Alcoholism-It's a Killer!

Last week, I found out through a former neighbor of mine from Georgia, that another neighbor had died. This lady was 37 years old and was found dead in her bed by her 8 year old son. Apparently, she and her husband were in the process of divorcing and a lot of the reason they were divorcing was because she had become a very heavy drinker. When I lived there, I didn't know her to be a drinker, but I either wasn't paying attention to it or she developed this drinking problem after I left. Drinking may not have caused her to die, and an autopsy is being conducted, but she had no known health issues....so I guess they will find out soon if it was a factor or not. And another young child is left without a mom possibly because of alcohol!

Living with an alcoholic is a disaster for everyone involved. This I know to be true!!! It sucked for Charlie, because he just couldn't get through the day without a drink, it sucked for me, because I felt like I lost the man I married....everything changed, from his personality, to his not being able to support us, to people not wanting to be around, not just him, but myself and K. too BECAUSE of him. It is a horrible diesease and one I can't relate to. Sadly, I don't think Charlie saw the changes in himself. He would blame me for everything, saying that I was the one who changed. Well, there is no doubt about that...I changed because my whole situation had changed because of his drinking and I was trying to deal with it. Bottom Line...ALCOHOLISM SUCKS!

I often wonder what it would have been like if he never picked up the bottle again. I feel bad for me and more so for K. that that is the route he decided to take.

Signs, Signs, Everywhere There are Signs!!

Do you believe in getting signs?? By that I mean, something unusual happens to get your attention! I do believe in it, and this is what happened today. Of course, today being Father's Day, Charlie has been a constant in my mind. I recently cleaned out our garage as we had a townwide junk pickup day last week. In the corner, I have stacked some things of Charlies which were given to me for K. when his mom passed away this past January. Most of it is pictures, yearbooks, old report cards...just a bunch of his personal stuff. I was upstairs in the computer room, which is over the garage and I heard a loud crash. So I went to investigate, and sure enough, a couple of those large plastic containers had toppled over. I really don't know how it happened as they seemed pretty secure and there is no wind, but it happened. So I go over and start picking up the contents that have fallen out. Honestly, when I got the stuff, I just kind of peeked to see what it was but never really wnet through anything. In any case, laying right there on top is a card that I had given Charlie for his birthday in 2002. It had come out of this wooden desk caddy he used and it was the only card in there amongst his checkbook and some desk supply items. I had to read it. It was one of those kind of romantic cards, something I don't normally pick (I usually get a funny card). The card was printed with "For my wonderful husband! I love you for all you are and all you strive to be. You're a very special man, and I'm so proud and happy to be sharing my life with you." And then I wrote "I am so unbelieveably proud of you honey! I couldnot be happier living here! We know you are working so hard for all of us and we appreciate it. I love you with all of my heart. I hope you have a wonderful birthday. Love & Kisses, T." I realized that was when we moved from NJ to SC (for one year). Charlie had always wanted to move south, his two sisters lived in GA & AL and loved it. I was not so sure because my whole family was in NJ. BUT after September 11, 2001 and living so close to New York, I said okay to moving. At that time, I felt very safe with Charlie and assumed everything would be fine. He scheduled a weeklong trip in January 2002 to stay with his sister in GA and look for a job down there. After all, Atlanta was booming with jobs and he was in the mortgage business, a booming business to be in also. He went to Atlanta, arranged interviews, went on interviews and on his last day there, drove up to Greenville, SC for an interview. That was the job he really wanted (and he was offered it), so that is the one he took. Being in the mortgage field is usually a commission only job, so pay is always sporadic, but this job had a base salary (and a good base salary) and commission. We were all thrilled. We packed up and moved to SC in March 2002 and Charlie started his new job. Moving to SC was to be the start of Charlie revisiting his alcohol addiction. We lived in a duplex and our duplex neighbors just happened to be from NJ also. We hit it off with them right away. BUT Charlie and Wayne (the neighbor) would sit out on the porch with their beer every night and drink. I don't think Charlie was a beer drinker before, but maybe this was his way to be "social." On top of that, he hung out with and played golf with, several of the guys from work....all drinkers. That job only lasted 6 months as Charlie went to work one day and there was a sign on the door that they were "out of business." We soon read in the newspaper that the 3 owners were going to jail for some mortgage scam. His boss at this company found a job in the Atlanta area and offered Charlie a job with him, which is how we ended up in GA.

Back to the card I found today, I realized that was probably the last time I was truly proud of my husband. The last time he was the man I married, because once that drinking started, everything was about to change............(I may have given him that card because I was starting to lose faith in him and didn't want to.)

September 2, 2008~The Decision to Remove Life Support

On Tuesday, September 2nd, Charlies Mom & sisters made the heart wrenching decision to remove him from life support. He had been in a coma for 6 days, he wasn't responding to anything or anyone, his liver was nearly dead and he needed a transplant, he would never walk again...there was no hope. I know Charlie and he would never want to live that way.

His sister Elaine, the one who still to this day blames me for leaving him, called me mid morning on Tuesday to tell me the news. It was horrible. I remember saying "Is he going to die?" Even though, I had spent the whole day on Monday crying because I thought he was going to die, now it was inevitable.

Elaine told me that they are removing life support and he will be moved to palliative care, a unit that houses patients that are going to die. She asked me if I would bring K. up once he is in his room in palliative care. The staff did not want a 9 year old girl to come see her dad with all the machines still hooked up. Elaine said she would call me back once he is moved in......

Now, I have to figure out a way to tell our daughter that her dad is going to die......and to top it off, her first day of 4th grade is the next day!

August 27-September 1, 2008~Charlie in a Coma

August 27th was the day that Charlies spine was operated on. Through CT scans or MRI's or some kind of x-raying device, the doctors thought that they had found a mass on his spine. When they went in to do the surgery, what they found was that his spine had collapsed. He had had a staph infection in July of 2007, and apparently the infection was still in him and had eaten away at his spine. The doctors did the best they could and put metal rods in his spine, but chances were slim that he was going to ever walk again. I hadn't even known that he had gone through surgery. I had called during the day to check up on him, but got his voicemail. When he didn't call K. that night (he NEVER missed a call to her), I called and texted him....and got no response. It wasn't until the next day, I caught his mom at home and she told me he had surgery and was in a coma (my understanding was it was a medically induced coma). I think his mom was in a little bit of denial because she didn't make it seem all that serious. She told me that even though he was in a coma, they pinched his foot (or feet) and he responded.

Friday, August 29th, 2 days after the surgery, the doctors met with my mother-in-law to explain to her that he most likely won't walk again. This pained me greatly. Charlies mom was 81 and she was going to get stuck taking care of him. I still wasn't divorced from him and even thought about going back, but it would be only to take care of him. I thought about how hard that would be for me taking care of a child and a paraplegic. I thought about our wedding vows, "In sickness and in health", I felt like I was bailing on him. But I wasn't bailing on him because he was sick, I had left before he got sick. I was trying to put everything in perspective....I was stuck!

On Saturday, August 30th, the doctors called Charlies mom in again. This time, she took a cousin with her, so that there were 2 sets of ears listening. (She was in a bit of denial, and either not hearing the bad about his condition, or not relaying it). The cousin, Tom, took accurate notes on everything that was discussed. After the meeting, Tom went home and typed it up and e-mailed it to Charlies 2 sisters, and many cousins, nieces and nephews. It must have read really bad to all of them, because the 2 sisters, Elaine who lives in GA, and Glor and her husband Jim, who live in AL, started the drive to NJ. I was not let in on this information because when I filed for divorce, he told his family some things which they held against me. (Not all of his family members, but some of them). The biggest thing being that he was not drinking and that he made a lot of money and I spent it all. I don't know how they could believe that when we were always "borrowing" money from both his family and mine and still had our house foreclosed on....but whatever! But the truth did come out, because while the doctors were operating on his spine, they found that he had end stage cirrhosis and that he needed a liver transplant. Since he did not have a living will authorizing anyone to make decisions for him, he was the only one who could sign for it and he was in a coma. I would talk to my mother in law and get little pieces of information, but not a lot. The hospital staff strongly suggested that K. NOT come to the hospital because Charlie was hooked up to all types on machines and ventilators.

On Sunday,August 31st, Charlies friend Will, who I work for (at home) and who is best friends with Charlies cousin, emailed me the report that Tom had typed up for the family. As soon as I got it, I was on WebMD looking up information on everything on there.....After I did my research, I knew he was going to die. It was just my gut feeling.

Monday, September 1, I cried all day. I just couldn't stop. I certainly couldn't tell K. why I was crying because I am not a doctor, I didn't know for sure...but I knew. I may have talked to my parents about it, but I am not sure. I was beside myself. I remember feeling really angry at him. I was feeling that he cheated his daughter and cheated me. I was pissed that he drank. He was 4 when his dad died and knew what it was like not to have a dad around and he did the same thing(his dad was also an alcoholic, but he died of a heart attack because he didn't take care of his blood pressure). I was mad, sad, and hurt all at the same time....now it was just a waiting game.....waiting to see if he miraculously recovers...or not!

Is there really "Happily Ever After?"

Today I went to visit a childhood friend for the day. I have known this woman since we were 9 years old. Through the power of Facebook, I have reconnected with many people from my past. My friend Karen has been married to her husband Jon for 24 years. I have told her this before and told her again today, that I really admire the relationship they have with each other. You can just tell that they truly enjoy being in each others company. Almost every weekend, she posts pictures of the things they did that weekend, whether it was a "Taste of" adventure or a pub crawl, or a weekend away. The point is they are really really happy and with my next relationship (God willing), I hope to have what they have. BUT she said that it has only been in the last 8 or so years that they have gotten to this point in their lives with each other.

On the other hand, I just recently found out that another friend of mine who seemingly had the perfect marriage, caught her husband of 27 years, cheating and they were divorced last year. This came as a shock to me. WHY, after 27 years of marriage would one cheat? I suspect he was cheating all along, but just got caught this time. (he travels alot for business)

Just last week, a kid I know (well, he is 40, but I knew him as a kid, so to me, he is still a kid) stopped to talk to me. I asked him the usual..."what are you up to?" "Are you married?" He told me he was married for 5 years but divorced. They had no children, so he has no contact with his ex-wife. He told me, he just woke up one morning and it was like waking up with a stranger. I can completely relate to this because the man I married was not the same man I filed for divorce from. In my case, Alcohol played the biggest part of Charlies change.

I knew Charlie was an alcoholic when I married him, but he had been sober for at least 4 years and told me he could never drink again. Being a practically a non-drinker myself, I believed that. It was probably 4 years into our 11 year marriage that he started drinking again....started small with some red wine here and there and ended up hiding cheap vodka from me. Apparently he was drinking at least a fifth a day. I can assure you, that drinking that much will change someones personality drastically.

Then I have the friends whose marriages are just there. They aren't really happy, but not really unhappy either. These couples will do things together when it is warranted (holidays, parties, etc) but other than that, they just "co-exist." Also there is alot of complaining about each other. It seems that they have become roomates, more than partners.

I really don't know what the point of this entry is.....maybe my perception of different kinds of marriage??!! I suppose re-entering the single world has me a bit freaked out.....