Bluebird

Carey, I totally agree. We'll see what can be done. Stay tuned!

Hi everyone, a beloved member of our prior board (NoEZway) started this thread some time ago, and I found it very helpful to know that I'm not alone in my Specific circumstance. I'm Bluebird. My DH of 23 years died from the consequences of late stage alcoholism on January 13th, 2010. We have one child, a son who was 17 at the time his Dad died. Watching my beloved husband slowly disintegrate in front our eyes and knowing that I was powerless to stop it was the most horrific experience of my life. That experience was deepened by seeing the suffering of our son, who struggled even more to understand how his father could leave him in this way. Much growth and understanding has happened for both my son and I over the last five years. I have been blessed to fall in love again and marry my guy WifeLess, and our son is now an amazing father and young businessman. I would never have guessed either outcome in those first early years of grief. Please pm me any time if I can be of help. Take Care, Bluebird.

Another post that generated quite a lot of discussion on our prior board...posting again in case it's helpful =============================================================== After reading some posts here lately I'm reminded of the moment where I realized I couldn't save my husband from himself --- and that I needed to save myself and our child. I recall very clearly arriving at that understanding. I actually dreamt about it and awoke with complete clarity. I believe my Higher Power (HP) came to me in my dream. In the dream, I was standing at the edge of a large body of water. I think it was a large lake or an ocean. My husband was in the water and suddenly there were huge waves all around him. He was drowning. Of course I jumped in to bring him to the shoreline. I got to him and I was holding on to him and said "Don't worry, I'm going to take you to the edge." He looked panicked and said "No, I don't want to go - can't we just stay here, and you can keep me up out of the water?" As he said this, I realized he was being held up, but I was being pushed under and I was going to drown. That dream made me understand that I couldn't save him from his addiction. If I kept trying, I would only hurt myself more. I could still love him and support him. I could still get him medical care when he needed it, but he was the only person who could do what was needed to have a chance at recovery. If that was even possible. I don't feel guilty about this anymore. Guilt would imply that if I persisted in trying to save him, that it might have worked. But countless years of trying have given me plenty of evidence that I'm not that powerful. After I let go of the idea that I couldn't save him, I was freed up emotionally to take better care of myself and my son. Amazingly, it also brought me closer to my husband as I could love him better when I gave up trying to control his outcome. The picture perfect ending would be that I had this blinding flash of the obvious, got out of the way, and he recovered. You all know that his disease ultimately claimed his life. That's the really horrible part. I'm not really sure why I'm posting this, but you've all been on my mind, so here it is. Take care everyone, Bluebird.

I wanted to bring this topic to our new home, since I know it's an important topic for many of us to grapple with. ============================================================= Hi everyone, I've been thinking a lot lately about whether alcoholism is a disease or not. It comes up here frequently and some of us believe it's a disease, others that it's a choice, and still others that it might be an issue of choice that becomes so bad, it then becomes a disease. I did a quick google search and found a reasonably balanced article describing both sides of the argument here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disease_theory_of_alcoholism I don't want to try and convince anyone one way or the other, but I wanted to share my experience with my husband, and what eventually convinced me he had a disease. In his case, one which was very resistant to treatment. Before I realized my husband had a disease, I was a very angry wife. I was living in fear of what I would come home to. When I got home from work, I often found my husband hopelessly drunk, passed out or wounded in some way. I'd get really angry, yell, scream, be bitter, sarcastic or dismissive. Although he was definitely not doing the right thing, I was also a very horrible person. I think I was that way because I believed he had a choice not to do what he did, and he must not care for me too much if he chose to hurt me and our son like this. But my beliefs changed and my anger turned to compassion after a very tragic event. In 2008, my husband suffered a major brain hemorrhage that led to a stroke. Thank goodness I was home at the time because I was able to get him help quickly and he was airlifted to a major brain injury unit in our state. He was comatose for a week, and when he came out of the coma, he had lost a lot of function on his right side as well as impaired memory, speech and ability to understand how to do things like turn on a tv, or operate a computer or oven etc. He was taken to a stroke rehab facility and I visited him daily. While there, he once whispered to me "Don't worry, I won't do the bad thing anymore." So he recognized that his drinking had led to this stroke. I used to take him on "walks" around the facility in his wheelchair and he would asked me to take him by the little shop that was there. He wanted to buy chocolate. Now he liked chocolate, but he bought 6-8 candy bars! I figured the food was horrible and he wanted something sweet at the end of the day. I also assumed these candy bars would last several weeks. The next day, I visited him and he asked me to take him to the store again. I asked why and he said he wanted to buy chocolate. I looked in his bedside drawer and he had eaten every candy bar! In fact he went every day and bought half a dozen or so each day! I spoke to the nurses about whether he was being fed well enough, and he was, but they let me know that addicts have such a huge urge to "feed the craving" if they can't get access to their drug of choice, they will go for sugar. This was happening 6 weeks or so after the stroke. This is when I realized that he had an illness that led to cravings so intense, they had to be satisfied with something. For me it clicked that he wasn't choosing to hurt me or our son and that this was going to be a tough battle if the cravings are this strong, I also developed compassion for what he was going through. I do believe my husband had choices much earlier in the disease. Like adult onset diabetes, perhaps he could have avoided such a severe life threatening disease if he had modified his choices much earlier. But later in the progression, I knew the strength of the illness was enormous and that he was unlikely to survive it. I wonder if others here also had an aha! moment like mine? Anyway, wanted to share it in case it's helpful and sorry it's so....long :-) Take care, Bluebird

Hi everyone, I came across this opinion piece on FaceBook. It is very well written and from my perspective, does an amazing job of describing addiction from the addict's perspective, as well as describing the impact on friends and family. It is like she has been in my home, seen my husband on the bathroom floor, seen his tears fall and felt his pain. As I have. http://henryharbor.com/how-the-world-sees-a-drug-addict/ Take care, Bluebird.