Alcoholism- What's weighing me down
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Some of you may have noticed my status recently that I'm going through a tough time. I've also mentioned that my husband is an alcoholic... so is my dad... so is my brother... so is my sister... so was my stepfather in law (died from it). My brother lives with me instead of his wife and kids. I moved my father up to my city since my mom died in November and he was at my house for a few days. So I'm surrounded by alcoholics. The day my dad fell and hit his head real bad and I thought he was dead, they had all been drinking all day at my house. I was surrounded. My brother get's really aggressive and verbally abusive with me when he drinks. He gets in bar brawls all the time. My husband has closed himself in a separate room that he keeps refrigerated at about 65 degrees because he weighs over300lbs. I used to call it the cave but I'm calling it the morgue now because he wil die there. He's been in intensive care since yesterday going thru the DT's and basically dying from alcholism. He has drunk for so may years and so much that he has ulcers all over his stomach and has esophageal varices (bulging blood vessels like hemmorhoids in his esophagus). Because he doesn't want to be "nagged" by doctors he refuses to go. He's been throwing up and having constant diahrrea since Tuesday but refused to go to the dr. Last night he decided he would finally go to the urgent care center. Of course they scolded him for waiting so long. My oldest daughter drove him there and I arrived about 30 minutes later. He finally told me on Fri that his stools were black which I knew meant he had been bleeding internally. He was also vomiting brown stuff which is old blood. He neglected to tell the dr this though. The dr. said "he's anemic" I said, duh! he's been bleeding since Tuesday! That earned him an ambulance ride to the hospital. Then they took him to ICU, then they gave him 2 units of blood. They did his endoscopy to find out where he was bleeding. That's when they found all the ulcers. They cauterized the two biggest ones but there are lots of smaller ones. I asked the dr. what was the cause and he said alcohol. I asked the dr. to be very firm with him because he's extremely stubborn. After all who waits till they're practically dead to go to the dr? His blood pressure was 65 over 35. Also, he was very dehydrated and had not been replacing his electolytes. People don't know you can die from that. That's how my mom died! She vomited herself to death. If he wouldn't have sought treatment he would be dead today. No doubt in my mind since I've seen it happen twice already. He's in a lot of pain from the dehydration, et al plus the DT's on top of everything else.
So now they're giving him meds to help him through the witdrawal. They said if he gets agressive, they'll have to put the restraints on him. Of course he's promising that he won't drink again. But of course I go by the saying "Do you know when an addict is lying? His lips are moving!" I have almost six giant bottles of bourbon to dispose of before he gets back in the house in a few days. Hopefully I can get him in an intreatment facility soon.