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I’m so sorry for all that you’re going through. I feel the same way. Even though we weren’t married, we lived like we were, and shared everything for 10 years. He was the only man I ever said “yes” to in a marriage proposal. I feel numb sometimes too. And then sometimes I feel like I can’t take the pain. I cry all the time. I’m a year out from his death, and had broken up with him 3 years prior, but never got over him. And he never got over me. It was the saddest thing I’ve ever been through, and I lost my first love in an accident when I was 18. I thought that was the worst. It wasn’t. Losing my ex to alcoholism was much worse. I know everything you’re feeling. I wish I had some magic words to make you feel better. I wish we all did. Just know that we’re here and we understand you. Many prayers and wishes of peace and healing for everyone here. ❤️????????
Thank you. I’ve been struggling, but I’m in therapy every week, working, and doing the best I can. It’s a long, hard journey. The pain of losing him and the reality of him being gone is sometimes overwhelming. I cry a lot. The first anniversary of his death just passed in June. I have been able to bring myself to visit his grave yet. Some days are better than others, but nothing feels the same. All I can do is keep trying to live, and hope that someday, I find peace and happiness again. I hope you all do too. ❤️
Thank you so much ❤️
Thank you so much! I have bad days and good days. His birthday is coming up and that will be hard. The 1 year anniversary of his death comes shortly after that, so it will be rough. Just trying to live the best way I can, day by day. I hope you’re doing okay too! ❤️
My ex-fiancé was an alcoholic who developed the addiction later in our relationship, while living together. Matter of fact, he hardly ever drank when we first were dating. He used alcohol and Benzodiazepines to cope with the divorce that occurred before we began dating, and being geographically far from his children (he had them every other weekend), we lived about an hour and 15 minutes from them, and he said the weekends would go by way too quickly. When he dropped them off home, I would notice he would take longer and longer to come back. He would come home and take his Klonopin, but then started to mix it with vodka. I was terrified. I knew he was in trouble.
I’m an ER nurse and was a Paramedic for years. I saw what happens to people like that. I tied to get him help, but nothing seemed to work. The drinking was hidden from me for many years, until he wound up so sick in bed one night, I called an ambulance. I still had no idea he had been drinking. He didn’t act drunk. He told me he was sick and that his stomach hurt very badly. He was pale, grey, sweaty, and tachycardic (very fast heart rate). When is lab work came back, it showed signs of acute pancreatitis. That’s when it dawned on me that he had been drinking severely.
He denied it over and over again, until the doctor told him that he could die if he didn’t say what he was doing. He finally admitted it. I was in such shock. After that, it was a progression every year, into a worsening state. Multiple ambulance calls, critical hospitalizations, wrecking cars, accidents, repeated rehab admissions. I would come home from work and find the gas on my stove left on, my front door wide open. My dog was the most important thing in my life at the time, he was like my child. I was so afraid that something would happen to my dog, that I couldn’t feel comfortable leaving my house with him there.
He was a wonderful father to his four children from his previous marriage, and would never do anything to jeopardize their safety……until the night he did. He was drunk, and was about to leave the house with them in the car to go to a movie. I intercepted and took the keys away. I told him to quietly go upstairs, and that I didn’t want his children seeing him this way, but they already knew something was really wrong.
The oldest one asked if his dad was going to die. I wasn’t prepared for that talk. I told them that their dad was really sick and that he needed a lot of help. I said that he wasn’t going to die that night, but that if he kept doing it, he would. I don’t know if that was the right thing to say to a 14-year-old, but I didn’t know what to do, and I didn’t want to lie.
I finally couldn’t live that way anymore and I forced my ex to leave my house. I wanted him to go back and live with his friends, because I knew that going back to his parents would be very bad for him. They were both a big part of why he drank. He went to live with some friends for a little while, and he did the same thing there. They asked him to leave as well. He finally wound up at his parents house, and he continued to get worse. I think the most he was ever sober was four months.
I stayed very close with him even though we were not a couple anymore. I never slept. I worried about him constantly. I went through multiple texts, phone calls of drunken rants, abusive name calling, guilt trips, nurses, doctors, hospitals. My mother was the mother he always wanted. And she loved him to the very end, as did I. I feared more for his life when he told me something was wrong with his heart. Being experienced in cardiac emergencies and general cardiology, I knew he developed a lethal heart problem as a result of his drinking. I begged him to stop once more and get into a program. He said AA “wasn’t his thing”, and that he knew what he had to do.
He died six months ago, only three years after we broke up. We were together for almost 10 years. He died alone at home, in his bedroom. His father didn’t do an autopsy, so I don’t know exactly what it was that killed him. I’ll never know what happened. None of us well. His father came home two hours after he had left the house, and checked in on him, to find him dead on the floor. He was 48. A brilliant man who worked for a large company in financial compliance and surveillance. A gifted musician that came from a very famous long line of musician family members.
His mother died eight months prior to his death, and his sister died a year prior to that. All of them were alcohol and prescription drug related. His elderly father hardly ever left the house because he was afraid to leave him alone. The one morning that his father had a scheduled biopsy and left for two hours, was the morning he died. Just 8 hours before, he was at the ER for alcohol intoxication. He had texted me and said they had given him Ativan, and that they were keeping him until he was sober enough to go home. They were refusing to admit him because they didn’t have any beds, and probably because he had been there so many times before for the same thing, even though that’s not medically ethical.
My last text to him was “please stop this. You’re going to die. You’re going to cause your father to go to an early grave, and your kids will be left without their dad. I can’t do this with you anymore”.
I wish I would’ve said “I am so scared for you, I’m so sorry that you drank again, keep trying. I love you.”
I got the phone call later on the next day that he was gone. I haven’t been the same since. He was my one true love, and I knew he wouldn’t make it. I feel horrible and guilty that I made him leave the home and family that he loved so much. I devastated him when I broke up with him. He lost me, then his job, then his sister, then his mom. I watched a beautiful man slowly be destroyed.
I tried everything I could, and it wasn’t enough. I am sitting here now typing this on Christmas, after crying all day. He was my best friend. He was still my family, even after we broke up. He was at my house one week before he died. He had dinner with my mom and me. We all hugged, and told each other we loved each other very much and always would. But I still can’t forgive myself for that last text. I still can’t forgive myself for making him leave. I don’t know when this will stop hurting, and when I will be able to forgive.
Thank you for listening to my story, and thank you for sharing yours. I’m so sorry so many of you here have gone through this. I wish you all love peace and happiness.