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...and how far progressed might an A be before they appear to have it? My A hasn't had a drink since his last binge (11 days) in January. He'd been on 2 other drunks during a year prior to that. But lately his behavior is often odd. One minute he's fine and the next he doesn't even recall what I said. He says one thing then swears he never said it. He acts friendly and talkative one moment, then stand-offish the next. He talks so nice and peaceable on the phone and eager to come have dinner with my daughter and I (before she left for summer school out-of-state) but when he arrived at the house, he acted kind of cool. (And he never stayed more than 20 minutes after he ate. It was eat and run.) Maybe he figured he'd be cool towards me first to lessen the chance of me being cool towards him but I had no reason to be that way to begin with. He eagerly awaited the birth of our first grandson and was thrilled when the baby arrived. My son mailed me the photos but my A doesn't seem to have much interest in seeing them now. And what irked me is that he has moved right near me to my family member's house because the rent went up where he was living and he had no where else to go. He's right next to me but only came to see our daughter a few times when he came to eat. He just seems up one minute down the next, nice one minute, cold the next - positive behavior one minute, odd the next. Other times he stays on nice plateau. Maybe he's bi=polar or something. Can alcoholism cause things like that?...jaja
As brain cells die from chronic alcohol intake, they are generally not regenerated, and the tissue of the brain itself begins to deteriorate. It can appear a lot like dimentia. Alcohol can definately affect the brain.
Christy
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If we think that miracles are normal, we will expect them. And expecting a miracle is the surest way to get one.
In early sobriety (the first six or nine months), I had no clue what my AH was thinking from one moment to the next. I was told by another Al-Anon whose spouse had a good deal of sobriety that my AH probably didn't know either!! I was also told by an AA friend that he did not have a real emotion that he could identify until he was 6 months sober and then he had to figure out what to do with it (that, he said, took a very long time and a lot of work).
My IC told me that it takes 20 months for the brain to "dry out" once the A stops drinking. At the time that my AH stopped drinking, I couldn't carry on a rational conversation with him (that he would remember) whether he had actually started drinking for the day or not. At about 9 months sober, I started to notice a change in his ability to carry on conversations and to think in a non-linear manner. Now, at 2 years sober, I am still amazed at the depth of the conversations that we can have now. He listens and remembers, he can empathize with others, and can show compassion and restraint in the face of difficult or frustrating circumstances. I believe that this is the result of both his brain "drying out" and the hard work that he has done in AA.
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Do not be anxious about tomorrow; tomorrow will look after itself. The Bible, from Courage to Change, p.138
Wet brain is alcoholic dementia. Their is actual shrinking of the brain in the cortex of the frontal lobe.
it is a lot like Altzheimers. They lose their balance, don't walk the same, memory loss, don't seem to be able to problem solve. My A would go to build something and completely screw it up. Where before he was a perfectionist and an extremely in demand remodel contractor.
I would look at him and more and more he was like my DD kids I worked with in Sp. ed.
From what i understand, some times the symptoms can be reversed if they quit using. The sad thing is usually an A does not just use alcohol, they use other drugs that cont. to damage irreperable damage to the brain and liver and basically all organs of the body.
The last stage of Aism is where they cannot quit anymore with out serious intervention. And then may not be able to. Their organ are so damaged there is no going back.
It can kill them fast or slow. Sadly my A is dieing so slowly. horrible.
Can't help but hate this disease. my love to you, debilyn
Before my best friend died of alcoholism (she was 36) she started showing these characteristics about a year prior to dying. She was to the point where it didn't take her much to get drunk or show drunk symptoms, maybe a couple shots. Then she couldn't really walk it was like she had had a full bottle when I know she hadn't. Then she would strike up conversations about odd things like green people running through my yard but it was ok because he had his wife behind him......just really strange things, then I would question her a second later and she would say "what are you talking about, I didn't say that". I knew something was wrong. That's when I quit inviting her to my house when she wanted to drink because I knew something was very off. Her boyfriend drank like she did and was the one buying it for her so she continued to drink. She then turned off the lights in her room and wouldn't allow anyone to turn them on, then two days later her mother turned them on against her will and that's when they saw her color was school bus yellow. She had two weeks in the hospital and was sent home and put on morphin and they laid her down once she was in her coma and a week later she passed away. She tried so many times to get sober, she just couldn't do it. She had alot of support and people who cared but it was more powerful then all of them. It doesn't matter if an alcoholic quits for a year, when they start drinking again they pick right back up where they left off. They don't miss a beat. Good luck. ^i^
