Yup, it is not as fast back-and-forth with my AH as that, but there is definitely cognitive impairment. And he has been sober over a year.

With just about anything I tell him it is in-one-ear-out-the-other, OR, he obviously doesn't remember something I told him or remembers imperfectly - so he dramatizes and "makes things up" that he says I did or told him, or things he said we talked about, which is sometimes scary. Plus, I write everything down on a calendar for him and he constantly "forgot to look at it" or "I haven't been keeping up with that" or "I couldn't read your writing" or blah blah blah.

Socially it's relevant in that he has no memory of how embarassing and humiliating he was in certain social situations I brought him to (not even ones where he was exposed to the availability of drink; he was always drunk before we got there apparently). Now, he doesn't understand how some of my friends who knew him years ago might be a little reticent or unenthusiastic about having him around; he has no memory of how he behaved and if he does, it's always justified somehow.

Some days it really does resemble schizophrenia - at least it did while he was drinking; I never knew which personality I would come home to, and as you point out they would often change from one to the other very quickly. I always had a knot in my stomach pulling into the driveway at the end of the day.

Great posts. Thanks guys. Herbalist13- that last sentence in your post. The knot pulling into the driveway. I have so much resentment. Literally said UGH when I read that. I wake up with that knot. I was afraid to come out of the bedroom in the morning. He always insists on sleeping separately b/c he kicks and punches in the middle of the night. Like a psycho I may add. Probably the drinking. My friends too are not too " crazy " about him coming around. He blames that on me, even though I spent my time hiding his issues to them, not advertising them as he believes I did. Couldn't actually be his behavior that did it.

I think the hardest part in dealing with all of this, is the mental issues that come from it. The drunk itself is neither here nor there for me. Vomit is way easier to deal with than the insanity that prefaces it and follows it in his not drinking hrs. So grateful to this program for the indifference you end up getting- the detachment. It really helped me here. I see the progress I am making. The only thing that still gets under my skin *instantly* is the apology that follows when he does realize how crappy he was, but it never includes his drinking just some blabber about how he still has a lot to learn in life and what radiant gift I am to the world. No lie on the words there. Total baloney.

Hi Jerry Thank you for your post and so nice to hear from you again! :)

I thought he was just staying with you as a roommate....temporarily. I'm confused what happened that you guys are interacting like a married couple again. It would seem like you chose to get back with him. Not trying to be a hard ass or unempathic, but a large part of alanon is getting the attention off the alcoholic and onto yourself. So what about you wanted this back in your life? Often times we get so used to living with alcoholism that when the chaos is gone, it doesn't feel right so we welcome it right back out of habit. It seems more normal to live in a state of chaos and complaining about the alcoholic than to have serenity.

Regarding Alcoholism, memory loss and mood swings: Depression causes lapses in memory and concentration. Active drinking causes that also. It is also not uncommon that alcoholics seek out doctors and psychiatrists complaining of anxiety (often from the shakes but also self-imposed poor coping) and they prescribed some other meds they are probably abusing too (anti-anxiety meds frequently) and when that combo gets going...It gets really messy in terms of mood swings and memory loss. That alcohol/Xanax combo is really bad. I doubt it's wet brain (Korsakoff's syndrome). It takes years of an all alcohol diet to develop that. It happens very rarely nowadays because it's known what causes wet brain - which is thiamine deficiencies, so when alcoholics detox now or wind up in the hospital, it's standard protocol to give them shots of certain nutrients to make up for the loss that occurs when folks drink alcohol for their breakfast, lunch, and dinner instead of actually eating and properly digesting food. So, the moodiness you see is MUCH more likely to be from overall coping deficiencies and emotional immaturity which is driving the alcoholism in the first place. The memory problems are a likely a result of simply being drunk when told things to remember, poor coping, poor concentration, and constant emotional distress he is in because he has diminished his functioning from years of pouring alcohol into his system and failure to actually handle situations and learn and grow like others might. A person like that can't/does not pay attention the environment around them or the needs of others because the disease of alcohol has them hyper-tuned into how they feel internally and how to change it, medicate it, and/or get rid of those feelings. While that is going on, the whole world around them just passes them by. I know this academically now, but also because I lived it and did that to myself.

I agree with Pinkchip in that we often go back to an alcoholic because that is what is comfortable to us. It's what we are used to. I have been struggling with this myself and my ex-AH. I have been telling myself for the last 5 years (we divorced in August of 2009)that I am "in love" with him and can't let him go. Now I think I have gotten to the point where I am more addicted to the dysfunction than the fact that I actually 'love' him. Maybe I do love him and maybe I don't, (I actually don't know anymore) but the fact that this disease is making my life unmanageable, is the part that I have to focus on. I need to work the program for me, not him and it benefits us both when I do that.

On the part of Wet Brain not being around much anymore, I disagree with; although, like Pinkchip I think it is less common with the advent of the shots of vitamin D (thiamine). I have seen it, however in an old boss who was chairman of a Biology department while he was drinking. The other professors used the excuse that he had the beginning of Alzheimer's. I did not believe this to be true, however he does now suffer (some 20 years later) from alcohol induced Alzheimer's. At the time that I was working for this man, my grandmother was suffering from Alzheimer's. I would try to explain to the other professors what I thought the difference was, that he was suffering from a memory loss from drinking, while my grandmother who never drank was suffering for the amyloid plaques in the brain that develop. I'm not a scientist (anymore), I used to be a lab technician in a biology department and was working on a Masters in that area, so I can attest to what Jerry F said is true, too. Even knowing all the scientific parts of the disease does not change the fact that we are powerless over it. It helps us to understand it better, and with that understanding maybe acceptance comes easier, but it still doesn't change anything. Basically if we practice the program as it was written so many years ago, by men that were led by the God of their understanding... we don't have to understand the scientific end of it, we just have to turn it over.

-- Edited by Overcome on Sunday 19th of July 2015 11:41:46 AM

-- Edited by Overcome on Sunday 19th of July 2015 11:44:33 AM