Lessons I learned from being with an alcoholic

Lessons I learned from being with an alcoholic
Photo taken from the parking garage at Miami Valley Hospital on July 14th, 2023

The day I walked out of that hospital, got to my car and looked out at the world and finally started to realize that I wasn't the one admitted and stuck in a hospital bed.

I was actually free. I could go outside and stare at the sky. I could go anywhere that I wanted to.

I wasn't the one hooked up to IVs, being told over and over again that I would die if I didn't stop drinking.

I was still healthy, even if I was holding on by a thread, barely over 100lbs and living on red bull and takis at the time

I realized that I could scramble to find a babysitter and neglect my own life, sanity business and children, to drive back to the hospital again- making sure to bring him food and clean clothes or his charger, or whatever else, to try to make sure that he felt loved and supported and cared about. To try to love him into sobriety and healing.

OR

I could take my kids to the zoo.

I could obsessively check his liver function results on mychart and make sure the nurses were actually bringing him food

OR

I could put that attention towards myself and my babies. I couldn't do both.

I had a choice and my choices were really starting to ruin my life.

It was the start of realizing that every drop of my attention that I poured into trying to save an alcoholic, was at my own expense.

I had spent months and months driving to and from that hospital, finding people to watch our baby who had just turned 3, so I could go TRY to give love to his dad. His dad that wasn't able to recieve the love I was trying to give, anyway.

He never felt loved or cared about no matter how much I was holding back and abandoning myself in the attempt to prove that I cared.

It doesn't make sense now when I look back, that I just ignored everything else to try to save him, but at the time it did.

To see someone you care about so much, being in so much pain. Mental, spiritual and physical pain, just distorts your reality in a way that I never understood. Its like nothing else matters.

Even with my previous experience of being with an addict, this was a whole different level of torture and helplessness.

To see him completely delusional and out of touch with reality because of critically high ammonia levels that would leave him unconscious for days. To see him unable to breath and collapse in pain and drop to the floor because of potassium levels so low, he could barely move and his heart could stop beating at any time. To see his skin and eyes so yellow from jaundice that it doesn't even seem real. Then to see him get better for a few weeks, even a month and then go right back to drinking the thing that's killing him.

It's debilitating to witness and live through. I knew the stress it was causing me was unbearable but seeing him in so much pain, I just automatically minimized my own.

I wasn't in as much pain as he was, and i wanted to help, so i should keep giving because he clearly needs help, was the way I was living.

I knew I'd have to start sharing these experiences publicly, but for a while I just wasn't ready. That and the conditioning to protect the "functional alcoholics" reputation and feelings at all costs.

I can't stop addicts from using or drinking, and neither can you.
Only they can stop themselves, when they're ready.

Some will stop and others won't. Neither outcome is your responsibility
If they get sober, you don't get to take credit. They did that.
If they drink themselves to death or OD, they did that. Its not your fault.

It's an awful and painful thing and if you don't understand how hard being an addict or loving an addict is, you are extremely lucky.

But if you are in the midst of it, I hope I can help you with something.

You can't save them, but you can save yourself. I promise you can save yourself.

No amount of personal suffering that you go through will take away their suffering. No amount of letting the lies slide and being accepting, patient and tolerant, will make them be honest with you.

They will lie to you again.

Don't take it personally. You can hold the vibration of love and hold healthy boundaries at the same time.

They will be upset and furious and hurt by your boundaries and if youre like me, it will probably hurt you just as much to set and hold the boundary.

Do it anyway, it gets easier.

You have your own problems that you need to heal from. You have your own life that needs your love and attention. You need a safe place to heal if you will ever be of actual help to anyone.

Know that you aren't alone going through this and you don't need to suffer in silence to protect their reputation.

Your life and happieness matter, too.

Bashing them is different, none of this done from a place of speaking negatively about them. But don't suffer in silence because you're scared that being honest about whats happening will hurt them.

Even if they won't go to therapy, take yourself. If they won't go to AA, you can't force them but you can take yourself (or look up) alanon. It's basically aa for the family members of the addict.

Holding them accountable is the most helpful thing you can do for them. If catering to their emotions and neglecting yourself would save them, it would have worked by now