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My wife recently started going to AA after several years of our struggling with her poor impulse control. Obviously, this takes the form of drinking often enough to be a problem. The situation, though, is complicated by the fact that when she was a baby she had bacterial meningitis that went untreated for 10 days, almost killing her and leaving her with brain damage. Since we've been together we explored her history together (her medical history was not something the family will ever discuss openly), ordered her medical records and saw that, over time, there were patterns in her health and personal challenges that suggested that the brain damage from the meningitis took the form of epilepsy. Since then she has gotten a diagnosis from several neurologists that confirm this. So what I am left with, as her spouse, is determining when her rages, character assassinations, mood swings, and impulse control are from temporal epilepsy or alcoholism -- especially since the neurologists confirmed that her type of epilepsy includes those features. Both are diseases, but I know there are certain aspects of her behavior that are not likely to change ever, since they are brain damage related. I'd like insights and comments from people on this, especially if they have been through something similar. I know that I must be careful to examine my contributions to any problems/patters we have and I am on-line here a lot for advice, as well as real-time Al-Anon meetings and church, as well as becoming generally educated about alcoholism, co-dependence, epilepsy, etc. Anything I can learn about being patient and also being assertive and self-preserving while I gain perspective would be very helpful.
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Peace comes from within. Do not seek it from without. Buddha
I know only a little of Epilepsy. My grandfather had it, and was an alcoholic as well. Is she on medication to keep her seizures under wraps? I am not sure how I would approach it. Are the doctors saying her outbursts ARE seizures, or that her brain has been damaged as a result and has affected her behavior? Which I know can happen. I think the latter would not prevent you from loving setting a boundary.
My son is autistic, mildly so, he can be obnoxious and rude because he lacks social understanding of things. I do not give him an out. He still gets to figure out a way to learn around it. I've always told my kids "we are all dealt something we have to work with or work on, we meet it, not succumb to it".
In other situations the abusive behavior is sometimes met best with "I do not accept that behavior, I'm going to leave and will speak with you when you are respectful" and walk away and ignore any further bad treatment. I don't know if that would work but just one little idea. Hugs.
A couple of my good friends in AA also have epilepsy. I guess there is a high comorbidity rate between the two. I don't think you have to decide which is responsible for her behavior. Her behaviors are going to improve if she works a good AA program. Period.
A lot of folks wind up drinking themselves into a worse seizure disorder than they may already have. My one friend stopped having seizures about a year after he got sober.
So, either way, she has to learn to be a better person in AA and even if the outbursts are epilepsy related, she still needs to take ownership and make amends in the best way she can. She may not be able to control all behaviors, but she can control how she reacts after.
I tell folks that anything is possible in AA because I have changed so radically I hardly recognize myself (for the better I like to think lol). Hence, you really don't know much right now and it's okay to not know. More will be revealed.
I teach rehab...(I know, ironic) ...and in general, people in recovery are the ones learning to live with their symptoms, and manage them...and consistent with al-anon principles...these are her issues...you didn't cause it, can't cure it...etc
is she getting professional help on her road to recovery? there are awesome peer support groups for epilepsy, too...to help her learn to live with and manage the symptoms there...is she seeing a neuropsychiatrist?
Aloha Spooky and welcome to the board and the contribution...alcoholism is a disease of the mind (and other parts of the person as well) Epilepsy is a disease of the mind too and I've witnessed the overlap. What I have found for me as a response to the acting out of both is to stand by quietly if possible with compassion and often I would meet it with the question "Do you want a hug". Yes I've done it with family and with patients and others...rarely have I seen or experienced the other person say no...They want the reassurance that they are okay...just like I did when I was crazy and getting worse.
Use your imagination and vision on giving and getting that reaffirmation that you also would be okay and that the hug would reassure you.
Thanks everyone for the feedback. I was interested to hear that there is a high comorbidity rate with alcoholism and epilepsy. It makes sense, both for the reasons I listed (poor impulse control, etc) and also for the reason DavidG pointed out -- one looks for ways to medicate oneself. Her seizures are partially controlled with phenobarbitol and diazapam. She doesn't abuse these medications and in fact is always wanting to stop taking them (another way the craftiness of alcoholism may be at work, I realize). She has been on so many different drugs -- all the very new ones, the old ones...all but those she takes now have made things several times worse. Yikes. I was encouraged to hear that working her program as I work my own will probably help one way or the other. While I agree she has to own her behaviors it has been so hard watching her regress sometimes -- her folks were Christian Scientists and didn't believe in Western medicine and that's how she got the brain damage that has manifested as seizures -- and just as a person stops their emotional growth when they start drinking, so her seizures often seem to put her in a two-year-old frame of mind. Knowing that she was never nurtured as an ill child (to acknowledge illness would make it more manifest in her parents' belief system) makes it so hard not to be a doormat sometimes. I have gotten much better at nurturing her when she is "in her right mind" and doing no more than necessary when she's in her worst states. I so appreciate all these comments. I will remember to say the Serenity Prayer, too.
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Peace comes from within. Do not seek it from without. Buddha
