To have no sympathy for alcoholics?

[Macrometa]

I'm the adult child of one, my life has been nothing but completely miserable because of it.

Today in my home town the newspaper ran a story about an alcoholic man who trespassed into the cancer department late at night. He stole two bottles of alcohol sanitizer from a fridge and drank them, he vomited sick and blood on the floor, urinated on the floor and then ripped down a cubicle curtain. He was found by a frightened cleaner the next morning.

The comments are full of people feeling sorry for the bloke, yet no concern for the cleaner who had to deal with the aftermath or the hospital who are now down on vital supplies and have to pay for repairs.

AIBU to have no sympathy for alcoholics?

It harms everybody around the alcoholic, whilst they avoid their own pain by numbing it with drink.

The families don't have that luxury. We have to deal with the stress and anxiety for them whilst they avoid it and pass the buck onto us.

Take today for example. My uncle who has hypertension which makes him vulnerable to covid, is having to take an expensive cab across London to do a welfare check on my mother because she has become uncontactable and people are concerned she has hurt herself again.

Even I'm worried sick, and I'm supposed to be staying no contact.

I'm now spending my day in a state of anxiety whilst having to look after my own small children and waiting by the phone to hear whether she's going to be found dead or not.

The likelihood is she's fine and has done this just to worry people, which she often does, but there's a chance that won't be the case.

I'm sick of this. I'm sick of them.

If she doesn't answer the door then the next step will be to call the police to force entry, which will then damage the door which the council will have to pay to replace, so once again she will be absolved of responsibility and able to avoid repercussions despite causing mass inconvenience for everybody else.

I don't think anyone sets out to end up that way. We have a very strange and contradictory relationship with alcohol in this country. On the one hand we reserve a special brand of contempt for alcoholics; we despise them and deplore their weakness and lack of responsibility yet on the other, drinking alcohol is widely celebrated and encouraged. What is the measure of a good night out? Generally how pissed you have been. 'Gin O'clock', 'Age and glasses of wine shoud never be counted', 'life happens, beer helps' and so on and on it goes. The message being, drink, you will feel better, drink, your life is incomplete without it, drink, it's fun!. It's a slippery slope that we are all encouraged to set foot on. But when the problems start to creep in, and it is always a slow creep, how easy do you think it is to a) admit it and b) ask for help? The shame, the guilt, the self loathing that we have lost control because we all should be taking responsibility and I can't possibly be an alcoholic because I'm not in A&E, puking and vomitting and trying drink the hand santizer. To be on the receiving end of someone's pity as opposed to sympathy is a barometer of how far one has sunk because pity is nothing more than a statement of how lost, disempowered and hopeless someone has become. Please don't misunderstand me in thinking I do not hear your feelings because I know from experience the lasting and terrible damage that alcohol does. I just wish people would be more honest about a society that encourages it on the one hand and demonizes the consequences on the other. There will be something left of that man buried deep inside, some remnant of who he was and who he might have been had he not gone so down far a path from which there will probably be no return. So yes I sympathise but not just for him but for everyone who has been damaged by this drug.

I just wish people would be more honest about a society that encourages it on the one hand and demonizes the consequences on the other

I do agree with this.

My father’s alcoholism has been the absolute bane of my life. He’s been verbally abusive since I remember, but because he doesn’t remember saying it, it means it hasn’t happened in his eyes!

Also knowing someone who drank to near death then took a liver transplant who then carried on drinking with a new liver 🤷🏼‍♀️

I really really sympathise. i have moved back to my parents recently, and my father is an alcoholic who isn’t currently drinking but is not in recovery. his behaviour, and the consuquences of his alcoholism have negatively affected the whole family. he’s regularly overdosing on prescription drugs and threatening suicide if he’s not given what he wants. my mum does al anon which helps her detach and look after her own needs, i may try it too.
please look after yourself and consider al anon too xx

@CHIRIBAYA
totally agree that we have a weird relationship with alcohol. despite my being in recovery from alcoholism that nearly killed me (and most importantly affected my daughter ), people still ask me if i want a drink, and encourage excessive alcohol consumption via work, parties etc- i have had to distance myself from a lot of people because of this.

My bother die last July aged 50, he was an alcoholic and we'd been through some horrendous, awful times with him. I was so frustrated with him and his refusal to accept help. We fell out so many times. The last time I saw him will stay with me forever, he was so ill and so defeated. I can't believe anyone would choose to live like that. There must be more to being an addict that the need for alcohol. I think it's a bit heartless to say you have no sympathy for them and that they bring it on themselves.

I think it's a bit heartless to say you have no sympathy for them and that they bring it on themselves.

Whether you have sympathy for them or not, the bottom line is that alchoholics do bring it on themselves. No one else is responsible for their drinking and no one else can make them stop. It is entirely self-inflicted.

Macro- my mum did all of this and was sectioned in the end but it all took ages. It's so horrible to live through x

I think people will find in years to come that for some alcoholism has a genetic link

I think letting 18 year olds drink is too young.

Young lives are blighted by choices they make that if sober looking back at their life they would not have made.

For me putting the drinking age up to 21 or even 25 would vastly reduce alcoholism and alcohol related illnesses and accidents

I think if you have not drunk till then you are at 3 years more mature and might look at your alcohol consumption in a different way.

macro I am so sorry for what you are going through, it sounds horrendous. I've had friends who use do disappearing acts in the past and it's always a concern. One guy I told outright I was relieved when I saw hed read my fb message as it meant he was alive. He then attempted to deflect blame onto mr by saying it was selfish of me to worry about him!!

I think part of this is a reason why I try and hide my addiction, my parents know very little and my friends I haven't told them all either. A lot of it is self centred not wanting them to know, but a side effect is that they dont worry.

Saying that addiction is a disease does not absolve the addict of responsibility. Type 2 diabetics fr eg like my mam, have a responsibility to engage with the nhs, to tske medication and monitor their diet. I have little sympathy for my mam as she doesn't do this, she still routinely ests a family size pack of crisps or a store tub of ben and Jerry's to herself and does not exercise. She has an illness yes but its doen to her to help herself as well. I have an addiction which is a compulsion even when I am clean, however I have a responsibility o maintain and reduce on my script, to attend na meetings and to speak honestly. It is an illness but it is something we need to manage through action

It's a lot easier to have empathy when you haven't seen what it does to families. My sympathy op. We had an alcoholic close family member who died pretty young and the things he put my family through were awful.

The number of times everyone hoped treatment would work, supporting him then seeing it all go to shit. Then his parents having to bury their son. Seeing them at the funeral was just one of the worst things I've ever had to experience. So I feel ya op.

YABVU.

Alcoholism is a disease not a weakness. It's like not feeling sorry for someone who has kidney disease. Educate yourself on the complexities of alcoholism please.

And my father died of acute liver failure as a result of alcoholism. I bore the brunt of his disease and still felt deeply sorry for him

Whether you have sympathy for them or not, the bottom line is that alchoholics do bring it on themselves. No one else is responsible for their drinking and no one else can make them stop. It is entirely self-inflicted

That's a very simplified way of looking at it, I doubt anyone just decides to drink themselves to death.

@Madein1995 you sound incredibly switched on and insightful, wishing you the very best for your recovery x

That's a very simplified way of looking at it, I doubt anyone just decides to drink themselves to death.

No, but they are the one that decides to drink. No one else. And they are the only one that can stop drinking. No medicine can do it for them.

Well she's alive and well, sober because she's ran out of money and going through the remorse tearful phase. She has lost her phone somewhere apparently.

She hasn't had a drink since 12pm yesterday afternoon.

My uncle is now £40 down on taxi fare which he assured me is a small price to pay for the peace of mind of knowing she's ok. The poor man was scared he was going to find her dead.

This happens regularly and despite the frequency it is just as draining each time.

@stayclosetoyourself if you don't mind me asking, how did it come about that she was sectioned? I have been wanting that to happen for years, for everybodies sake

I don't either. I don't understand why it's described as an illness.

Fuck! StonerSIL, over an hour away, has just texted. BoneheadBIL has done it again. He's in hospital, throat varices are bleeding, 4th time this year.

He wants her, skint, lives alone with her dog, doesn't drive, to get a train and stay at his so he can be released (??!!) early. She can't do it so has asked me, they are not my siblings, and DH is sat here with me, to go and fucking get him!!!

Oh! She has texted again, almost immediately, saying sorry, fucking leave him there. She forgot she swore she wouldn't continue to enable him when she left him to it at the beginning of lockdown.

I think she is finally seeing why PoisonousSIL left him.

Bear the mind he is not the alcoholic that I spent far too much time on and that this is a very minor inconvenience - though it may kill him any day - and you can see just how selfish and difficult active alcoholics can be.

SIL has texted again, do I think she is being harsh?

DH is reminding me he went NC for a reason....

What a fuck about @CuriousaboutSamphire

I don't think she's being harsh to have said just leave him there.

Too often families rally around which is actually enabling.

I made the decision not to chase after my mother anymore. If other family members want to do it then that's on them, but I've told them they shouldn't be doing.

A key point from those great podcasts - the presenter says alcoholism is a disease, but that in no way should be used as a way to shirk responsibility. That when she was in active addiction she didnt like it called a disease and I identify - a disease meant I'm powerless and I dont want to be powerless. Also I'm not like 'them' as I work and have all my own teeth. Absolute delusion

Thank you macro I lived quite happily in my denial for a looong time but I'm starting to look inward a bit more now.
The situation with your mum sounds desperate. the fact she's well and hasnt had a drink is good as it means shes not physically dependant, I hope (?) . Your poor uncle. Is there any indication she wants to stop?

I'm going to look up those podcasts, I'm very interested to listen

Madein - any desire for her to quit is fleeting and usually comes about after a big binge when she's feeling quite shitty. As soon as the hangover goes, any motivation to change is gone with it.

I don't believe she is physically dependant at this stage, miraculously. She is what's known as a binge drinker.

She has had mild rigors two or three times over the past five years but as above, that only came about after a particularly long binge of three/four days.

Trembling hands, she gets a shower has some food and they disappear.

She'll then not have anything to drink for days, or a week, until the opportunity arises again.

She can and does go without it when she doesn't have money, it is a compulsion more than anything else at the moment.

She doesn't wake up in the morning shaking and ill, needing to drink to begin the day.

I appreciate the misery of living with an alcoholic as a friends alkie father left her to starve basically after her Mum went AWOL. It also led to other horrific stuff for her. But... IME there always a reason people drink. It's an escape for a few hours or to boost confidence. I feel sorry for the man, cleaner & the hospital. George Best drank because he had huge social anxiety as a young man. Film actor & famous drunk Richard Burton drank because he feared he was boring when sober. Oliver Reed drank because he was horrifically shy socially without it