Something that no one understands unless they have loved an alcoholic

[BlueSeagull]

What’s something that others will struggle to understand unless they have lived through loving and trying to support an alcoholic.

for me it’s the planning of when we are going anywhere I have to have elderly parent with me day before so I know they won’t be too drunk on the day when I pick them up or the bottle of wine I always have in case there is an incident fall etc and they need collecting from hospital. Wine is needed to stop the withdrawal the next day I never encourage them to drink but realistically the shakes and vomiting worry me

Nothing to say except I’m sorry you’ve had to experience life as the child of an alcoholic.

People don't get that you can't reason with them. You can't ask them to stop, not to spend money on it, not to embarrass you horribly. It just doesn't work like that.

Oh yeah - giving them a drink to stop the withdrawal. It sounds so wrong, but watching someone try to do go about their day with the shakes is heartbreaking. I’ve often poured my dad a drink just so he can stop shaking and we can get on with the day. For my sisters graduation my dad decided he wasn’t going to drink, but during the ceremony the shakes were so bad he couldn’t even stand. I had to go and find a drink for him.

The helplessness and pain of trying to avoid conflict and keep a semblance of normality whilst also shielding the kids from exposure to their dad in the evenings 😥

It’s heartbreaking 💔 I feel for anyone going through this.

I know that if they are with us and had a particularly bad week or when I pick them up they are very drunk they will sleep the entire evening and then next morning they are unwell until they have had a drink.

That rock bottom is so so much lower than you can imagine, if it even exists
That you live a life on permanent eggshells

That you cannot persuade them, reason with them or just hide alcohol from them to stop them drinking.

That you may have loved (or still love) them more than anyone but years and decades of betrayal and disappointment and heartbreak have made any relationship or communication impossible and too painful to bear.

What @Nogoodusernamesaid above - that rock bottom just gets lower, more degrading and worse than you can imagine each time.

That you cannot control the alcoholic but you will feel guilt for living your own life while they sink lower and lower.

That they are deeply damaged people but also deeply damaging to those around them, selfishly using and manipulating others for their own needs.

It’s torture living with an alcoholic. My father destroyed my teen years with his drinking- I found it very hard to laugh off the idea that getting tipsy and drunk is “fun”.

@TwoUnderTwitTwoo Your post echoed my life so much.

Every time I thought (and heard from him) - this is rock bottom, never going back, there was ALWAYS a worst left to come. I truly believe that for some in addiction, rock bottom is death, and that is the only time this will end.

The disappointment, hurt, dashed hopes is excruciating. I walked away two months ago, and I still feel guilt and regret every day. Should I have stayed? Could I have made a difference this time? My life is calmer, more peaceful, less anxious. But I feel so much guilt for it all the time.

I wouldn’t wish addiction on anyone. It must be hell trying to constantly battle from using the substance that your brain is telling you that you need. Having read everything there is to read on the impact of addiction on the brain, I understand that the neural receptors are now damaged from years of swamping the brain with the unnatural dopamine hit from the substance. But it doesn’t make loving an addict any less of a hellish existence. I couldn’t control it, I couldn’t cure it, but I was still collateral damage

people who haven’t lived with an alcoholic don’t understand that you can be triggered by the sound of a can being opened. That you can’t have alcohol in the house yourself if they’re on a sober phase; and that you sometimes refuse invitations as you can’t cope with the inevitable awful situation when drunkenness ensues. I’m no longer with my alcoholic, but truly I lived on eggshells, was always full of anxiety. People didn’t get it.

@Fleetheart - I get triggered by the smell of mouthwash, as he never understood that he constantly smelt of alcohol because it seeps through his pores and sweat, not just present in his breath

Thought of another one - that you will wrack your brains and spend countless efforts to find the ‘right’ way to explain to someone why they need to stop, or why no one else or no situation is to blame: there might be reasons for continuing to drink/use but they are always excuses because ultimately the core problem is the addiction and the only person with the power over that is the person in addiction. There is no best way to get through to them, there isn’t a magic combination of words, you can’t persuade them with your best presentation of the points. It will send you half mad in the process and it is futile.

Another one I have realised is how much I hate the smell of white wine it’s makes me gag, no matter where I smell it.

Hating red wine because its their drink of choice, finding it hard to be around people drinking red wine
Having conversations with them that they dont remember
The worrying and pain of when they injure themselves physically due to being drunk
Days and evenings spent watching the drinks mount up and mount up and feeling more tense and anxious the more they drink
The change in personality when they drink

Yes same. I do find it hard to laugh when people describe silly harmless stories. I do laugh on the outside, but inside my head I'm not.

The triggering resonates- I hate vodka, seeing a particular brand makes me go cold!

I also beginning to realise how much other people drinking affects me, I was having alcohol free beer when we had family round recently so I was completely sober and seeing others getting steadily more and more tipsy and seeing how their behaviour changed I could feel almost a fear and dread starting.

it’s definitely something I don’t think will ever leave me.

The secrecy and double life you end up living. The pattern and timings you start to live your life around.
How because others don't see it they just can't fathom so they think you've got it wrong. Then you double guess and gaslight yourself partly because you want to be wrong. How people think you can just love them out of addiction or if life is less stressful they won't do it, then its if this changes or that changes.

How lots of people have this one version of a drunk in their head. Noisy at the pub very visible etc they then don't believe anyone else who doesn't fit this eastenders version of a drunk. The unassuming quiet drunks who don't drink in public.

The awkwardness of covering up for them telling other people they aren't well or tired.

The triggers and the smells. Thinking they are dead when you're a child because you dont understand passed out or what drunk really means just that it smells and its scary.

Ah so many things.

As a partner- that they save all their worst bits of themselves for you, and their best bits for everyone else. So no matter how close you are to them (mum, sister) you don’t get it and never will.

He has stopped drinking and never reached the point where it fell onto the kids (who are still young). But I suppose I’ll forever more live on eggshells wondering if he could go back there, a feeling of responsibility to make sure they don’t .

Trying to find the least shitty out of a bunch of really shitty options.

And the lies. All the lies. The incessant, pointless, blatant lies.

Yes I really relate to this. I like going to see live music but we limit how much we go because both me and my husband find all the drinking and drunk people so uncomfortable.

There will be people distraught In tears or people overly friendly or violent people. The smells and being too physically close in a crowd is horrible and scary. We've had some near misses of glasses being thrown being knocked over or caught in fights, people being sick. It's horrible. Some people take their children and it just feels so unsafe and dangerous.

It brings out such a panic stress response in me. But there is no non drinking area I really wish there was.

For me it's been really accepting that they can't remember what they do when they're drunk, so don't expect an apology

It's so sad. None in primary school dreams of being an alcoholic as a future. It has destroyed so many lives in my family one of the most harrowing was my Auntie Teresa, she called her sister normal suicide threat. Sister was late she was dead. The trouble my Grandad a GP who had custody of 17 year old me (mother not excellent) getting her buried in a Catholic Church still has not left me 35 years later. Yes alcoholics are selfish, but is it their choice I dont think so. You see that army guy apologies I forget his name saying if you drink to excess you will become addicted. Yes in my chemistry classrooms, but in reality I am not so certain. He also never hit the level of drinking a lot of alcoholics do. Fair play you are helping people, but imo you have no idea of how bad it gets.

It’s outside of so many people’s frame of reference that it’s difficult for them to understand what alcoholism actually means - that it isn’t simply “drinking too much.” And I don’t think it helps at all - and you see it on MN a lot - that alcoholism as a medical condition and mental illness gets bandied in with sometimes getting hammered, or liking a drink: “a glass of wine almost every evening - sounds like you rely on alcohol and you’re an alcoholic to me”; “your DH went on a bender and crawled in at 5am? He’s an alcoholic and will never stop unless you give him an ultimatum never to drink another drop again or LTB”; “I can’t understand people who always want a drink when they go for a night out, that’s alcoholic behaviour.” Whilst these things may (or may not be) a sign of a problematic relationship with alcohol, they absolutely do not compare to the reality of alcoholism and living with an alcoholic who is still drinking; and nor do they provide any sense of understanding that an alcoholic can’t just be told not to drink again, or decide to only drink at the weekend.