After the Fire

Is your beloved family member an alcoholic?  You may not know depending on how good they
are at hiding...

Hubby was a smart guy; a REALLY smart guy.  Knew everything there was to know about cars
especially old British sports cars and American muscle cars and owned several such cars
in his lifetime.  Seemed to know everything about biology and chemistry too and was a
brilliant high school and community college teacher.  He was also brilliant at viewing
life through a particular set of "eye glasses" that he constructed for himself and having
others view his life through those "eye glasses" as well.  More on that in subsequent posts.

I have known many brilliant people with substance abuse problems.  They survive really
well for years and years; it is that brilliance that allows them to be "functioning
alcoholics" (in Hubby's case) for quite some time.  They are also able to disguise their
abuse for quite some time as well; especially if their loved ones are distracted by
holding down several jobs (because Hubby can't earn a full time living because he is
an alcoholic), raising children single-handedly (because Hubby can't raise them because
he is an alcoholic) and devising ways to keep one and one's children's sanity intact
(because Hubby is driving everyone crazy because he is an alcoholic).

This is a long way of explaining that I literally did not know that what was causing all
of Hubby's issues was alcoholism for years!  All I knew was that in 2006, he went from being gainfully employed to moving from job to job every year.  Also, he developed a severe case of Type II diabetes even though he was thin and fit.  And he started to have seizures for no apparent reason.  And he also transformed from being this great guy into an incredible asshole. Googling symptoms did not help; all of this just pointed to standard "your man is having his mid-life crisis" stuff.

I didn't get my first clue until Hubby had a near-fatal motorcycle accident.  He was
riding his much-beloved 1960's era BMW motorcycle, lost control and was dragged down
the highway several miles by two different semi-trucks.  Amazingly he survived with
barely a scratch.  But I remember the nurses at the emergency room looking at me funny
and asking me how long my husband had been an alcoholic.  Because he had had a significant amount of alcohol in his system at 10:00 in the morning.  I remember telling the nurses, "Really?  Hunh...an alcoholic..well, that sure would explain alot."

After the accident, Hubby started doing really bizarre things or maybe I just started noticing the bizarreness. Like eating nothing but Baby Ruth candy bars for weeks on end.  And thrashing and moaning and groaning in his sleep. And falling over for no reason whatsoever.   And totally zoning out right in the middle of a conversation.  I googled and googled.  Thought he had ALS (Lou Gehrig's) maybe.  I eventually googled "violent thrashing in sleep" and way down at the bottom of the finds was the blog alcoholicdaze (see blogs I read on the sidebar) in which Addy describes the sleeping behavior of Greg - an end-stage alcoholic.  And I kept reading and reading the archives of that blog.  And Greg and Hubby sure were an awful lot alike...

By this time, the boys and I were having nightly before-bed sessions where we would discuss
Daddy's wackiness.  I said to them, "I think Daddy may be an alcoholic."  My oldest said, "Well, he sure does drink a lot."  I said, "Really?"  "Oh yes," both boys answered "that's what he does in the garage all day...drink and drink" (the garage was Hubby's sanction - we
politely never disturbed him there...)

Well, I felt like a complete and utter idiot!!!!!!!!  Argh!!!!!!!

More to come....