as she has done for about 6 months, the pressure builds up and she just restarts. A true alcoholic cannot keep the addiction out of their life. If you put a lid on it for a while, it will find a way out somewhere. Recently Jane has shown signs of going back to her old ways. I might have explained before; it is impossible to stop an alcoholic drinking other than by hand cuffing her to the bed and taking all the booze in her vicinity away. Unfortunately, that would be a crime. And the alcoholic will let you know that and probably call the police. If you take the booze away she'll just go and buy some more. Of course you can't find the booze anyway unless you tear the place apart because alcoholics are the best at hiding booze. There is no point asking or discussing the matter with an alcoholic because you...

Photo by amalia▲chimera You can't beat alcoholism but you can control it. If you can control it for the rest of your life, you have beaten it. That's the theory. You know when you watch sport on the TV and the commentator says that the person about to take a penalty in a soccer match is the best penalty taker in the business. What happens next? Yep, he misses the penalty. Sods law or the kiss of death by commentary. I won't, therefore, say that Jane is controlling her alcoholism. I won't even say that she is beginning to control her alcoholism. But reading between the lines you might get the message that I am trying to convey. Jane has been good for about 5 months. That does not mean no drink. It does mean control over it. There is still work to do. For example, Jane is always secretive about her drinking. Only she forgets that alcohol affects you and that it is noticeable to someone else. I always know when she has had a drink, even a small amount so to deny ...

Jane is not bad. There is the occasional lapse but these days it is just buying booze on the way home, drinking, getting home, falling asleep after about an hour and not getting up. That is good. Although I miss her when she is asleep. It is hard to do anything together. Every time she is off I make plans. Every time...you guessed it, the plans don't translate to reality. The trouble is, as a victim of an alcoholic, you are just waiting for the next binge - living on the edge. And I am super sensitive to the signs of alcoholism and I am super sensitive - full stop, period. I can't take another binge. It must be a kind of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). I sense that Jane has got the message about me. She is nicer to me - great. It's just life. There are millions of similar situations every minute of every day on the planet. They are not always about alcohol but they are always about fear, anxiety and disharmony. I'm pretty chilled out, though, because I am too...

A little snippet of info. Jane has never had a hangover, she says. Is that one reason why she drinks a bottle of vodka a day when she is binging? What I mean is that if you know you are going to suffer an almighty hangover it puts the brakes on the amount you drink. They say that drinking vodka does not give you a hangover. By hangover I mean a headache. There are other symptoms but the headache is the main symptom. Jane does suffer anxiety attacks after a binge and stomach ache. And she also feels very sick. She makes herself sick to stop feeling sick. It provides temporary relief. That is why I make her take valium (diazepam) 2 - 4 pills and molitium an anti-sickness pill (before she is sick for obvious reasons). These do the trick (just) if they are taken at the right time and the binge is not too long. The timing is important. Photo : on Flickr creative commons by Toms Bauģis (modified by me)