Honey, there is nothing you can do for an alcoholic who doesn’t want to stop drinking. Nothing. I would tell you that you did as much as you could, then saved your own life. Be proud of that.
I go offline for a bit and the kind words just keep on coming. Thanks again everyone.
Yes, I certainly plan to stick around. I’ve been lurking for soooo long that now I’ve finally plucked up the courage to dip my toe in, I’ll be here for a while, I reckon.
Children? No, thankfully. I’ve never had any maternal instinct and thankful modern society and technology gives us choices in life. Although in some of my more irrational moments I’ve thought that maybe if we’d had children, then that would have given him something to be responsible and pull himself together for. But I know in my heart of hearts that’s not the case and it would have been more lives affected.
As for the “is it a disease” debate, I do reconcile my own thoughts with the knowledge that nobody would choose to live the way he was living at the end, so there must have been a mental illness behind it.
You guys are great.
My SIL quit for about 6 months after her coma and subsequent hospitalization. Then on Father’s Day, she bought a small bottle of booze for her dad…
…and drank it on the way to his house!
I believe that she couldn’t stop because she had no sense of self-worth, and therefore, nothing better to fill her time with. It was heartbreaking to watch. She was only 42 when she died.
And this is the reason alcoholism is such an evil disease. Alcoholics are terrific at shifting the responsibility to those around them. Listen closely here:IT’S NOT YOUR FAULT. You didn’t make him drink, and believe me, you could not have stopped him. It was the right thing to do to throw him out if he was making no effort to modify his behavior.
My mother-in-law drank herself to death a few years ago, and my wife was wracked with guilt about it, thinking the same thing that you are, that she did not do enough to help her mom. She went to a grief therapist who soon helped her to see that the responsibility for drinking or not drinking rests with the alcoholic, not anyone around them. I’d urge you to get some grief counseling as soon as you can.
God bless you
PB
Very nicely put.
Most rational humans want to take care of themselves and their loved ones. Mothers will sacrifice for their children, husbands will work overtime to make sure their family is taken care of, etc.
You are a rational human. Your instinct was to help your husband. However, he was not rational. Whether it was a disease or an addiction, the liquor was more important to him than you were.
You’re trying to reconcile the guilt, but that’s not logical. You were in a relationship with an irrational person who for whatever reason, decided not to get help. You did the only thing you could…since your husband wasn’t there for you as a supportive partner, you got out.
You said that his alcoholism started after many years of marriage and after he started suffering from deprerssion. Was he treated for that?
And I just want to add, your posts seem to indicate that you have many regrets. Don’t! We all have regrets and wonder where we went wrong. Most of the time what torments the most is the fact that probably we did make errors, but then everyone makes errors in everything. Most often these were unavoidable and no one else could have done better. Don’t second guess yourself now. You did everything you could have. He is in peace now. Remember him… the good times you had. All the best and take care!
I’ve hesitated to post here, because I don’t really have anything useful or helpful to add. My uncle passed away in his apartment a month or so ago, in a situation that sounds very similar to your ex’s passing, Scougs. We don’t know how long he’d been dead when my aunt found him; but likely a few weeks.
He’d been an alcoholic for years, and had been in and out of treatment a number of times. He also suffered from depression. He cut off contact with my mother (hsi sister) when she told him how concerned she was for his health and well-being. So, now that he’s dead, she’s doing the “well, maybe if I’d been less confrontational, he’d be alive today” and “maybe if I’d had a welfare check done earlier, he’d be alive.” I’ve tried to get her to see that he was responsible for what happened – if she’d soft-pedaled her concern, he’d have brushed her off. If she’d gotten a welfare check, he’d have told the cops to fuck off, and gone back to drinking.
I had a long (boozy) talk with my brother after my uncle’s death, and my sister too is having a hard time figuring this out as well. We all have our own reasons that this is difficult, but at least we have each other. And maybe that’s what’s saddest about the whole thing – at the end, my uncle ignored his wife, his kids, his parents, his siblings, all of us in favor of the bottle.
I don’t have any comfort to offer, except maybe it’s comfort enough to know that your situation isn’t unique, that all over the world people are dealing with the same issues and problems. But I think that’s a cold comfort at best.
Yes, he was treated for depression. Counselling, psychiatrists, medication. But he just didn’t seem to… I don’t know… try.
I do try and remember the good times, but that’s pretty painful at the moment because it just reminds me of the wonderful man I lost. It’s almost more helpful to remember him lying in a hospital bed, bright yellow and very confused, the last time I saw him alive.
Cold comfort it might be, but it’s actually very helpful to know how many people have been through the same thing. I also take comfort from the fact that my husband had been dead less than a day, and it was the police that found him rather than a friend or relative. That must have been very tough on your aunt.
I’m sorry to hear your story. I’ve got a younger brother who is mentally ill, but refuses to be helped. He’s quite possibly bipolor, but has never been offically diagnosed.
He doesn’t use drugs or alchol, but is homeless. He’s lived off of my mother for years until she finally cut him off last year, and then made it clear again this year that there wouldn’t be more money.
He’s tried for years to get me to give him money. I had previously offered to pay for counseling or to pay him money if he would volunteer someplace, but he wouldn’t do it. He’s tried to emotionally blackmail us by threatening suicide and everything else.
He just tried to get money again from me, but I had to tell him no. As long as he’s not helping himself, it would just enable him.
It’s not an easy thing, and I expect that he’ll die on the street sometime, but there isn’t anything you can do if the person isn’t willing to help themself.
Like others who have posted, I wish I knew what to say. If I did, it would probably sound very much like what Qadgop and others have said.
In the case of my mother, she hid her drinking so well that when everything fell apart I felt incredibly stupid for not seeing the signs. By the time she was in treatment I was living in another state, but I was living with her when she started drinking again. She had actually gone through treatment when I was very young and I grew up with sober parents.
I found a bottle of wine under her sink and while it seemed odd, I didn’t really think about it. Looking back, there were other signs, but she was sober and sponsored others through AA.
So when my mom was on suicide watch after her third trip through inpatient treatment I felt guilty and painfully stupid for not seeing what was going on earlier.
I know it’s not the same as your situation but maybe it will help to know that the emotions you’re experiencing are common to those dealing with alcoholism and its disastrous effects on families, even when the circumstances are very different.
Reading your posts, I get the sense that you are very capable person and I wish you nothing but the best.
Once when I went to Al-Alon to try and deal with my dad’s drinking, a lady who had multiple alcoholic husbands told me I would end up marrying an alcoholic like my father. I ended up dealing with his drinking by growing up and moving away from home.
Dad drinks when he’s lonely. Mom comes up to visit me here, her little vacation, and he inevitably goes on a binge. Ain’t that just nice?
Strangely enough, after you posted your OP, I got a call that my dad was in a very bad way. He had fallen backwards down the stairs in his flat, and was stuck in his bedroom with no way to get food, or open the door. He was, obviously, sore all over and was also hallucinating because of the sudden alcohol detox. He fell on Wednesday evening, and we eventually got to him today and got him to hospital. He looked dreadful. All yellow, and his abdomen is hugely distended. I have never seen him this bad. He can’t go back to his flat on his own (physically or mentally), but that means that we are all dragged into this again.
I don’t want to hijack your thread, Scougs, but I just wanted to share and this seemed as appropriate a place as any. Any good thoughts would be greatfully appreciated.
Look after yourself, Scougs, that’s the most important thing.
waves from about fifty miles or so away
Hi,
Not much to add; as a recovering alkie, I’d just like to add my assurance that you did more than anyone has or had a right to expect. It’s commonly said that alcoholics don’t really form relationships; they take hostages. It’s an unspeakably horrible situation for the friends and family, and the worst thing is that no amount of reason or compassion makes a blind bit of diffrence until the drinker makes his or her own move to control the addiction.
You sound like a warm, caring person; I think your husband was lucky to have you for as long as he did.
Damn, so sorry to hear that, Neeps. None of those signs sound good but I’m sure you’re plenty aware of that. People have to do what is best in their situation and no stranger on the internet (or anywhere else, for that matter) can make that call for for them. But please consider that you and your mother really can’t–cannot–do a damned thing for him, even now. The good folks at the hospital will handle his medical situation. Since he was in the throes of DTs he’s probably drugged to the gills anyway to cushion his withdrawal. Even when/if he becomes more aware, let the doctors and counselors advise you on how much contact would be helpful to him or you.
It’s very difficult to detach but please consider doing just that, or at least not permitting yourself to be dragged back down into his hell again. It’d be different if you could drag him out of it. Since you can’t then the most that can be done is limiting the collateral damage to your family.
My thoughts are with you, and Scougs and Tokyo Player and the others in this thread.
Quoted for truth.
I am an alcoholic and I would advise you to not hesitate to protect yourself. We are the destroyers of worlds. 
Neeps, my SIL was to that point and was able to recover. They removed 4 liters of fluid off her abdomen. I wish your dad the best.
Oh, Neeps, that’s not good. Sounds very, very familiar. But as Kalhoun says, it’s not like there’s no way back. Maybe this will give him a wake up call, maybe not. It’s going to be a difficult time.
You will shortly have a PM.
Thanks, all, for your kind words. I guess all we can do is whatever we think is the best, so that when we look back on this time, we won’t be having second thoughts about what we could have done better or differently.
That being said, given what everyone has been through in these kind of situations, and what Scougs has been through so recently, that is maybe an overly hopeful thought
We have been through this before, so all I can do at the moment is take one day as it comes. Ironic thought, that.
There really are people who have gotten to the brink and have come back to live a meaningful life, free of alcohol. I agree it will take a lot of determination on your dad’s part, and there are no guarantees once a body has endured so much damage. However, my SIL lived another 7 years after her hospitalization and coma (and she was drinking for nearly the entire time!). Maybe you can find some examples and share them with your dad, to encourage him to stick with a life of sobriety. I feel your despair. It’s a very helpless place to be, but it’s not necessarily the end of the line.