The Diary of a Victim of an Alcoholic

News media tells us that the rate of fatalities from excess drinking in 2022 in the UK were 41% higher than in 2019 with women showing the biggest rise. It was a record high in 2022. There were 16.6 deaths caused by alcohol per 100,000 in 2022 compared to 11.8. The information comes from the UK's Office for National Statistics. The research indicated that those who were drinking quite a lot of alcohol before the pandemic increased their consumption during the pandemic. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to understand why. The long lockdowns. The long periods of furlough during which, in the UK, people received 80% of their salary from the UK government grants. That proved far too expensive and it was far too generous in my view. But it is clear that when a government allows people to do nothing for long periods of time while receiving a good income, they gradually disintegrate in terms of their personal care, well-being and structure in their life. People need the structure a...

There is a difference between binge alcoholism and day-to-day or traditional alcoholism. I will discuss this from personal experience. And I don't mean me being an alcoholic because I am teetotal. I'm talking about looking after Jane who is a binge alcoholic and has been for 40 years perhaps. Jane I think you will find different definitions of binge alcoholism. For me, and in respect of Jane, it means going long periods without any alcohol at all. This period may last several weeks or up to 3 months. Nowadays, it lasts about 2 to 3 months. In the past this period of abstention lasted for a few weeks. Her binge alcoholism has changed over the years. Binge alcoholism for Jane follows a schedule with big breaks in-between very heavy drinking. And I believe that she follows her internal clock. I also believe that she knows when she is going to start a binge. In fact she plans it to a certain extent. That is why, for instance, she binges just after Christmas. The devastating point i...

Jane, the protagonist in this blog, is constantly in profound denial about her alcoholism. You simply cannot talk to her about it. If you try she becomes angry and argumentative. She simply refuses to discuss her alcoholism which perpetuates it because you can never tackle it.  Denial is lying to oneself... She doesn't allow other people to discuss it. Although in an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting she will play the role and admit to her alcoholism. However, it has never worked to stop her alcoholism. Her denial is so profound that I don't see any hope of her changing. Denial is a type of defence mechanism . Through denial you ignore the reality of the situation that you are in. The purpose? To avoid anxiety. It is therefore a defence mechanism. It helps to cope with distressing feelings. A person in denial does not acknowledge reality.  They deny the consequences of reality. This is that they are an alcoholic. Alcoholism ruins your life or severely curtails enjoyment. It can mak...

A daughter has described her mother's descent into alcoholism (Metro online newspaper). Every step of the way including her death ticks a box about alcoholism. It's a good story for that reason but it is tragic. Utterly tragic. By that I mean for the daughter more than for the mother. She was drinking two litres of spirits every day and was out of it. It is always the relatives who suffer the most and here is her story summarised. Note: please forgive the odd typo. This was written in haste. Note 2: I have cared for a binge alcoholic for years 😎😢 . But time is running out. I can't really do it anymore. It is too hard or too horrendous to be honest. Although Jane (not her real name) is sober for three months on the trot until the next 4-5 week binge comes along followed by 3 weeks in hospital if she survives. The binges are very severe. Her mother always liked a tipple. She would drink in the evening and then progressed to having a drink before she went to bed and then to ...

Yes, it can contribute to dementia. Here are some pointers from an extensive internet search and from personal experience (from observing an alcoholic). Personal experience: I think Jane is losing her memory and I think it is due to her drinking. I'm speculating but it looks a bit like that. Alcoholism can indeed contribute to the development of dementia , although the relationship is multifaceted. Let’s explore this further: Alcohol-Related ‘Dementia’ : Alcohol-related ‘dementia’ is a type of alcohol-related brain damage (ARBD) . It occurs due to chronic and excessive alcohol consumption over many years. Individuals with alcohol-related ‘dementia’ struggle with day-to-day tasks because of brain damage caused by alcohol. Common symptoms include memory loss, difficulty thinking, and problems with complex tasks like managing finances or cooking meals. Brain scans often reveal significant shrinkage in certain areas, particularly the frontal lobes, which are particularly affected by ...

Firstly, I would like to tell you why I think Jane became an alcoholic. She had no definitive diagnosis but this is my opinion. Below the picture are some general views on alcoholism. She finds life too hard. She finds life too hard because emotionally and mentally her development was arrested I believe. She sometimes behaves like a 14-year-old. With that mentality life can become very hard. If life is hard you tend to want to get out of it and alcohol is a route to achieve that objective. Also, her parents argued a hell of a lot. I believe that as a child she felt guilty that she was the cause of these arguments. This affected her self-esteem. She has low self-esteem. Low self-esteem makes life more difficult because it knocks your confidence. And you think things are your fault. You become anxious and anxiety can lead to depression and depression can also lead to alcoholism. In my view, her alcoholism originates in her early years and it's due to an environment created by her par...

  Sorry that the picture is disrespectful. It was created by AI! I have respect for alcoholics. There but for the grace of God go I as the saying goes. Certainly! Here are 10 warning signs that might indicate alcoholism: Drinking Alone and in Secrecy : If you find yourself frequently drinking alone or hiding your alcohol consumption from others, it could be a sign of alcoholism. Losing Interest in Other Activities : A decline in interest or enjoyment of activities you once found pleasurable may be linked to alcohol abuse. Alcohol Cravings : Strong cravings for alcohol, especially when you’re not drinking, can be indicative of a problem. Prioritizing Drinking Over Responsibilities : When alcohol becomes more important than work, family, or other obligations, it’s a red flag. Experiencing Alcohol Withdrawal Symptoms : If you suffer from withdrawal symptoms like tremors, anxiety, or nausea when you don’t drink, it’s a concerning sign. Lying, lying and lying some more!! Alcoholic...

Just a quick note to say that I am still alive as the author of this website and that Jane, the alcoholic in question, is also still alive. Jane still has an alcoholic binge every three months and each alcoholic binge lasts about two months when you take into account the recovery time as well. I am 76 years of age and Jane is around 72 years of age. I am sure that as you get older the chances of a fully fledged alcoholic binge of the nature that Jane enjoys is enough to kill you. The point is that any time Jane now has a four week binge and the four week recovery in hospital there's a good chance that she will die because the body becomes more fragile and the immune system more delicate et cetera. I just think that the risk of killing yourself through acute alcoholism or the consequences of alcoholism such as falling over and cracking your head on the ground or being run over by a vehicle as you go to the nearest corner shop for two bottles of vodka, are greatly enhanced when you r...

This is a brief post to try and keep the site alive. No one has read a single page on this site for months! :) I think Google has disowned it completely. It no longer recognises it. I won't say more now. Update: the reason? Because I had inadvertently made the website PRIVATE! I was trying to make myself anonymous. I failed and I am in the open now. I don't care. Here is a video on how to beat alcoholism! But don't believe it as a cure. There is no cure. It is all about controlling it, not beating it.  There is only one way to beat alcoholism: have the will and commitment to do it. You genuinely want to stop and you seek help such as AA to achieve that goal. This attitude must be permanent for the rest of your life. No other options.

You have to be sympathetic towards alcoholics because there but for the grace of God go I. Alcoholism is described as a disease. I don't think that it is. It is a very strong habit, almost impossible to shake off. But humans are predisposed to this sort of condition. Anybody can be born with this predisposition towards alcoholism.  Photo: Pixabay. Humankind is quite a messed up species of creature. Clearly, a large segment of society finds life intolerable and therefore they need to get out of it, remove themselves from it. Alcoholism does it for them only the downside after the upside is enormous. The downside is far worse than the upside but alcoholics never quite digest that simple fact. So we have to be sympathetic towards alcoholics. They damage their lives and they can't control their lives and they hate the world. I understand it completely but fortunately I don't have that problem (although I hate the human world sometimes). And if you don't have that problem...

A permanent danger for the binge alcoholic is drink-driving. They call this driving under the influence, DUI, in America. Binge alcoholics are those that are sober for a long time, perhaps a month or up to 3 months, and then they have an almighty binge during which they become completely and horrifically drunk, make a mess of their home and end up in hospital.  Gotta stop DUI - drink-driving when on a binge.  Image by  PublicDomainPictures  from  Pixabay   The binge, as is the case with Jane, might last for about a week. It might last for four days or, in all, three weeks. It's all very flexible but during this time vodka stocks need to be topped up. If a binge alcoholic is drinking a bottle of vodka every day, over 10 days she will be drinking 10 bottles of vodka so she will probably have to pop down to the shops to get some more. That presents a problem because she will be dead drunk, covered in filth and looking like the worst tramp in the world. She ...

Well, I don't think you can have a relationship at all in the conventional sense of a man/woman's loving relationship in which you both contribute in the same way. It is bound to be badly disrupted by the alcoholism of one partner. Indeed destroyed often or normally as it is intolerable. It is the alcoholic's lying with damages trust which is also a major factor. It is said that it is the sober partner of the drunk alcoholic is suffers far more and relatives of the alcoholic if they are close. The drunk is out of it. Sleeping through all the mayhem. What kind of relationship can you have with an alcoholic? Image: Pixabay. In fact, I would be surprised if any partnership survived the alcoholism of one partner provided the other was either a non-drinker or certainly not alcoholic. In other words you are mixing together one normal, healthy person without a drink problem with a person who has a genuine drink problem. The amount of friction that generates is going to destroy the...

Update: the road to recovery is shorter than I had expcted for her....This is a quick update on my last post. In that post I said that Jane had caught Covid-19 at hospital while she was recovering from an alcoholic binge. In hospitals in the UK they test you all the time for Covid. Anyway, she recovered in hospital from the worst of the symptoms and is now at home. She says that she lacks energy. She says that Covid is a terrible disease and she is very fatigued and unable to do almost anything. I am vaccinated and I will be doing some research on how infectious a person is after contracting the disease and recovering from it. There must be a time when on the path to recovery a person is no longer infectious. My vaccination was about two weeks ago so I have one more week before I am properly immunised. The booster in about 10 weeks time will immunise me some more. That's about it for the update. Let's just say that Jane pulled through and is on the slow road to recovery. She is...

Jane is currently in hospital after a binge. She went to hospital because of an alcoholic binge and while she was in hospital she was routinely tested for Covid-19 and found to be positive. I believe that she caught the coronavirus from a previous very recent stay at hospital after another binge.  I spoke to a doctor and they said that Covid-19 is quite prevalent at hospitals. It is hard to avoid getting it despite the testing that they do in hospital and the efforts to separate infected people from non-infected people. So it's been quite difficult.  You know it's quite hard to know what to report. This blog has been going for a long time and perhaps I'll  to try and provide an overview. I think she's improved dramatically over the 20 or more years that I have known her. But she still has alcoholic binges. This time they are about three months apart but each binge last about one month when you combine the actual consumption of alcohol with the hospitalisation afterwards...

One of the great destroyers of alcoholism is that it breeds lying. Lying to oneself and others. Lying about not drinking, about not feeling like a drink, about buying booze, about planning to drink or anything for that matter because once you lie to hide your alcoholism you lie about other things and the alcoholic becomes an inveterate liar. A dark walk in a forest of lies. Trust is the victim and the fallout is the relationship. I have learned to accept Jane's lying about her drinking. It is pointless because I know with absolute certainty when she is lying. It is like understanding a new language. I translate what she says into the truth. I bugs the hell out of me though. Jane is the only person I have allowed to lie to me and still have a relationship with them. It's because I love her. I beg her to stop lying. I beg her to just tell me the way it is, unvarnished. She can't do it because she is also lying to herself. She can't accept her alcoholism. She is deluded ...

Just a quick update for anyone who is following this blog. I am sure no one is but there you are. I'll update anyway. You may well know who I am by now but I don't really care if you do. Jane is okay. She's had the usual binge but they are further apart than in the past. She's pretty healthy. Binging does not damage health as much as permanent drinking as the body has time to recover.  Except...Jane binges bigtime and has accidents. I won't go into details but there is a distinct possibility that she could harm herself badly on one of her alcoholic binges. Or get into trouble with the police. We still see each other almost daily. I'll be meeting her today in about 30 minutes. We'll have a chat, have a coffee and go for a walk by the river. In the summer we walk in the beautiful Richmond Park. These are good for her and me. She likes them. Nature is a great healer . It pours balm on the troubled brain. Walk in nature, among the trees. Listen to t...

Jane wants to die. She has desired this for many years. She continues to drink. Just to remind you, she is a binge drinker. This means that she does not drink continuously like most alcoholics but pauses between binges of about a week. The pause until the next binge maybe a month or maybe less. The binge itself may be longer than a week or less. She drinks need vodka normally. Out of the bottle. She has written a new will quite recently. She has told me that she is preparing for her death. She has not told me how she will end her life. Today I can't reach her. She may be ill or she may be drunk. The third possibility is that she may be dead. She is suffering from associated illnesses such as nerve damage in her left leg due to an attempted suicide. I won't go into details but that is causing problems and I think you will find on the Internet that sometimes an excess of alcohol in the body can stop the pancreas working (and of course it also causes chronic pancreatitis) which ca...

Internet users ask, "why are alcoholics skinny?". I don't believe all alcoholics are skinny but a lot of dyed in the wool alcoholics are probably malnourished resulting in being skinny. 35 year old alcoholic who drank to excess for a long time and who is dying They are malnourished because they don't care about their health or appearance. They may have low self-esteem (many alcoholics do). This results in the person hating themselves which leads to a desire to self-punishment which in turn leads to neglect including failing to eat properly. The neglect can also lead to health problems which can cause a person to be skinny. Alcoholics can be drunk for long periods when they neglect themselves including failing to eat properly. Alcoholics may be broke which makes buying food a non-priority. Alcoholics may have a personality disorder such as bulimia or anorexia. Both lead to being underweight. Jane used to underweight due to borderline anore...

Alcoholism is a habit not a disease. Obviously it is a very deep-seated habit. It is probably a habit which developed over a long period of time. As a consequence it will take a long period of time to unlearn the habit. What would be a crystallising moment which helps to break the habit is the knowledge that one is going to die through alcoholism provided the alcoholic does not wish to die. That's the key. It is down to the mentality of the alcoholic. If the alcoholic is using alcoholism as a way to kill themselves then the fear of dying through alcoholism will not break the habit. It is possible to chip away at a habit, to break it down. If an alcoholic drinks less and less gradually over a period of many months then there will come a time when he/she will find alcohol objectionable. A lot of what we do are habits. If we have sugar in our tea that becomes a habit. If we then stop having sugar in our tea it tastes unpleasant for a while until it tastes fine at which point putting...

Today was sunny. We had a nice day today. Jane came over and we went for a walk down by the river. Then we had a coffee and a cup of tea at a café. Then she went back to her flat and I went to my flat. That was pleasant. We are seeing each other regularly. We are enjoying each other's company.  Don't be fooled by this. It isn't this good ;) We just live day to day. Jane is still, if one is brutally honest, a practising binge alcoholic but the time between binges has dramatically extended over the 20 years that I've known her. I don't wish to be boastful but she has dramatically improved over the time that I have known her. She still denies that she is an alcoholic. She still denies that she has been drinking when I know she has been drinking and therefore she cannot really say that she is a recovering alcoholic. All recovering alcoholics have admitted that they are alcoholics which is the first stage in a true recovery. However, putting that behind me for ...