The reality of the end

[NameforMN]

My father died this week. He was an alcoholic for around 15 years, if not longer. During that time he lost his business , his house, his wife and friends. As his daughter, I'm next of kin so tasked with sorting out his life, as it was.

His rental flat is covered in urine, blood and shit. His mattress is drenched in urine. His bed sheets caked in blood from where he fell over in a drunk stupor. He has defecated on the sofa and carpet. He lay dead for 4 days before he was found. He spent the last 6 months in his flat , refusing visitors and ordering wine off Amazon.

We are left cleaning this up and sorting his estate out. Managing the horror and guilt.

This is what happens.
This is the reality of the end.

You may well ask where my sibling and I were . Why didn't we step in? Keep his flat clean? Look after him?

Quite simply, if he'd moved in with me, it would be my house he shat, pissed and bled all over. It wouldn't have stopped him. He'd just do it a different address.

He was impossible. Lies, lies, lies and more lies as alcohol consumed the man that he was, and left an empty shell.

This time last year he was what they call a :functioning alcoholic '. Believe me, there was no functioning at the end.

It happens quickly. Creeps up on you one drink at a time.

Any of you who have a drink problem are on the journey to this end. This is the only conclusion unless you stop..

I've just been through this with estranged DH, identical in every detail. If you want to vent, PM me.

DH hadn't eaten for three months when he died, but got a daily taxi to the local shop to buy two litres of spirits. Took him two weeks to die in hospital after being found on the floor in his shit stained clothes.

I'm so, so sorry. One of my parents has been an alcoholic my entire life, and as their only child, this is "the end" I dread.

My mother was an alcoholic and died after falling down the stairs and breaking her neck, I left an abusive relationship last year which was fuelled by his drinking too, there's so much focus on the alcoholic and addiction but little on the impact it has on those closest to them.

A heartfelt wave to @pointythings. I remember you well. And so much sympathy and empathy with all on this thread.

I’m so sorry for your loss and for everyone here who has experienced this. My sister’s ex died in similar circumstances although given cause of death was brain injury after falling down the stairs. Sadly he has been sober for two decades but started drinking again and died with a few months- the last self-destructive spiral can be so quick.

I'm so sorry @pointythings 😢and @Optimalise .

The guilt comes over me in waves. The visits and calls I didn't make. I hated going there. The flat was filthy and he stank. Our relationship was crap after years of his absence. He came back into my life a few years ago after divorcing my step mother. By then he was addled with alcohol.

@HuntingoftheSnark thank you.

@Optimalise oh I feel your pain. This happened to my mum too, in 2019. She started drinking when my dad was diagnosed with Parkinsons dementia and after he died, it accelerated. She had full blown Korsakoffs. My Dsis and I couldn't persuade her to move into supported accommodation. She refused help consistently and had capacity right up until the end. At that point things went very wrong and we managed to liaise with her carers (she was in the Netherlands, Dsis and I in the UK) for an assessment under the Dutch equivalent of the MHA. She fell down the stairs at home 4 days before the assessment was due and broke her neck. She would have been going to the kitchen to neck some more vodka to top herself up.

We couldn't help her. Nobody could.

I'm so sorry op.

This is also my reality because my dad is an alcoholic and is vicious with his words when he's been drinking and awful when he's not drinking. He drinks from 3pm each day. He doesn't think he has an issue with alcohol.

He's been drinking for years. I genuinely don't know how he's still alive. It didn't start out like this, I remember him starting to go out once a week with friends for a few drinks, then he joined the local bowling club and was there a couple of times a week now it's this situation and it has been the same for the last 20 years.

One of my grandfathers was like this. It was awful. It put my off alcohol for life. And then another family member died from alcoholism. It's tragic. So sorry OP.

Yes, there’s always guilt. I did all of it - should have been there more for them, you should have been more loving and supportive, you should have tried harder to help them, should have, should have, should have…

But sadly, only they can/could help themselves.

I have a relative in recovery, who once said to me (he may have read it somewhere) that the opposite of addiction is not sobriety, it's connection.

I'm sorry for your loss! My own father died in a similar way. Hideous disease!

I am so, so sorry for your story, OP. Thanks for posting this, I think it's important that we talk about this.

A close relative of mine died of multiple organ failure a few weeks ago. I found 45 empty wine bottles in his room.

He had started to drink and drive and I told him that if I saw it again, I would report him. He had lost the ability to control his drinking, despite holding down an 80k job.

I’m devastated at the waste of his life. He was so much more than how he ended up.

To all those who have lost people they love to alcohol, my sincere condolences. 💐xx

I helped clear up my friends house when he'd gone in for yet another medical detox and it was like this. He was a hugely successful and wonderful man with 2 great kids, big house, nice cars and holidays. And a mental breakdown and self medicating with alcohol fucked it all up within a few years.

He died eventually (it always seemed inevitable once he'd started to be honest) but it did mean I had a couple of phone numbers of members of AA who had tried to help him.

I texted one of them as I realised that was what was waiting for me - and I am now 9 years sober.

Thank you all for sharing your stories.

My Mother was an alcoholic and in and out of institutions for years. She only stopped drinking when she got aggressive lung cancer; she was also a heavy smoker!

Of her four children 3 of us seem to have inherited a tendency to drink heavily. Two will pass out regularly. One brother doesn't touch the stuff. I have it under control, 'only' drinking 3 bottles of wine on the three nights of the week I allow myself to drink. It's like a family curse.

I’m sorry OP x

what my future could look like and the shame it would bring on my family was a big factor in me stopping. I was “functioning” but it was only ever going to go one way.

Addiction isn’t the addict’s fault but it is their responsibility. You couldn’t have done anything to help him. It was all on him.

I've just had to unfollow my cousin on FB. It's the anniversary of her friend's death - a Mum of 3 who drank herself to death in her late 30s. My cousin puts up all these photos of them on boozy nights out, how she was the best friend ever etc... when the reality was that she put her kids and her ex DH through absolute hell and died by falling down the stairs at home because she was so pissed. The kids had to ring an ambulance and sit there waiting for it with her dead. Their reality isn't social media posts full of fond memories.... they're scarred and changed for life and their Dad is left trying to pick the pieces up that she left behind. My cousin drinks like a fish as well and it makes me really angry that she doesn't see any harm in it.

Behind every alcoholic is a family ripped apart by their addiction

@Bluebells1970 this is my reality too. The small handful of friends of my ex partner who still talk about what a good person she was, what a good mum she was. No, she wasn't. Good mums don't choose alcohol over their toddler. Good mums don't prioritise alcohol over everything else. Good mums don't drive way over the limit with their infants in the car. Good mums don't live a total lie and try to put the blame on innocent people all around them. Good mums don't pass out drunk/asleep at the contact they are so bloody adamant they 'have a right to'. Good mums keep their kids safe, physically and emotionally, above everything.

Thank you for your honest and wise posts @NameforMN. They have been most helpful to me this week.

Best wishes to you. x

I think this is a really selfless and tough thing to do OP. Thank you. It’s hard to have your own parents be that example. The cautionary tale for others. I have first hand experience of alcoholism and it’s ugly as hell. The lies and the selfishness, the awful decisions and the shrinking world of the alcoholic. The way the person they used to be fades away only to be replaced by a selfish, embarrassing at times, heartbreaking red faced bloated mess. Yet still you love them and still you grieve. I get so mad on here when those silly threads run with posters reassuring each other half a bottle of Sauvignon a night is fine! It’s the other posters that are just kill joys! Don’t listen to them - bunch of doomsday do gooders. So they normalise it. They glamourise it. After all surely a bottle ten pounds at Waitrose is elegant enough and a world away from the pissing, vomiting loner who is just a few days away from dying. The only thing that separates them is a short passage of time. Weeks or less in some cases. The normalisation of wine applies to any alcohol eventually, any time of day or night, at any cost to anyone who cares.

My fil was pretty much how you described things in your opening post @NameforMN My dh tried his best to clean things up, but dealing with your fathers literal and verbal shit etc every day was just soul destroying. And fil was ok, he didn't need any help as he could do it all. But he couldn't. We weren't on speaking terms when he died so he wasn't found for a week or so.
A slightly different situation is my cousin died last year, in their early 50s. They had tried for many years to give it up, but when married to someone who is also an alcoholic there's not real incentive to do so. They were a shadow of their former selves the last time I saw them, and we were close cousins growing up so I have found their passing very hard.
💐 to all going through this and have been through it.

Thank you @NameforMN for sharing this. Alcoholism wreaks havoc on so many lives, and there is no helping the alcoholic who refuses to help themselves. I divorced an alcoholic who nearly destroyed me. And I have an alcoholic brother who I eventually went No Contact with. They destroy not only their own lives, but those of everyone around them who dare to care.

I don’t have any wise or insightful comments, however I have found this thread very moving.