Who Suffers More? The Family or The Alcoholic?
Suffering With an Alcoholic. Do Something?
Do something, so easy to say, so much harder to do. Being in the middle of a thunderstorm you can seek shelter, hold up an umbrella but that does not stop the rain. All we can do is seek shelter. We shield ourselves from the darkness that has set upon us and while the alcoholic suffers the family suffers equally.
However, I feel that the mental stress is harder on the family because they feel powerless. Like when your child is ill. You cannot take away the pain or the fever. As much as you want to help, we all know that as an alcoholic, the individual needs to see and understand that they have a problem. Slowly they get it and often still do not admit it.
It’s a strange situation when both parties see the issues and yet they are at a stalemate. The alcoholic knows that the family sees and yet it’s all masked and hidden in plain sight.
Talk about it? No This is Not Okay!
The first admission is the hardest. As I had mentioned in the previous episodes the recycling box was my friend. If you live with an alcoholic there will be games. Fun ones at that. I had been keeping an eye on the bottles in the recycling bin. I noticed that the number of bottles had gone down.
I was very pleased with myself and thought that some of our conversations must have been heard. I patted myself on the back and took the garbage out. It was not until a few weeks later I noticed that when I put the garbage bags on the road that I heard a clunk.
To my surprise, there were bottles in the garbage nicely hidden in other garbage. The bottles of wine had not reduced. Instead, they were disguised. So much for feeling good about myself. I had failed and so had she.
What to do Next? It is All About Documentation
The games had begun. I said nothing and neither did she. I don’t know if she knew that I knew, and she didn’t know if I knew or not. I went through the garbage each week and placed the empty bottles behind a large full-size piece of plywood in the garage. The cat and mouse game was now on.
We were Tom and Jerry of the household as this game went on and on. Slowly I noticed the very large row of bottles growing larger over the weeks and saw that the consumption of alcohol was on the rise.
Confirmation Came. Can an Alcoholic work and function?
The short answer is yes but my answer is no. One day I had a call from the person my ex was writing for and asked if everything was alright. I had no reason to tell the truth, so I lied and said yes.
Unfortunately, being a writer and drunk didn’t pair well. The writing of scripts and the episodes that were sent were incoherent and nothing made sense. She was known as a fast writer that needed little to no editing. Ready to shoot scripts was what we were known for. This was now a problem, and it was high time we had an intervention of sorts because she was now having problems with work. It is not easy to confront anyone about personal matters, but it was time.
Zsolt Zsemba 