Ugh, what a weekend that was.

My daughter was away, which is always a little challenging for me. The A stayed in his room and drank and slept in fits. I couldn't find the energy or desire to do anything much. I've become so accustomed to keeping the house quiet when he's asleep (he used to rage if a sound was made, no matter what time of day it was. Things are a little different now but I still find myself tip-toeing and avoiding anything excessively noisy like moving anything, or using cupboards or doors, or breathing. lol. It's a bit sad). But anyway I just read a funny book and tried to stay positive.  Took myself back to step 1 and meditated on it a lot, because I figure if I can still feel this lonely and sad and affected by it, maybe I need to begin at the beginning. I know I can do this, I just have to keep at it, and believe in myself and my HP.

Late on Sunday afternoon he emerged from his room, a little drunk but in good spirits and seemingly possessed by Cassanova. He showered, then gave me a speech about his deep love for me and his terrible regret at the ways he has mistreated me. I just let myself enjoy an evening in bed and possibly some of the nicest, most honest conversation we have had in years. I suppose I shouldn't have, since he was drinking but he was so lucid, and sweet, almost the guy I fell in love with. I haven't seen him like that for a very, very long time. It was nice to love him for a little while. But as time wore on he drank 2 bottles of red wine and his mood started to deteriorate and he was having seizures every 10 minutes or so (this happens when he drinks). At 2am I suggested we go to sleep and he became outraged- he had NO clean clothes for work today and he was going to stay up washing. Then he cranked up the music, all the fun stuff. He got quite nasty about how "the fairies don't do his washing for him while he's sleeping". No, the fairies used to do his washing while he was sleeping. But the fairies learnt not to enable him months ago.

Well, our washing machine is broken. The pump doesn't work so in between cycles you have to pull the hose out of the sink and drain it out the laundry door. It's a gigantic pain in the ass. So I wake up and the music is LOUD and I go in to ask him to turn it down and he says "the machine's been filling for hours and it doesn't seem to do anything". You're kidding me. Of course, he's got the hose draining out the door and the machine is just emptying itself into the yard so I try to show him and he says "either do it yourself or F off". Right. Either leave me to run water out the laundry door all night long, or do my washing for me like a good little fairy. At 4am. He's finished bottle no.3 now and is onto 4. That's a hell of a lot of red wine. 

He comes in to "cuddle and apologise" and is surprisingly lucid for a while and then he does something strange. I've seen him drunk a million times and heard him babble, rant and slur, even moan but never this. He keeps talking conversationally, but the words that are coming out of his mouth aren't making any sense at all. "spanner automobile fish sauce in my geranium laboratory" sort of crazy. (but with ruder words). And he looks scared and keeps trying but what's coming out of his mouth is absolute gibberish and he knows it. It's the strangest thing I've ever experienced with him, his eyes seem quite normal and he's gesturing and looking at me like he's pleading with me to understand him but the words are just deranged. Frustrated and embarrassed, he goes back to his room to drink more. I feel afraid; this looks to me like real brain damage.

So I do the washing figuring at least when the machine is finished there will be less noise and I'll be able to sleep. Wake again; he's running water through it again onto the clean spun-dry clothes and out the door. What can I do. I spin it dry again and hang it up. He wins. The fairies have done his washing. Back to sleep. Half an hour later I wake to some weird very heavy, very laboured breathing in the hallway. I go out and he's just standing there, hunched over and breathing like he's run a marathon. I lead him to bed and he is on fire; burning with fever. He doesn't sleep, just lies there all night, burning and asking for water and telling me he can't move his neck. Normally I wouldn't do water or even share the same bed when he's drunk but he's scaring me and his fever is terrifying. I've never felt anyone so hot. He's quite lucid again, as if he hasn't had a drop to drink and tells me he has a terrible headache and he thinks he has the flu. I bring him several litres of water and ice-packs to try to get the temperature down. He seems extremely ill and I contemplate calling a doctor.

6 hours or so later, he gets up and the fever is gone and he seems quite alright. I make him breakfast and lunch because I want him to eat something decent. All the stuff I stopped doing months ago. He seems extremely happy that I am doing these things for him like I used to. He thanks me for his clean dry clothes and for his food and almost skips out the door.

What just happened here? My first thought as he leaves for work is "did he just realise that if he drinks until he makes himself really sick I will be worried and start caring for him again?" He's happy when he comes home and thanks me again. I hope, really really hope that he is just happy to know that I still care and this isn't going to become some new form of manipulation. Because that's going to be really hard to navigate. And what the hell has he done to himself to bring about that sort of reaction to a binge? Has he ruined his liver so badly that it's causing brain damage? Is that what's been causing the seizures all this time? Is he going to become so sick at 37 years of age that I have to decide whether to watch him die or abandon him?  And WHY is this my focus all of a sudden? 

Oh yeah, they're cunning diseases, his and mine. All they seem to want is for me to nurture and care for them. And what a crappy weekend and I'm so, so tired of getting no sleep. 

Up yours, alcoholism. I'm really sick of your nonsense.

Aloha Melly I'm revisiting my past with my alcoholic/addict coming up with simple shot suggestions.  Your husband would do much better under these conditions with professional medical help than with you.  It's not about doing what your not doing...it's about stopping doing what you're doing.  When an alcoholic or addict is displaying the symptoms that your man was; dial the emergency number and get paramedics out there as fast as you can. What you are descripting was deleium demential and toxic shock...alcohol poisoning and while I could and would talk my program while my spouse or someone else was going thru the similar event I later learned call the professionals.  I have several such events with my spouse which after being in recovery a while resulted in me apologizing for.  I did the wrong thing when professionals would have done what was right.  I know toxic shock first hand and I will never let it pass again without the call.  Of course I've got college education on the disease today and still it is the program that has me make the call.  

After one event which almost took my alcoholic/addicts life I attempted to attend to her myself...that is expected of the enabler...that and all other forms of poor choices.  She survived the initial attack by the grace of God and then the event expanded at a doctors visit to correct some of the damage.  I knew the process they were going to do and advised them and asked them that when they were done not to wipe her down with alcohol.  Alcoholics don't need to drink alcohol to go into seizures all it has to do is get absorbed externally or internally and the doctors dismissed my information and after the treatment wiped her down with alcohol.  The office paniced because they had never experienced it and they came out into the waiting room calling for me.  My wife was in full spasm on her right side and paralyzed on her left and calling for me...my enabling was with experience and I brought her out of it and then they ushered us out the back door of the clinic.   Sick   Sick    Sick.

We are not alone...we have tools...emergency phone numbers are tools.  Get all of the other emotions and thoughts out of the way and make the call.  I still do and the last one I did was a week ago.   Sad you had to watch it still going on.    (((((hugs)))))   Keep coming back.