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Jul 10, 2014 - 05:18 PM
Life update, part 1 - My alcoholic father
Wow, I can't believe that its been 6+ months since I've updated my journal. I don't think I've ever gone that long before. But a bunch of crazy things have been going on, some good, some bad… so I figured that I'd update my good friends at Gamingforce. There are some things you just can't convey over Facebook.

Part 1 - My Father, the Alcoholic:
To start, my dad was recently hospitalized. I don't think I've ever vocalized here on the boards (besides to a select few members) how much of an alcoholic he is… and has been my whole life. I might have mentioned it briefly in one of my first journal entries, but dropped it after that.

My dad has always been a heavy drinker. I thought it had hit its high point (or lowest point, depending on how you look at it) around my senior year of high school, when he was averaging about a 30-rack a day. Around that time was when he was first hospitalized… he had a seizure after spending a day outside in really hot weather, not drinking anything. For the next 3-4 years he remained sober, but eventually started sneaking 12-packs in the house.

Recently, he reached a new high (low) point. He was back to drinking about a 30-rack a day. He called out of work at least once a week on the pretense of being 'sick', when he was really just hungover. The days he DID go to work, he'd pack a small cooler with beers to drink on his breaks, along with some mouthwash to mask the smell… and he probably drank that too, why lie.

At age 59, he convinced himself that he was an 'old man', and walked around the house, hunched over, feet shuffling, wearing sweatpants, slippers, and a thick bathrobe, even in the middle of summer. And lets not forget about the adult diapers… Due to cancer, he had his prostate removed almost 5 years ago, but he was too lazy to do the exercises his doctor told him about in order to retrain his bladder. Rather, he was wearing adult diapers… constantly having accidents because of the sheer volume of beer he was drinking.

He never sat down to eat. If he bothered to make a meal at all, he'd leave it on the stove, and every time he'd go out to the kitchen to get a beer, he'd take a bite. If he ate anything more than a couple bites at a time, it wouldn't agree with all of the beer in his stomach, and he'd end up puking. And it was always the food's fault. Often times, he didn't make it to the toilet on time. Sometimes he did a half-ass job of cleaning it, which my mom always ended up finishing. Other times, he'd deny that it was him… as if one of us had been the one who puked on the floor, and was blaming him.

More recently, he started falling. At first it was only when he was carrying something, such as a bag of laundry. If it was heavier than a 30-rack of beer, he couldn't carry it without struggling. Going up the stairs to our second-floor apartment left him winded.

On the morning of June 9th, I was in the bathroom getting ready for work, and heard a loud bang. When I came out, my dad was on the floor. I could only stare as he struggled to get up, finally getting himself into a sitting position. Once I moved, he crawled into the bathroom and closed the door.

That was also the day he decided to quit his job.

The next week, he spent all of his time on the couch in his pjs, drinking. Its almost funny… only a few days before, I'd been talking with a friend about my dad, and said something along the lines of "I don't know how he could possibly drink more than he does now." Well, he figured out how… quit his job and he suddenly has free time to drink more. He fell about 4 more times in the next week.

Finally, it was my little sister Angie, the least jaded one of us all, who decided to give him a chance. On June 15th, she brought him to the hospital, after he'd gone into our room, disoriented, asking her the date, the time, and talking about his job, despite quitting nearly a week before. It scared her enough to ask him to go with her to the hospital. He agreed, taking a swig of beer at the same time. When he was changing, mom and Angie saw all of the bruises caused by his falling.

The hospital admitted him, supposedly, for 'low sodium levels'. He had several seizures that night, as his body went into detox. When I visited him the next day, any movements he made were shaky. He was knocked out for the most part, but they still had his legs restrained.

He was there the rest of the week. When the social worker mentioned 'rehab', he agreed, which got all of our hopes up… until the social worker clarified that it was physical therapy. Angie asked her to bring up alcoholic rehab, and my dad's response was, "Well, I don't think I have a problem. But if it will make her [indicating Angie] happy, whatever."

He was moved to a rehab center… conveniently it was the rehab center that my older sister, Mandy, used to work for. It was there that we received all of the test results that the hospital had neglected to show us, including the result that my dad has acute Alcohol Hepatitis. When asked how I feel about this… honestly, its relief. Some people might think I'm a terrible person for being happy that my dad was diagnosed with a liver disease, but I see it like this: For the first time ever, my dad can't say "It's not the alcohol." Its an illness caused by alcohol. And he can either choose to stop drinking… or choose to kill himself with booze.

The day before he was set to be discharged from the rehab center, we all had a meeting… essentially an intervention. Right off the bat, he said he was going to stop drinking… but not because he thought he had a problem. When I asked his reasons for stopping, it was "Because it's making me sick!"

We can tell he's not all all determined to stop. When we were discussing things he could drink besides beer, he said that he would still be drinking N/A beer, because he liked the taste. I immediately told him no, he wouldn't. N/A beer still contains alcohol. So he snapped back, "So does mouthwash!", to which Angie responded, "Yeah… and we've already dumped that." His reaction was to throw up his arms in exasperation.

He's attended a couple meetings of AA, but his attitude about it has basically been "Why do I have to sit around and listen to other people's problems?" When mom picked him up from the last meeting he went to, he said to her, "Compared to some of those guys, I was drinking chocolate milk!"… like being a drunk off liquor is worse than being a drunk off beer.

My dad has been home for about a week now, and, as far as we can tell, hasn't had any alcohol. We've taken away his keys, so he can't drive… its only been by sheer luck that he hasn't killed anyone, since he's never thought twice about drinking while driving. His walking has improved, although now his ankles are swelling. His blood pressure is down.

If I'm honest with myself, I don't believe that he's done drinking. People like him need to hit a serious low to get themselves to admit they have a problem. I'm convinced he won't hit that low point unless my mom leaves him. She told him during the intervention that this was his last shot… if he started up again, she would leave him. And I'm not sure if that would force him to realize that he had a problem… or if it would just cause him to drink himself to death.

My older sister despises beer. My younger sister only likes Bud Light. And me… well, I'll be honest, I love beer. Big beers, craft beers, home brews… I'll try them all at least once. That's probably one of the few things I have in common with my dad. And I guess I have something to thank him for… because I've seen him go through all of this, I have an awareness that its ok to love beer… just not as much as he does.


TL;DR: My dad is an alcoholic and was diagnosed with Alcohol Hepatitis. We're now hoping he'll stop being such a pathetic drunk, but aren't holding our breath.


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