Support group for those affected by someone else's drinking thread 5

[pointythings]

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/alcohol_support/5473399-support-group-for-those-affected-by-someone-elses-drinking-thread-4?page=5

A new thread, because the old one is full - link to previous thread above.

These threads are a safe place for anyone who has an alcoholic in their lives. You can ask for help, you can vent, you can say whatever you need to without judgement. We will listen and support you.

My DH used to threaten suicide often. He disappeared once for 4 days and nights. The stress of it all was immense and I am so thankful to be free of it now. In the end, he did commit suicide, by continuing to drink when he'd been told by doctors it would kill him. The best thing to do @Nogoodusername is delete any texts or emails he sends, without reading them. His friends, end of tether or not, should not have involved you. Don't allow them to do wreck your peace again.

@Penguinsandspaniels I'm so
sorry. Hugs. We’re here for you.

I know it wasn’t your husband with the I’m dead posts, it just made me laugh. I have spent many months on suicide watch with DH and my sense of humour is darker than it used to be.

I was first on scene at an RTA yesterday. Looked bad but thank goodness everyone was fine. I was praised for having a cool head. Not blowing my own trumpet - just that I was okay with it all until the middle of the night last night when I woke up with a start and realised it was because I am always on red alert waiting for something where I’m going to have to step in and manage a crisis. I didn’t manage the RTA any differently to how I’ve managed 10 years of DH. I’m sure that’s something a lot of you will relate to.

Thank you for explaining.

5 hours is unbelievable! I'm just going to assume they have some sort of triage/priority so if someone is having a heart attack they don't wait like that.

I also think something different here is how they handle calls like your ex's. If someone is obviously intoxicated or threatens suicide EMS calls police to attend. If the person is obstreperous they also then call the mental health crisis team. If the crisis team deems the person 'incapable of rational decision and a danger to themselves/others' then they are taken to the ER whether they like it or not, called a '5150'. That's happened to DH a few times. I think that's why he really doesn't mention suicide any more. During one 'episode' DH had 2 fire dept parades, 3 EMS with an ambulance, 4 police, and 3 mental health workers show up.

It's just the ultimate selfishness, isn't it? Using so many resources and upsetting family because they can't control themselves and/or they want attention.

Oh, absolutely. Staying calm and dealing with whatever is my first response these days. It can come in very useful and help people - but it takes a toll.

Yes heart attack would be high

he was low priority as talking /drunk but coherent - not like he had taken pills for exqmple

plus a Saturday night - it’s never a tue or wed lol

suicide wasn’t mentioned to 999 as only he just says it but never would. Hes a coward and tbh sure fb friends an myself got fed up of it as refuses offer's of help

it was more the 🤮💩 an being ill - which is prob booze but maybe something else but as it was told be suicidal to drink 2years ago when no pancreas , I’m sure his symptoms are due to booze

@Penguinsandspaniels you’re going through so much at the moment, and your DCs. I
wish they could grasp the damage they do.

Yeah, I get the 🤮💩thing. It's absolutely due to alcohol. At some point your poor GI system screams 'No more!!!' and rebels. DH has had that, resulting of course in the current biohazard house. I told him that the least he could do is wear an adult diaper so the mess gets 'contained' but of course that would be 'too embarrassing. And shitting everywhere isn't?

It's one of the reasons I'm so glad to be where I am. Because unfortunately I would have been the one following him around with a mop and bucket. And a rug shampooer.

Ex has massive GI issues. He’s currently been sending his siblings photos of the toilet bowl filled with blood as he is basically shitting blood. He obviously thinks he has bowel cancer, and I actually think he would like to have something like this - because then people would be ‘nice’ to him and give him what he wants (child access, relationships restored) without any conditions of sobriety or treatment. Obviously it is really serious and he should be getting it checked out, but the issue is that we all remember him telling us in his longer stints of sobriety (month or two) that all his GI problems including the persistent diarrhoea and blood has stopped.

@Nogoodusername My Dh was shitting and vomiting blood in the weeks before he died. I suspect he'd done terrible damage to his oesophagus and entire digestive system. It definitely wasn't bowel cancer...

I almost feel grateful that mine died of alcohol induced heart disease.

@LavenderFieldds bizarrely I find that I am very calm when facing an immediate, adrenalin raising crisis but don't always cope very well with less obviously dramatic stresses. I don't know what that's about!

@pointythings I'm glad I wasn't living with him at the time. Visiting was grim enough.

Yep clean don’t live together tho poor dsd cleared it bless her

@Nogoodusername are you me - ex thinks he has cancer. Googled his symptoms an got the big C

obv I’m sure it’s not and due to drink

he would love it to be so can claim more money

@CharlotteByrde sounds similar and agree damage due to drink.

Will see what results come back with after a camera up /down throat /bum

I have thought our Ex’s are the same man many times @Penguinsandspaniels!

Thanks @CharlotteByrde, I do need to work on boundaries for his friends. I am expecting more this week as more papers and due and a court appearance, so I have made plans to make myself unavailable. Need to mute and archive some particular people and a lot of DnD when I am in the office/ during school hours.

Honestly I read your replies and think omg. Did I write that. ESP all of the above

the week before he gets uc so poor and no booze he’s fine

the weekend after gets uc he’s always ill and cancels us as have a bug ….

but amazing since been in hosp he’s not 🤮💩 and throwing up blood - it’s a miracle

or maybe as he’s not drinking

I swear to the Good Lord Above, the first time DH sends me a pic of his poo, I am going NC!!!

He's back 'on the wagon' (for now). But mentally he's lost a lot of the progress he had made as far as his memory and his grip on what's real/what he's imagined goes. I told him he needs to see a neurologist for an evaluation. He agrees, but my suggestion will go nowhere. I have no intention of facilitating it by scheduling it and transporting him.

And to top it off he's gotten a summons for jury duty. I told him to call them and tell them his age and that he no longer drives. He said "What if that doesn't work?" and I told him "Then tell them you're a drunk". He thought that was funny which I guess is better than him being insulted.

@Nogoodusername Setting boundaries with his friends is important, even if it means they 'think less of you'. I used to worry about their opinion but I don't anymore. I know I'm a good person and I know what I've done for DH in the past. I'm sure DH's one remaining friend thinks I could probably 'do more', but I really don't care. If he thinks something more should be done, he is welcome to do it himself.

@AcrossthePond55 Ex also got a jury service summons in the peak of his addiction! He did declare his DUI conviction and that he is in active addiction.

I’m going to try really hard and not care whether his friends think I could and should be doing more. I did everything I could for two years and I could do no more. It was destroying me and he wasn’t improving one bit. It’s hard though. ‘What ifs’ do creep in and get me.

yes, bloody toilet bowl photos are definitely for medics alone!!

Hi ladies! Same shit, different day (pun intended!)
I think most of us have been given the ‘designated driver’ of our OHs role… I literally just had a Saturday night tantrum off mine about how his DS is ‘disgusted’ with me for my money grabbing (referring to the ‘fair’ settlement my sol says I’m due), my torture of his father (because I refuse to move out immediately and sofa surf for months on end until our property sells) and my neglect (because I didn’t visit DH in hospital and I haven’t ‘helped’ him to moderate his drinking)…all of this screamed in my face upon his return from the pub where he met his ‘boy’ (he’s 27)…. words almost failed me and then two came to mind… sure you can work out which ones!
We have to try so hard to not be triggered into guilt by others’ assumptions of what we should be doing for the addiction, for me it feels sometimes like I ‘have’ to feel guilty, because I’m a ‘good person’ and shouldn’t leave/choose my happiness over his - I should keep trying to save him from the turbulent sea he keeps choosing to throw himself into, even if I drown… at least then people will still think I’m ‘good’😢 I’m not overly religious but I’m finding that the wedding vows are tormenting me, like I need to beg Gods permission to break my promises of better/worse until death do us part ….
It’s a proper head f*ck and only all of you understand….. these addicts are ADULTS, why does anyone except them have to take responsibility for them?

Oh and just to add, I’m also still fully in the ‘ick’ situation of being informed daily (sometimes twice daily) of the exact poo status of DH… looser/firmer, frequency and aroma- no detail is considered off limits 🤮
FFS, I’m not potty training you and therefore I don’t frigging care!

Send him a Gillian M poo chart

It's not easy to get to the 'I don't care what you think of me' place when for years we've wanted friends to have a good opinion of us'. Society is so built "What will they think?" and I was raised on it!

We know we've done everything we could. We KNOW it. But it seems that those people who don't want the 'burden' put on them are quick to think we haven't really done all we could. Especially when it comes to spending money! At one point DH's friend said "You need to get him into a rehab place no matter what it costs". Right. I wanted to ask how much he was going to chip in but I didn't, I just ignored the message.

People are always happy to give advise but different when in our shoes

@zeroclucksgiven

I’m not overly religious but I’m finding that the wedding vows are tormenting me, like I need to beg Gods permission to break my promises of better/worse until death do us part …

Yeah, I've had DH throw that up to me, too.

OK, so here's the theology lesson for today. All atheists feel free to skip this post. (LOL)

The Bible teaches that a husband is to 'love his wife as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her' (Eph 5:25) and to 'give honour to the wife' (1 Pet 3;7).

Have our husbands 'loved us and given themselves up' for us? No, they've given US up for alcohol.

Have they 'given us honour'? No, they've given us neglect, verbal abuse, and worse.

So who 'broke the vows' first? Not us. We loved and honoured for better or worse until 'worse' is all there was. We've 'kept ourselves only unto them' whilst they've replaced us with their new mistress, alcohol. I do not believe a loving God would expect anyone to live with what we've lived with. He wants us to be happy and at peace so we can live good and fulfilling lives. We can't do that in a house with a raging alcoholic. (And all that goes for drugs, too)

I've made peace with God over my marriage.

It's not easy to get to the 'I don't care what you think of me' place when for years we've wanted friends to have a good opinion of us'. Society is so built "What will they think?" and I was raised on it!

Oh amen to that! I had it worst from my mum (who was at the time also abusing alcohol, so of course). She told me that if I could be kinder to my husband, maybe he wouldn't drink so much. And she said that my Dsis had been really kind to her OH and he had stopped drinking so it would definitely work.

Whereas the truth was that my Dsis had told her OH that if he carried on drinking (and driving) he would one day crash into a wall and she wouldn't be the one arranging the funeral. Not kind. But weirdly, he started in AA the next day.

Eventually we learn that when it comes to our alcoholic other halves, we really do know best.