We sat in the doctor’s office waiting for the news about the
status of Riley’s cancer. He completed his first round of treatment and four
weeks later had a CT Scan to determine what or where we go from here. We had
been told that it was highly unlikely
This blog reinforces that there is life after spending a decade of being a non-alcoholic person married to an end-stage alcoholic. You will still find posts from the original Immortal Alcoholic but the new direction is that of SURVIVNG after the chaos. You will still find useful insight and facts concerning the complexities of being a part of an alcoholic's collaterally danaged.
Friday, March 13, 2015
Saturday, February 28, 2015
Harmony's Success Story
My guest poster, Harmony Rose, is the wife of an alcoholic
who allowed forgiveness to set her free. She submitted her story to me in
response to requests for success stories. A link to her book is at the end of
this post.
This is Harmony's story:
I can honestly say “Love at first sight” is where our story
begins. When my husband
Saturday, February 21, 2015
Bootstraps...
Lately, I seem to be dealing with a lot of people who have
gone through some really – I mean REALLY – tough times. Every idea, thought,
dream, confidence is being tested and the result is that they are having
difficulty trusting in their own abilities. They have lost a sense of
Thursday, February 5, 2015
All ya need is love...
Spouses of alcoholics have a very special love-hate
relationship with any holiday that demands us to be “loving” or encourage us to
buy greeting cards with professions of undying love and commitment. It’s bad enough
that we have to
Tuesday, February 3, 2015
Is it the end?
Sometimes I’m asked if a spouse is at end-stage or how to
tell if a spouse is at end-stage. One of my most popular posts is a definition
of end-stage alcoholism. You can find it here:
An end-stage alcoholic has usually
Thursday, January 29, 2015
What to do...
The question was about what to do if your spouse, partner,
or other family member is over-indulging in alcohol. The answer: It depends.
And to further complicate matters, there is no easy answer.
If your loved one is in the early stages of alcoholism you
can take whatever opportunity you can to try to talk to the person. The
opportunity would be when you can talk rationally without anger or nagging. If
you become a nag, the alcoholic will close any doors to communication because
they just don’t want to hear about it. But, if you can find a moment when you
are both open, try mentioning that you were sorry that he/she couldn’t
participate in… (whatever was going on) and maybe next time he/she can plan to
drink after the event. If you preface your comments with some type of understanding
or veiled apology, the conversation will not be confrontational.
I also suggest getting brochures and information about the
different types of support groups for alcoholics – AA, Smart Recovery, etc. and
leave them around the house where they will clearly be seen. You can research
rehab centers and when you find something interesting, like San Patrignano
Rehab Center in Italy, you can start a conversation with, “I was reading on
line and discovered that there’s a place in Italy that takes addicts and treats
them free of charge.” You can tell how their program works and that it would be
great if there was a place like that here in the United States. You can even
say – I know this wouldn't fit for you, but I was just finding it interesting. There
are other rehab centers that are more like a vacation in a luxury resort rather
than a rehab clinic. You can mention them and say… “I would love to go there.”
The point is you can open up discussions and lite a little fire of interest in
the not-so-totally-soaked brain of the alcoholic.
Of course, none of the above works if the alcoholic is past
the point of communicating reasonably. In that case, there is almost nothing
you can do. The alcoholic is not going to listen or open any doors of
communication because he/she will always feel that they are being pushed into
rehab. They don’t believe anything is wrong with them, so why listen to someone
who wants to try to convince them that they need help?
The most important thing that you can do in any stage of
alcoholism is focus on yourself and not the alcoholic. What is it you want to
do? What are you passionate about? Develop your own interests and actively
participate with others who share those interests. Join a book club, quilting
group, dog lovers group or any other kind of group that you find interesting.
If you have kids, use them by taking them to different
places or encouraging them to do things outside school and home. I used to pack
a picnic lunch, put the kids in the car and ask them what direction they wanted
me to drive. Eventually we would find a place to have our lunch and try to find
our way back home. In reality, I always really knew where we were, but it was
fun to let them try to figure it out. I also watched the newspaper for “free”
events, festivals, fairs, etc. and hauled the kids along. These kinds of
activities got us outside the house and away from the alcoholic. It was a great
bonding experience and created some pretty awesome memories.
The bottom line is that the alcoholic is going to do what
alcoholics do – drink. They will do this without regard for what it does to you
or the family dynamic. There’s no point in confrontation, anger, or threats
because they will fall on deaf drunken ears. If you do make any threats, you
must be prepared to follow through on the consequences that you've set. If you
threaten to leave, be prepared to leave.
There are obviously a few things that you simply cannot let
happen – like blindly letting the alcoholic drive drunk or allowing complete
control of the finances. Use common
sense while letting them find their own way.
If you are a parent of an alcoholic child the whole game
changes. See: Do just one more thing
Soooo…. It all sounds so simple – right? Well… not so right.
This will be the hardest thing in the world to do. The NOT doing anything to “help”
or “strongly encourage” the alcoholic will be the most difficult thing you've
ever done. It’s just not natural to let someone you love fall down a never-ending
rabbit hole. All our instincts will tell us to do SOMETHING, do ANYTHING.
Ignoring anger, frustration, disappointment is almost impossible.
You will need support and you can find it by joining a group
such as OARS or Al-Anon and/or getting a personal therapist. I offer one-on-one
support coaching through my website LindasFrontPorch (http://www.lindasfrontporch.com/one-on-one-visits-with-linda/). To join OARS on
Facebook or the independent website, send me an e-mail requesting an
invitation.
Here’s a list of other relevant postings:
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
More normal...
I was honored to have participated in Perri Peltz’s Show on
SiriusXM Stars yesterday. I was in excellent company with Peter Santoro of
LESC, Dr. Mark Willenbring of Alltyr, and Dr. George Koob of the NIAAA. I want
to send out a special thank you to Perri Peltz for inviting me to her show.
Over the next few posts I’m going to be expounding on the
questions I was asked during the program. The answers as so much deeper than a
few seconds response can cover. This particular post is also a bit of a
continuation to my previous post “What’s normal anyway…”
I was asked why spouses/families stay or continue to try to
help the alcoholic in their life. My simplified answer was that it was like the
Frog Soup Syndrome. In case you are not familiar the theory is that if you put
a frog in a pan of hot water it will jump out immediately. If you put the same
frog in a pan of cold water and slowly bring the water to a boil the frog will
stay in the pan and eventually become frog soup.
By the same theory if we think what we are doing is “normal”
and continues to do what feels normal but add a few things here and there it
will continue to be normal for us. After years of being on that particular
level of normalcy, we may eventually discover that we are actually so far away
from normal that we don’t even recognize the state we are really in. It could
possibly be the state of frog soup. That’s when the spouse hits themselves on
the forehead and screams “What was I thinking?”
Often times the hit on the forehead is accompanied with the
realization that the alcoholic is now too sick to be on his/her own. Leaving
him/her now would be like leaving a person dying of some incurable disease
along the side of the road and driving off. It often feels immoral to just walk
away.
There are a lot of reasons why people stay with in a
relationship riddled with alcoholic insanity. Some stay because they love the
alcoholic – or rather – the person the alcoholic was before the alcohol took
over the brain. Others stay for practical reasons such as being unable to
afford to live without a joint income. Many spouses say they took vows when
they married and to leave would be in violation of those vows. And still others
stay because they can’t find a way to climb out of that pan of frog soup.
I took my husband back into my home to protect my daughter
from moving her nearly-dead alcoholic father into her home. I had stayed
married to him and he was my responsibility – not hers.
The bottom line is that the answer is not cut and dry. There
is no absolute correct path. There are as many reasons for a person staying in (or
going from) a relationship with an alcoholic as there are reasons for doing
anything we do in life. Sometimes we make choices about staying or going even
when it may appear that we are doing nothing. Doing nothing puts us in a position of
choosing to be in that pan of hot water that’s getting hotter by the minute.
Saturday, January 24, 2015
What's normal anyway...
I’m very excited about being on Perri Peltz’s radio show on
Tuesday (1/27/2015) at 1 p.m. Eastern Time on SirriusXMStars Channel 109. Not
only am I going to be on the show, but I’ll be following Dr. Koob of NIAAA.
That’s an honor and a hard act to follow. He’s about science and research and I’m
about life experience. I think that just about makes us a complete package.
I think life experience as a wife of an alcoholic is
subjective. No one person is just like another and no one marriage is just like
another. But, there are commonalities and sometimes it’s as though they are not
just commonalities, but rather everyone is alike. Really, we are not. I’m happy
to have discovered that.
There was a point in my marriage that I thought we were like
every other married couple we knew. I felt normal. My husband would get up in
the morning, we would have coffee, he would go to work, I would take care of
the household, he would come home, have dinner, watch some TV, tuck the kids in
and go to sleep. It was pretty much the same routine every day. Of course there
was a couple of scotch on the rocks when he got home, then wine with dinner and
maybe more scotch during TV.
Even though I did not grow up in a home that had alcohol,
this routine didn’t feel out of the ordinary to me. This is how life was
depicted in movies starring the likes of Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis. Don’t
remember of Ozzie Nelson kicked back a drink when he came through the door.
But, if it wasn’t actually on TV, it still seemed that it might be something he
would do. I imagine those productions made it seem “natural” to consume alcohol
after a hard days work.
The description I give about my marriage is one that was
within the first five years of our couple-ness. After that things went
downhill. During the early years, I
would look around and see my friends husbands drinking what seemed to be an
equivalent quantity of booze as my husband. Maybe they were alcoholics also.
After all, most of our friends were serving about the same submarine and were
attending the same social functions. Maybe it was a “birds of a feather” sort
of thing.
I didn’t wake up to the fact that something was wrong until
we were transferred to a new city and stayed with friends until our new house
was available. The husband of the couple did not have any alcohol at all until
after dinner when he would pop open a can of beer while watching a movie on TV
or playing UNO with the other adults. He played with the kids in the yard while
there was still daylight and helped with the homework while the wife cleaned up
the kitchen after dinner. When I witnessed the dynamics of this family, I
realized that there may be some issues in my own family.
I don’t know why it took me so long to really realize that
something was wrong in my marriage and in my family. I’m a stubborn woman with
a positive outlook and that may have been my downfall. I wanted with all my
heart to be “normal.” But, eventually, I could see that my husband’s first love
was alcohol. It was worse than discovering that he had a mistress – which happened
at just about the same time.
The topic on the radio show is about how alcohol affects
families. The details and scenarios of that destruction is a point that I hope
to address. Please join me and Perri Peltz as we talk about standing in the
wake of alcoholic destruction. We will be taking callers. “The Perri Peltz Show”
is Live on SiriusXM Stars Channel 109 from 1-2pm ET. The call in number for
listeners is 888-947-8277.
Friday, January 23, 2015
Dr. Koob and me...
I’m very excited to post that I will be a guest on “The Perri Peltz Show” on January 27th at 1 pm Eastern
Time, Sirius XM Stars Channel 109. Listeners
are invited to call in to 888-947-8277 with questions or comments.
Also on the show will be Dr. George Koob, Director of the
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Dr. Koob oversees the
Institutes budget for research in scientific areas such as genetics,
neuroscience, epidemiology, prevention and treatment. Be sure to tune in early
enough to be able to hear what Dr. Koob has to say. It should be very
interesting to hear his points of view and learn what the Institute is doing in
the world of alcoholism.
Dr. Koob will be a tough act to follow. I’m up to the
challenge. I’ll be focusing on families of alcoholics and how alcoholism destroys
more than just the alcoholic. It would be awesome if my readers would call in
with questions or comments.
Mark your calendar and join me with Perri Peltz for this
live broadcast. We will be taking callers. “The Perri Peltz Show” is Live on
SiriusXM Stars Channel 109 from 1-2pm ET. The call in number for listeners is
888-947-8277.
Tuesday, January 13, 2015
Success stories...
In the comments of one of my posts the question was asked: So
does ANYONE out there have a story about ACTUALLY coming out on “the other side”
and everything being “alright”???
The simple answer to the question is YES. The reason we don’t
hear so much about those stories is that the chaos has settled down so there’s
not so much need to keep reaching out for support.
I do receive “success” stories, but success comes in
different forms to different people. “Being all right” is subjective to the
person seeking that condition. For some it means that the alcoholic quits drinking
and the family switches to a healthy dynamic without the influence of alcohol.
For others it means the non-alcoholic is able to break away from the alcoholic
and is free to create the life they want without the chaos of alcoholism. Even care givers of end-stage alcoholics
eventually find peace after the death of the alcoholic. For those people, the
death is what leads to everything being all right.
The OARS Family and Friends Group have members who are still
in horrible alcoholic situations and then there are others who are no longer
living with the alcoholic. Even though the alcoholic is not drinking and they
are not living with the drunk, there are still things that come up in everyday
life that are sometimes difficult to handle. These people reach out to others
who are either in their situation or just simply under the circumstance. In
that case, even though they are on “the other side” they still find themselves
faced with the aftermath.
If anyone wants to share a “success” story, please send it
to me at immortalalcoholic@gmail.com
with the words “Success Story” in the subject line. I’ll share your story in
the blog.
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