My husband and I have been together for 35 years. Excessive drinking entered our relationship twelve years ago. He has now been sober for a year. The man I am married to now feels like a stranger to me, and I thought that we knew each other really really well. It is really confusing and it does help me to separate the disease from the man. The changes in the drinking phase crept up on me, and then half clubbed me to death. I kind of got used to a new way of our being together though. Now he is sober I am learning all over again. It is certainly a very dynamic relationship.

For me, the typical pattern of alcoholism and how it manifests itself is much easier for me to ignore than it is for me to ignore the person with the disease. If, for example, somebody is drunk and talking nonsense, I recognize that the disease is talking and that I'm wasting my breath responding because the person with the disease may not remember or may not even be aware of what they are saying. My sister is a self-admitted alcoholic who has decided not to do anything about it. She starts grabbing beers from the fridge when to her her work is done for the day. She keeps drinking the beer until she is lovey-dovey, slurring her words or pointed in the cruel things she says. She usually falls into bed drunk about 1 or 1:30 and awakens about noon or 1 the next day. She remembers nothing of what she said the night before. To me that is the disease operative in her. My sister isn't the lovey-dovey, word-slurring, cruel speaking disease to me. She is the woman who awakens at 1 in the afternoon who has no memory of the night before.

Thank you. I can understand people who have known the person after recovery because I could see how the actual man could be revealed but do people just become alcoholics? Is that possible if alcoholism is a symptom of a disease? I dont believe the alcoholic is bad or evil I just think if their sick then their sick and the good parts are always there but how can you seperate the disease if the sober person has always had the disease, sober or drunk, anyway?

I know with my son, his disease is always there, whether hes sober or drunk, the disease is his thinking. It doesnt turn off or on. I think that to seperate the two may encourage us to accept unacceptable behaviour, we can only deal with the reality in front of us, if we try to think of the man he may be or could be or is sometimes or was years ago does that mean we disregard the man they are showing us they are in that moment? Is it a helpful or useful idea?

I do understand that knowing the person has a disease has allowed me to be compassionate and accept the person as is but on my terms really. My son has or seems to have and my ex has a disease that is powerful enough that if i lived with them it can take away my life from me in many levels. If I think well the man underneath or hidden in there somewhere would never treat me like crap do I then live in a false reality, waiting until the man appears again? I think this idea was part of my denial, oh hes not really like that, well he was, it really happened.

-- Edited by el-cee on Tuesday 19th of August 2014 03:47:58 PM

To me, it is no different than cancer although the symptoms are different. A person has the disease of cancer which is unrelenting in killing healthy cells unless it can be put in remission if it can be put into remission. Cancer changes the behaviors of the person depending on where it strikes. Recently, I read someone saying that people with cancer don't manipulate or lie, but that hasn't been my experience in relationship to loved ones who have died of cancer once it damaged the brain cells. Was my loved one at heart a liar or a manipulator? No, but the damage to the brain due to the destruction of healthy cells and nerve endings skewed their view of life and themselves and stimulated behavior changes that were difficult to adjust to at the time. The disease of cancer like the disease of alcoholism is the cause for the damage to the brain and the organs of the person with the disease. Sometimes, a person with either disease can make positive changes in their behavior and sometimes not. Either way - it is the disease that contributes to the person's physical, mental and emotional destruction that in some cases even treatment can't touch. I've seen dementia do the same in people that I love. Knowing who they were prior to the changes in their thinking and behaviors makes it possible for me to be compassionate and patient with them without agreeing to letting them hit me when they suddenly feel angry or run over me with their wheelchair because I didn't move out of the way fast enough. I can love the person with the disease while still seeing what the disease has done and is doing to them and making reasonable adjustments to take good care of myself without condemning them because it is necessary for me to be realistic and safe protective.

Maybe wha4t I dont understand is how can the man be enough when hes only a temporary person? I dont understand how anyone can live with an active drinker and honestly deep down be happy or serene. Im not saying im correct about this thinking, I only have my own experience. I cant, wont live with it. It was a terrible experience and it turned me into a horrible person, it ruined my time as a mother and my idea of family life, it made life so difficult and some people say well theres worse things than an alcoholic husband, really? What exactly? To try and seperate the man from the disease is asking way too much and if I done that I would still be living with his insanity that really challenges my own sanity so for me it comes down to him or me. Are there any reasons that explain why someone would stay with an active drinker or is it denial?

OH I get you too. Even though I love still my exah, I would never go back. I cannot live with an A. It would not be fair of me to. I could not go thru the relapses. now way.

Plus I am a very stable person when it comes to me. I mean I am mellow and don't have a lot of ups and downs. My AH is like that too, until he relapsed and brain surgery damage. NO way would I or could i live with that. he was a completely different person.

remember I did detach from his disease. But when he was mean or whatever, I learned to just go read or whatever. Gave it no attention.

Was not him, was the disease. he was controlled by the disease. I look at him as a pod person.

Or like those demons on supernatural. A person that a demon got into, take away the demon, you have that person....

I suppose it might relate to the type of drinker they are. If a man is pretty quiet while drunk and goes to sleep I can imagine this is still damaging but a bit different in terms of coping with it if the alcoholic is causing trouble and chaos, keeping people up out their beds, being abusive or violent etc. I cant imagine a more destructive force for a family to live throuh than the home of an alcoholic.

Hi el-cee. You asked, " Are there any reasons that explain why someone would stay with an active drinker or is it denial?"

My husband is an active drinker. He goes for days without drinking, and then goes on a binge. Lately, he has been trying desperately to control it. (I know this isn't going to work, but he has to learn this for himself.) So when he binges, I'm learning to detach with love. Because I know what he is and how difficult his life is and how difficult my own life has been means I'm not in denial. Would I leave him if he had cancer? No. Would I leave him if he had a debilitating disease such as M.S. or Parkinson? No. Both of these diseases affect the person's behaviors. We all have our on set of boundaries by which we live. It is by these boundaries that we stay true to ourselves and continue on our road to recovery.

Now, about 4 months ago, my answer to your question would have been completely different. I was at that point, (my bottom). But by the Grace of my HP, I was led to Al-Anon, and through Al-Anon, I am learning a new way to live with my ah, one that works for me at this time. I can't say I will always be with him. I can only say how I feel on this day at this moment.

Thanks for asking that question. It's made me re-evaluate myself.           

 

 

This a very good post el-cee.  I like "reach-outs" cause that is what I had to do and did in order to come to some form of understanding when I first arrived at the doors of Al-Anon and then for the second time.  I say honestly that when I finally found my chair and sat down in the face to face meetings "I didn't know and I didn't even know that I didn't know" about alcohol, alcoholic, alcoholism.  I wouldn't have been able to spell any of those words. 

I asked for help, often and got it always.  On the disease of alcoholism we use to read the AMA (American Medical Definition) of alcoholism at the start of each of our meetings.  After a few years I went to college on it to understand more.  All of it helped and I was encouraged to go after all of it.   "Alcoholism is a compulsion of the mind with an allergy of the body.  It can never be cure, only arrested by total abstinence."   A compulsion means that the urgency to drink is always there on the sub-conscious level 24/7.  Alcoholism also contains withdrawals when the alcohol is not present and with withdrawals the sense of physical, mental, emotional urgency...the "I have to and the I must" self thought.  Withdrawals don't only happen when the alcoholic is moving toward being alcohol free or sobriety.  The personal symptoms of the disease are wide and that is what goes on inside of the alcoholic.  We are outside of the alcoholic holding a picture or image of what we suppose is "normal" and not getting the match.

Alcohol is a mind and mood altering (and more) chemical...therefore no match.  The expected person has become altered, mind, body, spirit and emotions...the expectation isn't there and not even close to there.  Since the ism is a compulsion on the sub-conscious level it runs itself and that is what the disease does in large part...runs itself.  Often the alcoholic will drink when they don't want to drink and the cycle continues.

Are you addicted to some kind of food?  You will eat it when you don't even want to and even if you are full of it or over full?  That is the compulsion I speak of driving an addiction to other than alcohol.  Drug addictions work that way also.  That is why the alcoholic and or addict and or over eater will continue on beyond rationality.  That is why the last word of the 2nd step is sanity.  I drank until toxic shock several times and the consequence of that is a near death episode.  Alcoholism is a fatal disease unless arrested by total abstinence.

Alcoholism is a progressive disease and if not arrested by total abstinence becomes worse over time or saying it another way the expected ...desired...missing "normal" person gets farther and farther away from the family and or spouse.

Alcoholics are "altered" persons...my words as a researcher and therapist.  On a physical level they carry the marks from being fetal alcoholic in affect and syndrome.  They are marked physically.  On a mental/emotional levels they are also marked and some of the marks are Opposition Defiance Disorder (ODD) and Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD)...I have both of those "marks".   On the physical level they are often  "predisposed to the disease"  very, very easily turned on in it without even desiring or knowing the process and consequence.  I was "turned on" by my maternal grandmother against the wishes and will of my mother.  My Mom knew what would happen and my grandmother "turned on" three of her grandsons all at the same time at the same table.  Predisposition usually occurs very early in life way before you met your alcoholic and even before he knew what was going to happen.

Research shows that alcoholism pre-dates the life of the Christ by thousands of years and that supports my belief that we have as a creation been altered generationally.

Free will plays a big part on both sides of the disease also.  The wanting to drink and the wanting to enable...The ego and pride are foundation points in personality and believe me alcoholic drinking and using is very entrench in ego, pride and self will as well is manipulation and control tactics of the enabler...the need to win.  The alcoholic  is trying to beat the chemical...to drink as much as he wants without negative end affect and the enabler is trying to do as much control and manipulation in order to have the alcoholic quit and prove that they are right and valuable.  Both addictions are part of the same dis-ease. 

The bodies mostly always look the same...don't change very much over a certain short period of time.  Alcoholism is a daily disease.  I hated it daily and easily forgot the days before while thinking, feeling and hoping tomorrow would be much, much different and better.

Accepting the disease and the alcoholic/addict was "rocket science" lessons for me in the beginning.  In the beginning I saw my alcoholic/addict wife as a "bad...immoral" person because her behavior was perverse...the lying, cheating, stealing, manipulation, lack of personal value system was mind boggling so I saw her as immoral and then I heard that alcoholism is a disease, an AMA certified disease and not a moral issue.  I came to understand and accept that my wife was sick and not bad and then I had a major problem accepting what she was doing until Al-Anon and the elders in the literature and the rooms and in my sponsorship taught me not to accept the unacceptable behavior or the fact of it...the fact that is was going on, happening and a part of the chemical altering.  When I accepted the fact of it happening I no longer judged her behavior only accepted that it happened, was happening and would continue to happen as long as she drank and used and did not re-enter AA.  In side of that woman alcoholic/addict was the child of God I suspected and expected and wouldn't get to see any of until she reached her bottom and put herself into rehab.  Accepting the fact of a thing...the existence of it and the occurrence of it is much different than not accepting it because it doesn't match my value systems.  I do not have the authority to judge anyone else or their intentions...only a power greater than myself has that authority.  I can only judge Jerry F and need help from others to do that anyway.  That is only one reason why I am a grateful family member of MIP and Al-Anon.

HP created the man...the man created the disease.  HP loves the man unconditionally sick or not.  The disease operates in spite of love; either the love of family and spouse and God...HP.   Cunning, Powerful and Baffling.    I think your question more specifically falls inside of the "Baffling" file.

Keep reaching out Sister...you are doing soooo well.   In support.   (((((hugs)))))

I need to add this after thought, that although I have not had a drink in over 35 years I have never lost the compulsion...it lives with me and I don't act on it.  I let it go.

 

 

-- Edited by Jerry F on Tuesday 19th of August 2014 09:04:24 PM

Great thread, great question and great answers.
I don't think I 'get it' yet and this is food for thought for me.