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Let’s put some simple facts up on the table right now.
First, everyone thinks they know what an alcoholic is. Some people even think they know alcoholics. A few of you might even think you’re alcoholics.
Guess what—you probably don’t.
I don’t say that to be rude. I thought I knew alcoholics, that I knew what alcoholism was like, I even thought once or twice that I might be one.
Second, plenty of people like to mock people who stay in abusive relationships, like to ask people stupid things like, “They’re stupid for still staying in that relationship” and “It can’t be that bad or they would’ve left.”
Before you think or say that stuff, how about you consider all the things you don’t know?
And third, the less-common-but-still-circulated stuff, there are those who cannot acknowledge that a man can be on the victim’s end of an abusive relationship.
Why am I writing about these things? Because I’ve been living through all of those.
In this series, I’m going to go through things they don’t teach you in school—what alcoholism is really like, what it’s like to live with an abusive alcoholic and why it’s harder to leave than people think, and the realities that men face when in that situation. I’ll also talk about ways to get out, and how to employ them.
The first: Alcoholics.
Alcoholism is not defined just as a person who drinks too much, nor too often. Just because you see a person going to the bar on a daily basis, or you have a friend who likes to get drunk every weekend, that doesn’t mean they’re an alcoholic. They may abuse alcohol, but alcoholism is something much deeper.
The AMA defines alcoholism as “a primary, chronic disease with genetic, psychosocial, and environmental factors influencing its development and manifestations.” Simply, alcoholism means a person cannot control the physical and mental effects of their drinking, and lacks the ability to stop drinking, regardless of the negative effects on their body and their life. And their loved ones.
I once thought, especially after certain events in my life, that I was an alcoholic. I was at a place in my life when I was going to the bar almost every night, was drinking to the point of getting drunk, and even had a time or two when I could not remember what I’d done while drinking. So I spoke to a few recovering alcoholics, and attended an AA meeting, and some questions were asked of me that put things into perspective.
“Are you unable to have only one drink?”
I thought about this and said, No, there’ve been plenty of times when I had a beer with lunch, or a glass of wine with dinner, and didn’t even think about drinking for the rest of the day. Lots of other times when I’d be hanging out with friends, watching football, or attending a baseball game, where I would have one beverage and not have to run and get more, nor head for the liquor store after.
“Do you stockpile liquor at home? Do you go out drinking and then come home and continue doing so?”
No. While there were plenty of times I’d head for after-parties with friends and drink over at their place, I could also think of many times when I’d just head for home, and, regardless of my state of intoxication, I would not require more alcohol. I didn’t like drinking alone, so, unless I was having friends over, I would not buy alcohol for my home.
“Do you attempt to hide your drinking from loved ones or family members?”
No, I was fairly open about that kind of thing. As I said above, I am a social drinker, so, while I would sometimes over-consume while out with friends, I would not do so in secrecy.
So I was fairly confident that I was not an alcoholic. I just put myself into stupid situations with alcohol, and those were relieved once I lived in areas that had public transportation, cabs, Uber, ways that would prevent the combination of drinking and driving.
But I still didn’t know what alcoholism was.
That changed when I found myself married to an alcoholic.
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I knew my wife drank long before I married her, I even knew that she drank more than the average person. She’d pick up a bottle of cheap wine on her way home from work, and she’d be draining it while we discussed how our days went. We’d also occasionally go out to drink together, but things didn’t seem that strange. She was still making it to work every day, still conducting her life as usual.
But every once in a while, something odd would happen.
I moved halfway across the country for a temporary job, and we were apart for a few months. Her drinking became more constant, and she started to become more hostile during our phone calls. I rationalized that it was because her job stress had increased, she wasn’t seeing her daughter as often because of her 14-hour workdays, and, of course, I was that far away from her.
I moved back after being gone for almost six months, and things fell back into a more manageable pattern. She started a new job that she liked, had much more time with her daughter, I was present, we started our stable existence.
And then she started drinking more. I couldn’t understand why, the normal rationalizations didn’t apply, but she was drinking around her daughter, she was getting hostile toward me, and I asked what I’d done to deserve this, had I said or done something different, had I forgotten something? She began calling in sick to work because of hangovers, but, within an hour, she’d be off to the nearby gas station to buy more alcohol. She wrecked her car (whether or not alcohol was involved, I’ll never know, but the authorities didn’t investigate that, so either it wasn’t, or she was incredibly lucky), she lost her job, she had a trip to the ER because of an accident that occurred while she was drinking (not connected to the car incident above).
I learned that, while she was bad when drunk, she was so much worse the next day. I first thought it an effect of the hangover that must be there, but I found it odd–when I had a hangover, the last things I’d want to do would be to shout or carry out any major physical activities, while she’d scream her head off and try to attack me.
I tell these stories to impart a few simple facts:
Alcoholism is more than just drinking too much.
Alcoholism is not solved only by stopping consumption of alcohol. |
We’d drink together, sure, but I’d also find cans of strong malt liquor scattered about the house, little bottles of wine hidden in shoes and under the sinks. Even before I’d tried to confront her about having a problem, she felt the need to hide her drinking. And even after I’d confronted her about her hidden stashes, she would continue to attempt to hide it, to deny that she had been drinking, to blame me for her actions and reactions.
Alcoholism is not solved only by stopping consumption of alcohol.
Please note* I am NOT saying that an alcoholic doesn’t have to stop drinking; they totally do. I AM saying that alcoholism is something more, and requires an understanding and acceptance of the overall situation.
She would go through dry periods, and life would be amazing, we’d have adventures with her daughter, we’d get along wonderfully, and I’d remind myself that THIS was why I’d married her in the first place. And then, for no visible reason whatsoever, she’d start drinking again, and all would fall apart. She’d lose her job, her parents would keep her daughter away (no blame on them, they’d been through this long before I came into the picture), the home life would turn into a war zone, but all she’d care about was the booze.
I told her I’d leave if she kept drinking, I said I’d leave if she didn’t get help, and it wasn’t until she saw me packing my bags that she accepted it and went to treatment. Which brings me to:
Alcoholism cannot be cured.
She went into 30 day in-patient rehab. Was put on several different drugs to ease the transition and reduce the cravings. She came out with bright and clear eyes and a promise that she’d never put any of us through that again. And so it was. For 80 more days.
During those 80 days, she slowly began to stop taking her prescriptions, claiming she didn’t need them, didn’t like their effects, until she was hardly taking anything. “I’ll just take them when I need them” was her excuse. I didn’t agree, but what can you do? I could hardly force her to take her pills, right?
And then came the day that she wanted a drink. There were no warning signs, we had been having a great time together, and, even that morning, she had thanked me for sticking with her through all of this, and she was so proud to have been one of the few who hadn’t relapsed. And then she did.
And what followed was a descent into a new hell, starting with an attack from a frying pan. But I’ll cover that in the next installment.
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This post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStockphoto
I was in elementary school when I began to understand my mother was an alcoholic. My Dad was a workaholic. My sister married and left, but I had to deal with it until I left home for college. She died a year after I entered college. Dead at 47 from alcohol, cigarettes, and tranquilizers.
I’ll be 60 next month and I’m still trying to deal with it. The kicker?
Depression owns my mother’s side of the family. I have Major Depression and Panic Disorder. But I rarely drink,.so that’s something.
I have been recently dating a supposed recovered alcoholic, problem is he really is not. He tells me that just because he had been drunk twice since I have know him, that he is not off the bandwagon, he just needed those two time to get through a challenging issue. The rollercoaster of dealing with his volatile emotions is very difficult, I suspect
I suspect that the recovery is not what he represented it to be when we met.
I go to Al-Anon meetings. It helps.