Hi and Welcome,

My A, which is my husband, lost his son last year.  His son was disabled when he was born and was not expected to live past 7 yrs old.  He nearly made it to his 15th birthday.  When he passed away the first thing I thought was "oh no, here we go" but it didn't happen, my A stayed sober, for the week in preparation to the funeral and then for nearly two weeks after.  Then it was back to the once a week binge, then twice a week, then there were times when he would get so drunk and cry about how he lost his son......Hang in there, take care of you.....

Hugs Mary

It's amazing how we can keep track of the details. I can tell you who drank and who didn't at a family birthday party in a restaurant last week. The manic depressive favorite cousin who went to AA in 1978, the recovered-on-his-own heroin addict (I'm waiting for that shoe to drop), the Vicodin addicted brother, the sister married to the 30 years in AA husband (he encouraged her to have a glass of wine in the evenings to relax. It's been years now and I can see the behavior change), the brother in law that's permanantly soused (I can't remember him sober).

I can tell you a blow by blow account of my ex-bf a's getting sober and the one 5 beer slip he had on March 27, 2003. He didn't seem to keep track like I did. But, you see, my life was in danger when he drank, so I had to know for my own sanity. Eventually, because he was going to AA, the accomplishment of getting awarded a "chip" for a day of sobriety, or a week or a month, or longer, takes over, and the person who didn't keep track of how many days, starts becoming interested just to have something to look forward to. The love and pride and encouragement of getting a chip with encouraging beaming faces congratulating you, is pretty special.

We keep track and they don't.  I wish all the above people would stop drinking. It doesn't add to anything. Even my aged mother is nipping a Hebrew grape wine every night, and the mean drunk comes out in her the next day. More wine, more hateful comments. I have a boundary that I won't live with an active drinker, and here's my mom drinking a small wine, and I can notice a negative behavior change, and I'm living with her. Agh. Boundaries are like fences that need repairing over and over.

I remember in Alanon meetings, if after the meeting, I wanted to converse with someone and I really needed to have a talk, I could see them zone out when I told exactly what the level of drinking was. To me, I needed to know. I was living there, and very bad behavior happened as a result of drinking. I was told not to work his program. He didn't have a program, so how could I be working it. It amazes me that we know, and they don't know what their level of drinking is. But, you know, I didn't know. When he finally got sober and had some time under his belt and could begin to think half way straight, he said that the times that he told me he had one beer, he really had 18 beers. He put me through a month of worry/confusion (he was in AA and was saying he was sober, but he looked stoned) so I thought that while doing a brake job that the brake fluid had poisons, or that he could be sniffing something while working in the garage. That's a scary addiction. And later when he's been in AA  awhile to lose the lies, he says he drank 24 beers right out in the open in the driveway all during that time.

Anyway, I learned that we never know how much they drink even when we think we know. They are masters at illusion when it comes to hiding, storing, ferreting away booze. My friend found jugs of wine in his luggage after he died. She came in the house holding the jugs of wine like she caught him once again. Hey, the guy is dead, and she didn't heal herself with Alanon while he was alive, and now she's catching him drinking again, and she missed that chance to be a friend to him in recovery instead of a harpy shrew out of control scary medusa.

I'm just meandering here, and don't have a point to make - if you were wondering. It's just that I'm noticing how we know more about their slips and dips than they do. It is nice to be able to tell them, it's only a slip, keep going to meetings, they understand, they've all done it, they won't judge you.