I've always heard it said that it is best to leave your past...in the past. And then maybe your ex is just meant to be a friend and not more than that. You are the one that has to make that decision...but it pays to take your time in making a decision about something like this...especially when you are dealing with the grief of your mom's passing.
@Babs Hunt, thanks for the enlightenment. Yeah, I guess my father was a binge drinker. But I had noticed that he doesn't drink when he is at home which I think is a time for him to relax. His work is in the racetracks that was full of bettors who are always in contact with my father because he is horse trainer. Those company of his is one reason that he drinks especially when a horse he trains would win a race or his companions would win a bet. During weekends in the races, my father would start drinking at lunch time that would last until the night. I admire your love for your husband that it looks like it was okay with you when he drinks. Maybe my mother was also like that because I never heard her talk against the drinking habit of my father.
I suspect that those folks who drink nearly continuously, even though they may not get "falling down drunk", but seem to remain in the realm of near sober, thus able to function, destroy their livers more surely than the folks who drink daily, but only at a certain time, usually bed time. Their own livers have all day long to "repair themselves", whereas the others are processing alcohol continuously. FWIW, though not medically or scientifically "proven", a compound found in American Milkweed Thistle has been shown to aid the liver in regenerating itself. I take a capsule of it daily. Frank
@Corie Henson Please understand this. I absolutely do love my husband but I also absolutely do not like or approve of his drinking. I would not mind if he just had a drink or two and if this wasn't something that happened every day. It is really hard watching someone you love destroy their health right before your very eyes. And it is also very hard for me personally to put up with "stupid" the older I get. My husband, when not drinking is a very smart and intelligent man, one who has never met a stranger and can start and keep up a conversation with anyone. I, on the other hand, am not a people person and face to face with others I can hardly get words out much less carry on a conversation with them. I do much better one to one and with those I really know. And I prefer talking to others the way I am to you right now while my husband loves people and talking to them. And they like talking to him too. When he gets to a certain point in his drinking though, he can no longer converse but slurs his words, can't keep his thoughts straight so "stupid" comes out of his mouth, and he can't walk without staggering all over the place. As he has gotten older and doesn't eat as much...it takes less beer to cause these things. Our social life, except for family things, is pretty much non existant because I won't go some where with him when he can't control his drinking. And even with family functions, we sometimes have to leave earlier than I want too because I don't want him around the grandkids when he is drunk. I don't believe that this is the example that we should set for them. Your mom probably didn't like your dad's drinking anymore than I like my husband's...but we can not make them stop. We can ask them not to, we can ask them to cut down on their drinking, we can ask them to get help for their problem...but we cannot make them stop, cut down, or get help. Your mom learned this during her marriage to your dad too. And maybe your mom is like me in this, as long as my husband doesn't abuse me, takes care of his responsibilities, is a loving husband to me, and the alcoholism doesn't take over every part of our lives...I can live with this problem in our lives. Setting boundaries has made it much less of a problem for me...and giving my husband and his alcoholism over to God and letting Him take care of this has also helped. Prayer is a wonderful thing but prayer isn't always answered instantly...sometimes it is answered a little bit at a time. We will celebrate our 11th wedding anniversary on July 30th and we have known each other for over 13 years...each year since I handed this problem completely over to the Lord I have seen changes, they may be small ones, but they are real changes and I am thankful for them. My greatest desire is for my husband to want to be set free from this addiction...sometimes I see in his face that he is not liking something having control over him either. I believe in my husband and I believe in God and I have seen them working together to overcome this stronghold. But that is there job, while mine is to respect and love my husband the best I can. This is not to hard to do since his addiction does not outweigh all his good qualties and loving ways.
I think alcoholism is an addiction with symptoms of physical disease such as sickness, tremors, cravings etc but an addiction is disease of the brain, a mental disease, because the brain gets rewired and develops of mental illness such as cravings, anti-social behavior, lack of inhibitions, inability to recognize social boundaries.
The really funny thing @Julie Stewart is that my husband in the over 13 years I've known him has been sick only one time even though he is addicted to both alcohol and cigarettes (or nicotine). While I, who do neither, have a lot of health problems...and had them before I ever met him. He basically lives on coffee, tea, beer, and cigarettes with a meal thrown in once a day and a peanut butter and mayo sandwich too. I talk to him about how even though his body seems to not be affected by all this...that his insides are slowly but surely being destroyed and one day this destruction will come out full force and kill him. I also told him if he dies first I am donating his body to Science so they can figure out how he lived so long with all the stuff he ingests that are toxins. The way Murphy's Law works though is that he will probably outlive me. His mom smoked all her life and ended up carrying an oxygen tank everywhere with the tubes in her nose so she could breath...and yet she lived until she was close to 80 years old. His dad who was a full blown alcoholic and smoker, died around 80 too....he died all alone in a small trailer and no one found his body for five days. Knowing all this and more my husband still continues to drink and smoke. He comes from a long line of alcoholics and probably smokers too. So I do think there is some kind of genetic factor that influences alcoholism...but I also believe that you have a choice whether to take that drink or not, or light up that cigarette. To be honest, I am amazed that all the toxins he takes into his body hasn't destroyed him already, up until the past couple of years I couldn't even tell they were having any effects on him at all. But now there are gradual changes I am noticing in him and even though he still does not get sick...I can tell it's coming. For me this is the hardest part of his addictions...slowly watching the man I love and want to spend the rest of my life with fade away right before my eyes.
I agree that alcoholism is an addiction. In the world I grew up in, smoking and drinking were a natural part of the landscape. Generally men drank and smoked, and women didn’t. My grandfathers were a teamster and a bricklayer, and drank shots & beers. My Dad and Uncle were a fireman and painter, and did the same. My brother & I both tried smoking & drinking, but quit at an early age. The women would have an occasional highball, while nibbling on pretzels. The term “social drinker” was an accepted one. The old saying: “first the man gets hold of the bottle and then the bottle gets hold of the man”, came along later. Every single person is affected by drinking alcohol, differently.
To me alcoholism is actually both. Why because I view addition as a disease. The person is indeed sick and needs help. I also tend to think that addiction such as alcoholism is misunderstood. People who have never dealt with addiction tend to view the person as weak which isn't true because they have a real problem. The frightening thing is that all of us are capable of becoming addicted to something, or to become dependent, which is actually more common but one step away from addiction.
I never worried about addiction with alcohol whatever else it may be. I could hardly get past the smell on some and those I drank and liked I watched closely. I had such an addiction to tobacco that I couldn't handle another addiction. I had family addicted to alcohol and one it killed. Anything addictive I was afraid of.
Alcoholism is an addiction, but it includes many components that could qualify it as a disease or a disorder, much as many mental health disorders are treated as diseases. It seems clear that alcoholism is an addiction since the only thing that separates it from drug addiction is the substance. Still, it's helpful to regard addiction as a disease even if you don't consider it an accurate description. There are many diseases for which there are no cures, currently. AIDS, diabetes, and asthma come to mind, yet people who suffer from these diseases don't generally sit around, doing nothing, while awaiting a cure. These days, it is quite possible to live a long and productive life even with these diagnoses as long as you are aware that you have the disease and manage it appropriately. This is true, also, of addictions. People who are addicted to drugs or alcohol can and do recover. Although there are some who will need to be in a perpetual state of recovery, they are not cured in the sense that they can use alcohol or recreational drugs occasionally, as may those who are not addicted. Someone with diabetes who decides to ignore the disease because there is no cure will fare about as well as someone who is addicted to drugs or alcohol will fare if they decided that, because there is no cure, there's no point in recovery. As with a lot of other diseases, many people are predisposed to addiction through heredity, although there might be some argument over whether they have inherited the predisposition to addiction through genetics or through lifestyle modeling, although people with a family history of addiction appear to be at risk even if their parents are not using.