Please excuse my while I "whine"....

Though I don't know if these could really be considered whining.

I'm not really looking for sympathy - though if you believe in any sort of higher power - God, Goddess, the power of possitive thinking - some intervention on behalf of these situations from something stronger then man sure would be a huge help.

First off, for those who don't know yet - my brother Todd has returned to drinking. After hitting rock bottom last year he checked himself into rehab for his alcoholism and drug addiction. After nearly 9 months, he graduated and moved back in with us because he can't get a place as long as he owes money to the IRS. Well, he got seriously sick at one point and while he was recuperating, mom and dad cleaned the trailer where he spends his private time - and found two empty vodka bottles. They gave him the benifit of the doubt, that maybe they were from long ago - but last night when he pretty much passed out on the living room floor, mom sent dad out and under the materess he found five more empty bottles. They woke him up and confronted him with them - he tried to claim they were from before but they took him to the store he buys his cigerettes and the saleslady admited she sold him the vodka.

He's been told if he doesn't stop drinking he's going to die in a year from severe liver damage. He's not even 40 years old.

The other thing is that one of the nicest women I know, my coworker Marilyn, has been diagnosed with liver cancer. And it's in her lymph nodes too. She lives such a healthy lifestyle. She's in her 70s but looks 40. She can outwalk a 25 year old. Has boundless energy - and then this hits.

Obviously, these things upset me. Hugely. I just needed to unload and am not looking for attention. At the same time though I feel the more people who know, the more people who can offer up a prayer or whatever, the better the chances for both Todd and Marilyn.

Sometimes I wish the magic of Harry Potter was real. Just pop round to Madam Pomfrey for a healing potion and bingo-bango, everything is okay. *sighs*

Jami, I am so sorry to hear about both Todd and Marilyn. I will keep both of them in my thoughts and prayers.
I honestly don't know what to say about Todd. Logically, if your family can get him to go, he probably needs inpatient alcohol treatment , immediately. In that scenario, he can be monitored . I hope that his loved ones can get him to go.
Sometimes, one can give up a bad habit cold turkey. You and I didnt know each other then, but three years ago, my mom had a cancer scare, and was told that if she didnt give up smoking immediately, she would be dead in a very short time. I commend her. She walked out of the hospital, it is 3 years later, and she has never touched another cig again. She went through all the withdrawals. Shakes, irritable behavior, and such, but she did it.
I do hope Todd will again go for counseling, and will this time follow the advice.
As for your co worker, that sounds like a case where life just isnt fair. A truly great person gets hit with a horrible thing. I pray for Marilyn, and hope a miracle can happen.
Take care, Jami, and if you need me, PM anytime. I am here for you if you just want to vent.

Mitch

3 Prayers...

One for him, one for her...and the last for you...just because...


Ray

TicklishLurker said:

Though I don't know if these could really be considered whining.

I'm not really looking for sympathy - though if you believe in any sort of higher power - God, Goddess, the power of possitive thinking - some intervention on behalf of these situations from something stronger then man sure would be a huge help.

First off, for those who don't know yet - my brother Todd has returned to drinking. After hitting rock bottom last year he checked himself into rehab for his alcoholism and drug addiction. After nearly 9 months, he graduated and moved back in with us because he can't get a place as long as he owes money to the IRS. Well, he got seriously sick at one point and while he was recuperating, mom and dad cleaned the trailer where he spends his private time - and found two empty vodka bottles. They gave him the benifit of the doubt, that maybe they were from long ago - but last night when he pretty much passed out on the living room floor, mom sent dad out and under the materess he found five more empty bottles. They woke him up and confronted him with them - he tried to claim they were from before but they took him to the store he buys his cigerettes and the saleslady admited she sold him the vodka.

He's been told if he doesn't stop drinking he's going to die in a year from severe liver damage. He's not even 40 years old.

The other thing is that one of the nicest women I know, my coworker Marilyn, has been diagnosed with liver cancer. And it's in her lymph nodes too. She lives such a healthy lifestyle. She's in her 70s but looks 40. She can outwalk a 25 year old. Has boundless energy - and then this hits.

Obviously, these things upset me. Hugely. I just needed to unload and am not looking for attention. At the same time though I feel the more people who know, the more people who can offer up a prayer or whatever, the better the chances for both Todd and Marilyn.

Sometimes I wish the magic of Harry Potter was real. Just pop round to Madam Pomfrey for a healing potion and bingo-bango, everything is okay. *sighs*

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I do not think you can do much for your brother, other than help him not to loose completely his dignity.
But if you have or you will ever have children, your brother example can help you to avoid the history to repeat itself.
I regret you have to see your own brother dying of this. Do not follow his example.

About your friend, God can always make a miracle, but your friend would be wise to arrange her life and find what things she want and still could she do in the time that is left, and fight as much as she can, as long as life have meaning for her.
As if she has children or grandchildren, she can record her voice or image, and pass to the next generation some of the experiences from her life.

I wish I could offer you some consolation.

Jami, I'm so sorry 🙁

I'll keep both Todd and Marilyn in my thoughts and prayers. Please take care of yourself hon.....I know from experience (recently learned my blood pressure was sky-high; now thankfully getting better) just how stressing over sick loved ones can affect the health of those who love/ care for them.

God bless you!
Perry

As far as Marilyn's concerned, I'm going with the "as long as she's living, there's hope for a miracle." I don't believe she has children - she's never mentioned any. I do know that before she was a librarian she was a nurse.

I'm not giving up hope for her until she's no longer part of this world.

Todd - well, Todd's already done rehab once. The problem with Todd is he firmly believes he does not have a problem. He also believes all doctors exagerate/lie and that no one should ever seek medicial help, that they can get well with the "power of their mind alone" - like the Scientologists preach. I'm more angry at him then anything. Because of what this is doing to mom.

Mom was married once before - to an abusive asshole. (Sorry, mods, but there's no other way to describe him then by curse words.) He'd beat the crap out of her. He's also the biological father of my 3 older brothers - and he was an alcoholic. After years of beating mom up, trying to flush my brother Mark down the toilet when he was a newborn, he ran off with an 18 year old. Now mom's watching history repeat itself, only instead of an 18 year old girl, Todd's looking to run off with the Grim Reaper. He has the same hatred for women his biological father has. (Last I heard the old beater was still alive and married to some younger woman from Hawaii.) The same violent bursts of temper I've heard about.

I would've hoped dad - our dad, my biological father but my brothers' real dad too by the fierce love he has for them - would've had enough of a possitive influence to out-weigh the crap their evil bastard of a father put them through. It worked, after all, for Paul - the oldest and therefore the one with the most exposure to his biological father's evil - after a few years as a severe drug addict, straightened his life out and is now a wonderful man and father. Mark married a woman who abuses him but is a loving dad to his two kids. But Todd.... well, he's a JERK! A big old drunken jerk who's killing our mother via stress. I hate him - but I love him - but I hate him....

I swear, I'm never having kids or getting married. Ever. I won't spread this to the next generation.

Very sorry to hear that Jami.Our thoughs and prayers are with you.

I wish your brother a speedy recovery, on the hopes he will embrace the will to make it all go away. I've sent my thoughts towards your friend as well, and i hope that that problem she has can be treated without much risk involved for her. I also wish for you to have the strenght to deal with these turbulent times, cause the more down you'll let yourself get into, the more it will transpire to others, therefore making them instantly down as well, and we don't want that. Set your mind on what you must do, you'll soon find out that you had that strenght in you all along... Best of luck to you all!

In the Goddess world, we don't call this whining, we call it venting and everyone needs to sometimes. Please release yourself of this guilt. It's not healthy for you and doesn't help him one bit.

You won't like what I have to say but I have to say it all the time, many of my patients are drug and/or alcohol addicted and I'm sorry but it's true. You can't save these people. They'll smarten up in their own time in their own way or they'll die doing what they can't escape from. Very sad. My thoughts are with you.

XOXO

I swear, I'm never having kids or getting married. Ever. I won't spread this to the next generation.

Is not written in stone and bronze. And is not genetic. The childrens of severe alcoholic may have physical defects and illness due to the alcohol addition of the mother or father.
The nephew/niece of an alcoholic does not have any reason to be an alcoholic.
You may not have children and not marry, but your brother been and alcoholic should not be the reason.
The father of L. van Bethoven was an alcoholic, he was a genius.
If you have them, your children may not be geniuses but they could live at least a berautiful life.

Hi Jami...my thoughts and prayers are with you as well during this tough time. Know that lots of people here are thinking about you!

steph said:

In the Goddess world, we don't call this whining, we call it venting and everyone needs to sometimes. Please release yourself of this guilt. It's not healthy for you and doesn't help him one bit.

You won't like what I have to say but I have to say it all the time, many of my patients are drug and/or alcohol addicted and I'm sorry but it's true. You can't save these people. They'll smarten up in their own time in their own way or they'll die doing what they can't escape from. Very sad. My thoughts are with you.

XOXO

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I know that help won't work until he wants help - however mom is the one who refuses to accept it. I'm afraid it would take God, Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and any other religious figure from Christianity you can think of to shake her and say "Paulette, wake the f**k up! He doesn't want help and you need to stop killing yourself over him!" When she hurts, I hurt, the whole family hurts.

I wish he'd get help, but I know he doesn't want it and will probably die. Mom will probably follow soon after. It makes me sick inside to watch her hurting and knowing nothing I say or do will get through to her. Especially since her brother, Tom, died last year from complications due to his cronic alcoholism.

It runs in the Pavlick (mom's side) of the family too. It's also in my dad's side - which is why when I do drink I make sure I cut off after two and drink lots of water.

Well, I certainly understand alcoholism better than most. It's quite fucking insidious.

I know where you're coming from, Jami. When I was 17, I essentially wrote my mother out of my life. By that time I had been trying for two years to get her to stop drinking, and I realized that if I kept trying to save her life it would cost me my own. I learned two important lessons there: First, what other people choose to do can make you sad, but it cannot make you responsible. And second, the opposite of love is not hatred. The opposite of love is indifference.

When I was 30, a woman whom I had loved for many years died of liver cancer at the age of 45. She had been diagnosed as terminal, and chose not to take pailliative treatment. She died 6 months after her diagnosis, sustained only by morphine. She taught me about dying well. I didn't miss her less, but I admired her more.

Neither of my situations ended as well as I hope yours do. I mention them only because it helps sometimes to know that someone else has felt something like what you feel, and because I've learned that even tragedy can give you something valuable. I'll keep you in my thoughts.

Right, I understand. Scientifically, it's been proven that it's hereditary. My dad's pop died of alcoholicism at 40. He never touched the stuff, we never had it in the house. I didn't have a drink until I went away to college. I'll keep you and your family in my thoughts just the same, all the best!

XOXO

TicklishLurker said:

I know that help won't work until he wants help - however mom is the one who refuses to accept it. I'm afraid it would take God, Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and any other religious figure from Christianity you can think of to shake her and say "Paulette, wake the f**k up! He doesn't want help and you need to stop killing yourself over him!" When she hurts, I hurt, the whole family hurts.

I wish he'd get help, but I know he doesn't want it and will probably die. Mom will probably follow soon after. It makes me sick inside to watch her hurting and knowing nothing I say or do will get through to her. Especially since her brother, Tom, died last year from complications due to his cronic alcoholism.

It runs in the Pavlick (mom's side) of the family too. It's also in my dad's side - which is why when I do drink I make sure I cut off after two and drink lots of water.

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Heard from Todd today. After a few days of sleeping on the streets again, getting his things stolen, he volentarily went into a detox center and is getting help. Hopefully this time it'll stick and he'll stay away from old street friends who say "Just one sip won't hurt you."

This may sound ridiculous, or callous, or what have you. But from my POV, being an alcoholic who can't control their life is less damaging than being a functioning one. I just have to go from personal experience here, my dad is never not buzzed, but it doesn't really effect his life, he's good at his job, whatever resposibilities he has, he meets, etc. So, that state of affairs just makes it so much easier to pretend there's no problem, because it's not in your face all the time.

I'm really sorry lurker, I hope things get better for both Todd and Marilyn. Alcoholism is a very tricky one to deal with... with most of the people I know with alcohol problems, it escalates until something bad happens one drunken night...car accident, bad fight, emotional breakdown...and then the person realizes how fucked up they are and swears off drinking, and will usually quit for a while. But they almost always get back into drinking heavily again, until something scares them into slowing down again for a while. It seems very hard for them to let it go completely, and 12-steps groups like AA have very limited success rates. I've seen some of my best friends, my dad and my boyfriend go through this behavior again and again. I don't know if there's anything to do except give them love and hope they take care of themselves. But the more you try to force someone out of a bad habit, it seems to me, the more they insist they don't have a problem and will reject your advice even more. The addiction is something a person has to accept on their own terms before any real progress can be made toward changing. They have to genuinely want to change, and not just to appease another person who is upset over their behavior.

I went through somewhat of the same thing with methamphetamine and cocaine... it took me realizing how paranoid, sleep-deprived, malnourished, fatigued whenever I wasn't high and just plain miserable I was for myself before I had any desire to stop contacting the people I knew to get me crank and to stop hanging out with the friends I always did crank with. People could have told me over and over how bad it was for my body, what nasty physical and mental effects it has, and I wouldn't have listened. There comes a point where you know they're right, but you won't listen to yourself either. Addiction in any form is incredibly hard to deal with.

I hope the treatment center can help Todd to really change his behavior this time, but if he goes back to drinking, you can't torture yourself over it, and neither should your mom. I know that's easy for me to say, but what he chooses to do and the consequences are his responsibility, and it is only his conviction toward getting better that will keep him away from drinking.

Alcoholism does run in families, but it's not a guaranteed thing to happen to children of alcoholic families. My dad and grandfather on my mom's side were both very heavy drinkers. My grandfather on my dad's side died from sicknesses brought on by his alcoholism, when I was just a baby. My brother also likes to drink a lot, but I'm not sure how much or how often he drinks (he lives in S. Korea and I haven't seen him for almost 2 years). I drink sometimes too, but alcohol has never been my favorite thing to do..and I'm definitely a "lightweight", it only takes about 3 or 4 beers to get me drunk, and any more than six and I'll usually get sick. So it's really more dependent on the individual personality what sort of things could or would become vices for them.

I agree with Strider that it's easier to live with a functioning alcoholic. While getting a person to completely quit might be the most ideal goal, that one is really hard to attain. In my experience, if someone quits cold-turkey and then goes back to drinking again, they usually dive back into very heavy drinking. Though Todd's health problems might mean that he needs to stop completely, right now... realistically, it might be easier for him to start limiting his drinking day-by-day, cutting down until he feels able to give it up altogether.