The Diary of a Victim of an Alcoholic

This will be short. About 2 months ago Jane had a month long binge with two hospital visits in the middle. She fell over five times in one day onto a hard floor. She broke her wrist and is off work for about three months in total. This is causing huge financial problems for her and it has pretty much broken our relationship, what was left of it. I can't get it back. I lose my cool all the time and I am thoroughly pissed off with her. I really have to leave but I don't want to. I am torn. I will go eventually. There is no other choice. This is sad. Jane's "illness" has finally broken the relationship. It was always destined to be this way. It has been a roller coaster. The last binge was the longest she has ever had and it was after one of the best spells off drink. So you see, the problem (that causes the alcoholism) has to come out. You bottle it up and it comes out more strongly. I am damaged by all this a bit. Al anon doesn't work. It is too chatty an...

This is an update. Aren't all the posts update?! I think (just think without any optimism as you can't be optimistic about alcoholism) that Jane might be getting better. What gives me a bit of hope? The other morning, she volunteered some information. She said that she had taken a bottle of wine (that was in the fridge for me!), opened it and then decided not to drink it. She said that she had thought how it would affect me and our cats. WOW. I have always said to her that there must be a moment, perhaps 30 seconds in duration, during which she has a choice to drink or not and at that critical time, this time, she has decided to not drink. This shows a conscience piece of decision making rather than blindly giving in to her addiction. That must be a good sign surely? Well, I hope so and I think she feels good about what she did. I believe that the habit of drinking alcohol can be unlearnt gradually. As the months roll by without drinking the habit gradually fades. It is t...

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...

Is it possible to turn around alcoholism? You may have heard of the The Priory Hospital Roehampton. It is about 20 minutes walk from where I live. Jane has been there a few times. She was there for a month or so many years ago. The whole thing was paid for out of health insurance. Personally I don't have a lot of faith is places like the Priory Hospitals. They make a lot out of health insurance, pushing the premiums up. People who have attended the Priory (and a good number of famous people have attended the Roehampton branch) say that the success rate is very low. I forget the figure but lets say if 100 alcoholics attended The Priory Hospital Roehampton on a full blown course intended to stop the addiction, about 5 might stop - 5%. It is something like that or even less. For the hospital, which is private by the way and therefore heavily commercial in culture, it is more about milking the insurance companies than curing addicts. On that basis, the chances of turning around...

Alcoholism chat is what a lot of this Blog is about. It's meaningful chat though, from the heart, direct and honest. It's the only way to tell the world what it is like to be the partner of an alcoholic. Jane is a very needy person. Yesterday she was depressed and had difficulty in doing things. Certainly she had difficulty in going to AA but eventually went. I took here there and she got the bus back. She felt better after the meeting, which shows the usefulness of Alcoholics Anonymous. It always pays to actually do something about the problem no matter how hard it is initially to do it. It takes a lot of effort sometimes to get off ones backside up off the floor and do things but it always helps the mood and gives some hope and motivation. Yesterday, Jane was depressed when she went to bed the night before and went for a run early. When she came back from the run she was in better spirits. This could be the effect of the run or she could have bought a miniature of Vodka on th...

Which alcoholism stage are you at? Are you a young person getting "ratted" or whatever term you use ("wasted") every Friday. Sure you're having a good time. Not a thought about the potential for addiction. The vast majority of you are right - you'll be fine. But if you have seen relatives, particularly parents and grandparents, succumb to alcoholism you'd better beware as you are gradually, inexorably quite possibly approaching the wire and if you recklessly cross the oh so dreaded wire you'll never get back and your life will be changed for the worse (massively for the worse) and for ever. It is now accepted that there is a substantial element of genetic predisposition towards alcoholism, which means it is likely to run in the family. And if it is not exactly alcoholism that runs in the family it might be depression or some kind of condition such as an obsessive compulsive disorder. A mental state that indicates a predisposition to addiction. The wa...