September 4, 2009

My wife has been drinking every night this week, but there haven’t been any big fights. But tonight was a tough one for me. I found out from my sister that my mother appears to have been drinking rubbing alcohol. I was upset and called my wife to have someone to talk to. And in spite of how bothered I was, my wife still managed to get herself a bottle. I just don’t get it any more.

August 25, 2009

As I thought might happen, my brother wrote me a rather over the top email basically asking how I could dare to ask that he or my sisters quit drinking for thirty days. He then engaged in a variety of personal attacks on me and my wife culminating in blaming my wife’s drinking on me. At first I was not going to respond to him at all, not wishing to pointlessly prolong a nasty argument by email. I did however, make the mistake of showing my wife his email. So she got drunk, go figure, and then we got into a big nasty fight over how I should respond to my brother’s message and be just as nasty to him as he was to me. I refused and the fight just got worse.

After a couple of days, I decided that some response was required. I let him know that his tone was unacceptable and that anyone that threatened by the thought of not drinking for thirty days probably did have a problem with booze. That his personal attacks were not a valid response and that perhaps everything wasn’t quite what he imagined. No doubt he will be offended by this, too. And this post also. I considered publishing both his email and my response, but the purpose of this blog is mostly to document my wife’s drinking and drunken bad behavior and that is starting to venture to far off track.

August 24, 2009

It has been a hell of a week. My mother has had a drinking problem for about thirty years, since she found my father was cheating on her. She never got over it. Now she is elderly and an alcoholic. In the past couple of weeks, she has set her apartment on fire twice, been found wandering in a grocery store, confused, not aware of who she was and had wet herself. The police took her to the hospital and they put her in detox. But apparently she did not show withdrawal symptoms so they cut her loose, a day before the Medicare rules would have allowed her to go to rehab. Great. She then ‘disappeared’ and was found sitting on a bench a while later. We now know that she went to a bar. Then to top things off, Sunday she went to this bar that is close enough to her apartment that she can walk there, she drank double vodkas until she got hammered and dropped her pants in the bar. Or they fell off, or whatever. In any case, the cops came again, she blew a .23 for BAC! Back to the hospital. She is in detox, again, but again, they aren’t planning to hold her long enough to qualify for rehab. WTF!

My sisters got in a horrible phone fight because my sister who lives in Florida got drunk and accused my sister who lives near my mother of not doing enough to stop my mother from drinking. This apparently led to a screaming match between my sisters, which led to a fight between my sister and my brother-in-law, complete with my niece and nephew crying in the background and my brother-in-law threatening to call the cops on my sister.

I made the mistake of telling my wife about all this, so of course, she got drunk! Just what I needed! I got to listen to her yell at the computer for an hour and then scribble illegibly about how screwed up my family is – mostly because of booze. My wife suggests that they all prove that they are worthy of pointing fingers at my mother by stopping drinking for thirty days. Probably a good idea, but none of them could do it.

I have decided to completely quit drinking myself. I mostly had already, but after these latest displays of horrible drunken behavior by pretty much all the members of my original family, I am sick of booze. I am done with drinking and drinkers. And before I hear about it from any of them who might read this and are offended, prove you are worthy of bitching. Take my wife up on her challenge. Quit drinking (or anything else) for thirty days. Then come bitch at me, if you want to. If you can.

August 20, 2009

I had to take my son to the hospital for an X-ray. Turns out he broke his radius during practice on Tuesday. I called my wife at work and told her where I was and she was fine. They finally got to us and put a splint on my son’s arm. My wife called and asked what was going on. She was back at the house now and no longer sober. Joyous. Nothing trumps the damn vodka. Plus, I found out that my mother was found at the grocery store wandering and confused and not sure who she was, and of course, they caught a “whiff of booze”. A triple whammy tonight!

August 18, 2009

I got back from our son’s practice. I had already spoken to my wife and knew she was drinking. She complained that I made to much for dinner, again. All I made was grilled cheese sandwiches and canned clam chowder. I did put tomatoes and pesto on the grilled cheese, which she decided was just over the top.

Our son had hurt his arm at practice and my wife was getting all maudlin. He had told me earlier that he no longer wanted to play football. In fact, he said that he only tried it because he thought my wife and I were mad at him for quitting the guitar. I told him we weren’t mad and if he didn’t want to play, he didn’t have to. I didn’t want him to feel forced into doing stuff just to make us happy. I want him to find something he wants to do. I wanted to talk to my wife about his stopping football, but I couldn’t because she was drunk and I never know how things are going to go when she is drunk.

After dinner, the kids followed me upstairs to sit in the heat rather then stay down in the AC with my drunk wife. SHe followed us up and kept asking the kids why they were upstairs. I could see that she had figured it out when they couldn’t give her a good answer. This did not improve her mood.

Some show came on PBS about a family that went sail boat cruising for years. With one child that was two and a few month old baby. My wife told me that she would never live on a boat. Since that was what I had always planned to do and was quite up front about it with her, long before we were married, I figure this just about kills any chance of this marriage recovering. I know it is a different sort of life, but it was what I wanted. And she went as far as looking at some boats with me, earlier. She used our daughter as an excuse to not buy a boat when we had the money. Now I feel like this has all been a colossal waste of my time. My life, even.

Eventually she passed out. Fortunately without the drama that I often get. So I checked my email and found that my mother nearly burned her apartment down (You should not drink and cook!) and is not able to take care of herself the way she thinks she can, at least not while she is drinking. My sisters are scrambling to find some assisted living place for her. What a mess!

August 7, 2009

The in-laws spent the night away so my wife took a half day from work so the kids wouldn’t be alone all day. (They would have been fine. And this will be fodder for some future drunken rant about how she gave up all her vacation time for the kids. Trust me, been there, done that.) Our son had football practice and our daughter goes because they do cheer leading practice and it is like half the town in there and she is a social butterfly. I figure we will all go and then pick up a pizza or Chinese take out after. But no, my wife “doesn’t feel like it.” She is okay with take out, she just doesn’t want to go sit at the practice. Never mind that it is a beautiful day and worst comes to worst, we get a little sun and read for a couple of hours. Nope, she wants to stay home. Of course, I know, and she knows, that what she wants to do is get drunk. And amazingly enough, she does.

By the time I get back with the takeout, she is drunk enough to just pick at her food and bitch. Plus, she is watching this terrible Shark Week show about a guy who teaches his 10 year old son to surf and a bull shark grabs the kids leg and the father is there in a tug of war with the shark and pummelling it until the shark gives up. But it is to late for the kid. The shark bit through his femoral artery and the boy dies. Our son starts to say something about being on a boat, and my drunk wife goes off on a rant about how we, our kids’ mother and father, would of course jump in and fight a shark for our kids. That we would give up our lives to save theirs. (Damn right.) Of course, she couldn’t give up her pint of vodka and another angry drunken evening to sit and watch our son at football practice…

Then our son makes the mistake of saying something about some money we owe him. We had been short cash and dipped into his piggy bank and we owed him and his sister for some chores we paid them to do. My wife goes ballistic, yelling about how we would (hypothetically, of course) give up our lives for our children, and he dares ask us about mere money? (We apparently won’t give up a chance to swill a pint of vodka and spend a decent evening with our kids, however.) At this she tells the kids they are done eating and just gets mean and nasty.

Our son goes and plays with some toys and after a minute he comes over and asks me what kind of bug is on the ceiling. I go look, and it is a katydid. Again the wife goes ballistic. Yelling that it is just some damn bug. Our son stood up and said, what, I can’t be curious about it? And she wonders why they don’t listen to her or respect her any more. So I step in and told her to lay off and she starts in on me. I told her to cool it, she was drinking and I didn’t want to fight with her. She denies drinking, in spite of her erratic and over the top angry behavior and reeking of vodka. I said yes you are drinking and now you are lying to me too. Then she blamed me for outing her in front of the kids, like they don’t know already. She then, sitting right next to the kids, demanded a divorce. Again. She starts yelling about how she is done being a parent, done caring about her parents, my mother, our kids, me, etc., etc. I said, okay, if you are done then you can stop talking about it. Just BE done. Finally she stomped off to her smoking lounge. I took the kids up to bed and read to them for a while.

When I got down, I was tired and ready for bed. I began turning off the TV and the lights. The wife yells at me from her lounge, “If you sit in that fucking chair, I am going to fucking kill you.” I said, “I am not sitting in the chair, I am going to bed.” I turned off the TV and put my phone on the charger for the night and she starts yelling again. Where as I? Why was I not out there talking to her? Apparently, “If you sit in that fucking chair, I’m going to fucking kill you” means come out here so I can bitch at you some more. And I, poor male that I am, didn’t figure that out. So I said, if you want to talk to me, then you can come in here and talk to me. By this time I was already in bed and I was damned if I was getting out to go stand in her smoking area so she can yell at me some more. She refused to talk to me, told me, again, that she was done with me, and stomped off into her lounge again. More ranting, yelling profanity, and growling. When she finally calmed down enough to come to bed, she lay there muttering nasty things at me, which I ignored.

I finally drifted off to sleep, only to be woken up by her yelling, “I am not sleeping on a futon!” Our current bed is twenty years old and badly needs to be replaced. There is a pit in the middle which we both roll into over the course of an evening. We either haven’t had the money to get a new one, or I am leery of spending money on a bed I don’t think I will get to spend much time in. If she is going to be a drunken asshole and drive me away, I’ll need the cash to go away. So I was willing to compromise, buy a relatively inexpensive futon (we slept on one for the first five years we were together and I like them). I’ll build a frame and we can get away for a couple of hundred dollars instead of at least four or five hundred (if we go cheap!) spent on a new mattress set. Apparently this is no good for her. But she thinks the choice is between a futon and a new mattress set. It isn’t. The choice is between a futon or staying on the broken piece of crap we have now and which I can continue sleeping on and saving the cash until I can get me and the kids out of here and away from her drunk ass.

Aren’t we going to have a pleasant conversation today?

In other news, my mother can no longer take care of herself because of her drinking. My sisters are going to move her to Florida, ostensibly for my sister’s fiftieth birthday celebration, but when Mom gets there, they are going to Baker Act her and get her through detox and rehab. My Mom doesn’t want to go south, but there really isn’t any choice any more. She won’t get treatment where she is, the rules say she has to volunteer for it (she cleans herself up for visits by social workers and refuses to go into detox), but unless she stops drinking herself to the point where she hallucinates, falls, breaks furniture with her face, and sets the stove on fire, she just can not be alone any more. She probably could take care of herself if she wasn’t pounding down a 1.75 liter bottle of vodka every couple of days, but apparently stopping is beyond her and she is in total denial about how bad her drinking is or her inability to take decent care of herself while drinking. When I talk to her, while she is sober, she tells me everything is fine and that she is doing well, even as I am looking at the pictures of maggots in her trash, a destroyed bathroom and the charred remains of a TV dinner box on top of her stove. My little sister is at her wit’s end and is thoroughly disgusted by my mother’s actions. While I think this is a horrible way to go about it, I don’t see much choice any more, either. Maybe Mom will get over it if she can get through rehab and give up the booze. Or not. But the current situation is untenable. If she continues like she is, she will get kicked out of her apartment and tossed in a home by the authorities. Better she go to Florida to be near my other sister and get better care and be forced to at least try detox and rehab. At least she won’t hurt herself any more or hurt other people by doing something horrible like setting her apartment on fire.

August 2, 2009

Here is only the second missive I have written that is not directly connected to a drinking incident by my wife. Here is what is going on in my life, affected by booze. My oldest and best friend (who is a self admitted alcoholic) has become so distraught over the unintentional suicide of his stepson (by shooting heroin) that he has disappeared to Costa Rica, probably to drown his troubles in booze – which will probably not help and I don’t know when, or if, he is coming back. My mother, apparently on my birthday, drank herself into a state where she almost set fire to her apartment, shat herself, and knocked her bathroom door off its hinges with her face. She is drinking herself into hallucinations, insanity and probably death. And my wife is drinking us into a divorce. How is that for a fucking hat trick?

January 13, 2009

Double whammy. My mother is in serious denial about her alcoholism. This has led to a series of upsetting emails between my siblings and some disturbing phone calls, too. I spoke to my mother on the phone and she was seriously defensive and in denial about the seriousness and depth of her problem. She seems to believe that she is in control and taking care of herself. If that were true, none of this would be going on. Then, late in the evening, I found out that she had turned down a bed at the detox facility. It is a strictly voluntary program and without her cooperation, she is not going to get the help she needs. Since she is in denial, it doesn’t seem like she is going to do what she needs to. With that attitude, she is likely to find herself alone and unable to care for herself. I hope she turns herself around.

And, of course, my wife who knows all this is going on, came home drunk, again. At first it was tolerable. I sat through the half hour rant about her job, which was pretty normal except that because she was drunk it was more vehement then usual and less coherent. Then I found out about my mother refusing treatment and I tried to talk to my wife. She went off on a weird tangent about when my mother moved up to the north country. She was confused as to the timing and the history and when I tried to correct her, she got very angry. Her version of the history there sounded like she was making it up as she went along, all while drunk, with all the grasp of reality that a good drunk provides. I finally had to just tell her that I made a mistake trying to talk to her, sorry that I would try to confide in my wife, or expect to have her there for me to listen to my problems. That went over like a lead balloon and led to more tears and more angry words. I had to walk away from her. I went up and put the kids to bed and then went to bed myself rather then risk another confrontation.

January 12, 2009

This is the second post I have written that is not about my wife. I got a call last night from my sister. Our  mother is drinking herself to death. She has been an alcoholic for almost thirty years, since Dad cheated on her and she eventually divorced him. It broke Mom’s heart and she hauled herself way up to the North Country and has been alone and lonely and hurting ever since. My other sister followed her up there and made a life for herself. My mother has lived vicariously through my sister and her kids (and us too, at a distance, I guess) but she has had pretty much no friends her own age.

Now Mom is hitting the vodka pretty hard and seems to be on her way out. She isn’t taking care of herself or her little apartment or her little dog. She drinks herself into a coma by the afternoon and doesn’t eat much and doesn’t clean herself up. She often is incoherent and has trouble making a complete sentence or following a conversation. I know from talking to her on the phone when I call her to late in the afternoon, that she still obsesses about my father and her divorce, almost thirty years later. She can still get quite angry about it and will rant uncontrollably even now.

Her mother, whom I always felt a special connection to, was also a drunk and a Demerol addict although I didn’t know this until I was an adult. For years I thought she was a diabetic because that was the excuse she used when she shot up on a trip to Maine when I was little. She must have had the drinking pretty much under control when I was around, because as a kid I never saw it. But apparently it scarred my mother. Her stepfather sent her away to a boarding school for high school so she wouldn’t have to see her mother pass out in her plate at dinner any more. Now my mother is worse then that. And dying from it.