In which we talk about alcoholics

Get a life, OP.

What emotional pain is he drinking to hide, OP? What fundamental thing about his life needs changing?

My female cousin who's in her early 60s is an alcoholic. We don't know how to help her anymore. She's lost pretty much everything including her job. She has had the worst life of anyone I know. Her father was an alcoholic as was her brother. We didn't know about her brother, also my cousin. He lived a "picture perfect" life, but killed himself. It's awful seeing people you care about destroy their lives from this disease.

Could it be the Boston/Philly couple?

R4 Oooh, just in time for summer!

How long does it take to get "wet brain"? I drink too much. My liver is fine so far but I don't want dementia, of course.

Web Brain or beri beri can be prevented. Its not alcohol poisoning of the brain, at all. It's a pity people around alcoholics don't make a stab informing how to prevent it. Its a thiamine deficiency.

R6 - take vitamins and eat well. You'll destroy yourself in other ways if you are an alcoholic but not by beri beri.

[quote]ts a thiamine deficiency.

Link

OP, you're the reason Daddy drinks and cries.

It's hereditary. Children of alcoholics either totally abstain because of the shit they grew up with, or get hook in half the time of took for their parents.

I come from an alcoholic family.

Do you drink, r11?

My dad was an alcoholic. It took me 7 years after he died to get any perspective on it and another 5 before I could honestly say I forgave him. Now I see that you can it expect self control from an addict. You've just got to do what's best for yourself and hope that you can be kind to them as you do what's needed.

R11 is not your father, R12.

I'm totally alcoholic and I own it. Yes, it sucks, but at least I'm not all cray and acting out. I appreciate ecstasy of mind and having a bit of peace of mind.

That said, I don't recommend alcoholism and urge folks to err to the side of caution, it catches up. I didn't get started until my late 30s.

I always have felt that denial is the biggest fault: I was WRONG.

Fingers crossed for a Boston Philly update!!

Remember when one of them killed the others turtles? He was too drunk to feed them.

'That said, I don't recommend alcoholism '

OK, I've crossed 'become alky' off my bucket list.

R11, there are plenty of adults who grew up with alcoholism who enjoy the occasional drink, I'm one of them.

My father drank himself to death, my sister gave it a good go but is now 7 years in AA.

I had an issue with binge drinking in my twenties when pretty much all my friends' social lives were based around bars an clubs. But I grew sick of it and now have the odd glass of wine at parties.

Well a lot of things are genetic. But that doesn't mean automatically passed down...

Yeah, I think it's Boston-Philly. Didn't he bite off his tongue?

I know alcoholics who have been sober for decades. Most did it with AA, a few did it on their own, but they did manage to do it. Of course, an alcoholic can never actually be cured.

My best friends were a couple. Both liked to overdo it with the drinking, and it escalated over the years. Two drunks doesn't make for a peaceful home life, so they split up. One of them got in AA and was sober for 15 years. He ended up dying of kidney cancer at age 50. I don't know if the abuse was a factor in that or not.

The other one never quit. He had a good job. The drinking almost cost him the job several times, but he held on until he retired. Without the job to provide some degree of temperance, he was free to drink day and night. He drank himself to death in 1.5 years. His family wouldn't intervene by getting a court order, and he had an enabler who kept him supplied, so him dying was the only outcome. I tried, but without any legal standing, there wasn't much to be done to prevent the self-destruction.

One half of Boston Philly - the poor one who wanted to bill the other one for her services as a bf over the years - was cheating with an ally ex, that ex was the one who bit through his tongue.

I miss those guys!

Naltrexone is a medication that can cure alcoholism, look it up.

It is also sold as Revia and Vivitrol.

It supposedly cures drug addiction too.

I don't believe alcoholism is 'genetic'.

I have found that alcoholics love to create excuses for their choices. 'It's genetic!' is one of the commonly heard ones.

'It's a disease!' is another.

No, it isn't. Alcoholism is a pattern of dysfunctional behaviors that go behind getting drunk, and include refusing to take responsibility, self-pity, and being emotionally unavailable even to their children or partner. The roots are in the individual's psychology, not their genes.

Others recommend the Ayahuasca treatment, but many are not willing to go into the jungles of Peru and have an unknown outcome.

There is some hope that Ayahuasca treatment centers will be opening up in America, legally.

I'm sure you could find an outlaw meeting that does this in big cities but you don't know who's there and if you can trust them.

Oh my gosh, I need to quit.

I do like to drink, I don't have particular consequences, but it's not good for my body or mind : (

"I don't believe alcoholism is 'genetic'."

Speaking as a former alcoholic, R24, I don't think it matters whether there's a genetic component to alcoholism, or whether the difference between an alcoholic and a drinker is psychological, cause by life experiences, weakness of the will, whatever. The fact is that some people can handle alcohol and some can't, and those that can't need to avoid it completely.

That's all I need to know, and something you need to think about because you don't seem to understand much. The dysfunctionality and avoidance of responsibility that annoys you so much are as much a result of alcoholism as a cause.

R27, the patterns of behavior which go along with alcoholism usually persist after the alcoholic stops drinking. I speak from experience. Two members of my immediate family were / are alcoholics. Drinking was only one of their many problems, and as they say in AA as you doubtless know - if you sober up an asshole, you are left with a sober asshole. the drinking is a manifestation of mental illness, it does not cause mental illness in a healthy person.

The last we heard from the Boston Philly couple, the drunk one had been arrested for (I think) trespassing on someone's lawn. How long has this guy been near death?

No the lawn trespassing guy was the one who bit through his tongue, he's the secret love interest of one half of Boston/Philly.

As far as I recall, lawn / tongue guy was found by the police trying to hide in the crawl space under his house.

Alcoholics do more damage to those around them than they do to themselves. At least the alcoholic has the advantage of not remembering the damage. The rest of us should be so fortunate.

That is not always true, r31.

The folks here hating on drunks probably have their own issues and addictions.

The issues I have are from the abuse I received growing up with a violent, alcoholic father and a doormat enabling mother, r32.

I'm right there with you, r33.

Get out and help people; get off the cross, we need the wood.

So where's the OP?

R33, you qualify for Al-Anon. It's done wonders for me.

I took this quiz about 15 years ago. I was shocked by how typical I was re: adult children of alcoholics. I thought I was special! But there are millions like me.

Everyone has some addiction. For some people it's alcohol. Some sex. Some people are addicted to gambling, some to hate.

I'm one of those people who could never become an alcoholic. I don't really like being drunk, and I've tried it several times. But now I've gone three years without any alcohol, because someone I love is trying to abstain. He's pretty fucked by alcohol, but I don't miss it a bit.

Don't mess with my pot, though.

Your honesty is cool, r37.

You remind me that food can be as destructive and nast an addiction as booze or anything else.

What an absolutely ridiculous and untrue post. I know many many people who have recovered and lived beautiful sober lives. What a friggin asshole to even post this

R39 believes in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.

r40 has issues.

Look at yourself, bud.

Three family members were killed by two alcoholics in two separate incidents. My sister is in a wheelchair because of another alcoholic. I dated a guy who was an alcoholic, although I didn't know it until the first time he got drunk and beat the shit out of me. Yes, I do have issues.

Look at myself? Why? Did I pour the booze down the throat of the guy who broadsided my grandparents' vehicle killing them? Did I tell the alcoholic who embedded my aunt in the grill of his car that it was okay to drive drunk? I'm not your "bud", so fuck off.

I'm sorry for your difficulty, r42. I mean that.

Perhaps this isn't the place for therapy.

I grew up with a bipolar alcoholic mother who ruined her own life and the lives of everyone else around her. Things only got better when she left, and got worse again during the few times she came back to town. The rest of the family admitted we were much happier and saner when she was not around, and her return caused a backslide into the old dysfunctional patterns. I learned in college and grad school that the kinds of people who like to get drunk usually turn out to be the kinds of people I'm better off avoiding even when they're sober.

Drinking doesn't make me feel good, I wish it did.

[quote] as they say in AA as you doubtless know - if you sober up an asshole, you are left with a sober asshole.

Don't I know it!

I had alcoholics on both sides of my family (they're all dead now). On the Irish side (and, yes, this sounds like the stereotype), they had a physical addiction to alcohol and would lie/cheat/steal to get it. On the Italian side, drinking was just part of the melodrama of their day-to-day lives. The Italian relatives would give up drinking but then find something else to create chaos. The Irish relatives just couldn't stop drinking.

I don't drink except to toast people at celebrations. But I have to be very careful around food because that could easily become an addiction to me.

BTW, I have one "friend" in AA. I finally realized he didn't really like me but was spending time with me because he thought it was one of his 12 Steps. I've cut ties with him which I think is best for both of us.

How would spending time with you be part of your friend's twelve steps, r47?

THE PLOT THICKENS! LOL!

How could this happen to me?

r48, he was constantly trying to make amends. He did this with everyone ... took us to lunch, dinner, came over to the house to apologize. It was endless. Remove the "making amends" from our relationship and we wouldn't have been spending any time together. Therefore, I pulled the plug.

Get a grip, r50. You sound certifiable.

"Making amends" is such a farce. How can an alcoholic possibly make amends for the misery they cause? It's as though the people in their lives are supposed to pretend and lie that everything is fine just so the alcoholic feels better about himself. It's like a victim of rape is responsible for making the rapist for feeling okay about what he did to her.

R42, how did they peel your aunt off the grill? Really intrigued by the image.

R52, for those alcoholics who do more than ruin a holiday dinner, there isn't anything they can do to un-do the past. That's true for anybody who has done that find of damage.

The only thing they can sometimes is to acknowledge that they were wrong, and are determined not to repeat the behavior. If fitting, they might make financial anends, though I think hell will freeze over before I ever see that happening.

Nobody makes miraculous amends that completely reverse un-reversal,e events, so do t expect that. Lit think AA has a international meeting somewhere every 5 years, and it is going on right now in Georgia, if my sources are correct. What a coincidence.

If I recall correctly, wet-brain can be caused by withdrawal from alcohol if done cold turkey. Somehow, the process depletes the body of a certain vitamin. That sets off an autocatalytic event where the brain starts getting damaged by the lack of this vitamin, causing the body to need more of that vitamin. I heard this year's ago pm but that is all I remember.

R52, sometimes the alcoholic admitting they messed up is enough. I've dealt with dry drunks in denial about the damage and the pain they caused, and I always imagined what it would be like for the these people to fully understand the pain and lasting dysfunction that resulted from their alcoholism . Never heard it though.

Most alcoholics prefer to blame liquor absolving themselves of all responsibility for what they do under the influence. "I know I broke your jaw, but I was drunk so it wasn't my fault."

Do let me break your jaw.

You can't generalize, or, you shouldn't.

I have a brother-in-law who is a recovering alcoholic and who has been sober for maybe 15-20 years. He must have been a terror, as he is mostly disliked by everyone who knows him sober. I don't know what is wrong with him, but it must be pretty severe. I suppose it's narcissism, hypochondria (which gets him the attention that feeds his narcicism), and depression. Maybe more,

He is nice to my sister, which counts for something. I think he's broke, so he better be nice to her.

A relative's 30 year old daughter drank herself to death last year and everyone is relieved. She was a fucking pain in the ass. Refused therapy. Refused rehab. Overspent, begged her parents for money to pay off creditors and would take off for another part of the country. Her FB page claimed she was this hotshot business owner; meanwhile, she couldn't hold down a job for more than a few months

I'm glad she died last year instead of 20 years down the road. Her family is now spared years of her bullshit. She would have been a good looking woman if she hadn't tattooed herself down to her toes. Literally, her toes were tattooed.

She was hurting, bud. RIP random stranger.

See how empathy works?

Her toes hurt.

You can't really "beat" the addiction permanently. You can string together several days without alcohol, and those days can turn into weeks, months, and years. But I don't think the fear of the other shoe dropping ever really goes away.

Another 2015 bump.

My friend is a heavy drinker, now that he is only working part time he is drunk by 4 pm every day. I haven't seen him in weeks because I don't trust his judgment, he rides the bus and works with the public and only wears a mask if he is forced to and I know he doesn't wash his hands. If he didn't have a job I would hate to see how much he would drink. I thought after he lost his license and went to jail for DUI would be a wakeup call but now he just takes the bus.