I'm ashamed to admit it but I am an alcoholic and have been for many years. I've been drinking long enough that I have learned how to moderate my consumption enough so that I don't go nuts.
Avatar, I will amend any of my texts which quote your words. Thank you for apologising. I can forgive you for anything that affected me personally. What I cannot forgive you for, and would not if I could, is your self destruction, and your denial. There is no such thing as an alcoholic who can brew their own beer and remain safe.
And now some tough love. I will tell you about David. I was married to David for six years when our d was born, some 14 years ago. Up until this point he seemed to hold it all together, but after this point he could not cope. He thought he was the only person bringing a wage into the house and the pressure became too much for him. In fact I was on maternity leave, and there was money, but he could not understand. Within months he was drinking out of control, and less than a year after our d was born he was sacked from his job. He drank before this, but in secret. It gradually became more and more obvious.
I insisted that he get support, and for four years I stood beside him while he did it. He was in alcohol rehab for 12 months, and then was given a supported flat on the alcohol rehab project. At this point he got a job. The alcohol people get a lot of money from the council and health authority for looking after alcoholics, and they then tried to get that same money from David, and he did not have it. So I said he could come home, but that it was his very last chance. I asked our d if she wanted daddy home and she said yes, so I allowed him to come home.
He started work in April. By June he was drinking again. I then told him he had run out of chances and had to leave. He said he had nowhere to go, and I told him that was not my problem. He said he would not leave, because it was his house, and I said, if you do not leave, then I will. I will take our d abroad and you will never see her again as long as you live.
It took 2 months to get him out of my house, but he left and went home to his parents in August. By December I was ill with post traumatic stress disorder, and I have not yet recovered, ten years later.
He is now living in a flat in the south of England. Both legs are ulcerated from the knee to the ankle. His liver and kidneys are shot. His mind is gone. He can hardly walk. His skin is yellow, his arms and legs are wasted away, and yet his feet are swollen so much that he has to wear size 14 trainers, when his foot size used to be 9.
And when he sees his parents they buy him beer with his lunch, and give him wine with his dinner. And when I hear that I have to build a brick wall around my heart so that it does not break any more than it is already broken. I have to turn my back on him, for the sake of our d.
There is no such thing as a level of alcohol which is safe for someone with an alcohol problem. The only safe thing to do, if you do not want to die a very prolonged, painful death is no alcohol whatever.
If I did not care about you, I would not say this. I would let you carry on thinking that you are holding the reins of your condition. You are not. You are being led by it, and it is damaging your life, your health and your self esteem. Chances are, in the end it will kill you.
Two years ago David had a brain scan because the doctors wanted to find out what was causing his confusion and blackouts. He rang our d and told her that they had found a brain tumour. This was not true. It was part of his confusion to mistake an investigation for a reality. This year he says he has had gangrene, and we do not know what to believe and what not to believe.
I prepared our d two years ago for her father's death, when we thought the brain tumour was real. And then a couple of weeks later he denied having said it, and said we made it up.
I now have a very confused young lady, who loves her dad very much, but who knows that the best of her dad is gone, and that who we have left is, as you rightly say, some other person. She does not know whether she wants him to live or to die. I taught her the word 'ambivalent' a long time ago, and that it is very possible to love and hate both at the same time.
If you do not want that other person to become all that is left of you, as it is all that is left of the man I married, then please recognise, there is no such thing as a safe level of drink for you. I am a liberal, I am as loving as I can be, but I cannot forgive you for destroying your life bit by bit, just as I cannot forgive my former husband. This much love needs God, because it is beyond me.
heehee
