Alcohol: Radio 4 Action Line.

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• 1. At 5:44pm on 12 May 2008, duldzin wrote:

  Dear Eddie,
  I am a recovering alcoholic and sober for 22 years.
  I am only alive and sober through regular attendance at Alcoholics Anonymous and would strongly recommend it to anyone for whom drink is costing them more than money.
  I am a retired GP and was fortunate enough to get help early in my career.
  AA is not a weird cult but is intensely practical and works if you are willing and keep and open mind.
  Best wishes, Peter

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• 2. At 8:04pm on 12 May 2008, misterkorky wrote:

  My brother will die this year from alcohol. If, by some miracle, he does not, he will be a vegetable. There is nothing more the family can do. Drink has cost him his marriage, his job, his children. Soon he will go in for yet another rehabilitation. We shall encourage him but our words will have little effect. His landlord has cared for him for some years but now he will lose the roof over his head. He has not bathed for six months, he is doubly incontinent, pours urine from the window as he cannot make the bathroom. The family has cleared up - more than once - vomit in drawers and the piles of rotten uneaten food that pile up. It is so distressing. It made the final years of our parents a hell. Now we can only stand by and hope that his death can release us all from the suffering he has brought upon himself and others. Walking for him has become slow and painful, making trips to get alcohol a dreadful experience. A summer family wedding has been postponed: the distress we feel hangs over us like Banquo at the feast.
  
  This has gone on for over 20 years. Remissions have been rare. Alcoholics cheat, deceive and bring all around them down to their level. The anguish of seeing a loved one destroy themselves slowly is too diffcult to bear. It seems a dreadful things to say but our mother once said: "He would be better off dead." And, at this, she wept uncontrollably berating herself for such dreadful thoughts.
  
  The end cannot be far away. We used to blame ourselves. Did we do enough? Guilt hangs heavily upon us all. But we are utterly exhausted. We hope that he dies clean and washed in a warm bed and not alone in a ditch. We hope that we can be there.
  
  There is no blog that can convey the anguish of families trapped in the world of the alcoholic.

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• 3. At 10:05pm on 12 May 2008, Emmy wrote:

  My father was a heavy drinker. As children we went without food, wore clothes from jumble sales and went to school in my mother's shoes. When he came home after work, he would fall down in the hall way and we had to walk around him until he recovered. Eventually when I knew that Dad was about to come home I would curl up in a ball and hide in a cupboard. Later as a teenager he would try to get me into his bed. My mother never knew this, I couldn't bear to hurt her anymore. She gave up mostly which meant that we were left to fend for ourselves. We remained loyal to Dad and was with him when he died. Thank you for this blog, it has let me tell someone.

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• 4. At 10:44pm on 12 May 2008, duldzin wrote:

  I am a recently retired GP and a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous for the past 22 years. I would just like to say that there is an answer to a seemingly insoluble problem.
  I would not be alive and sober today after a successful career without AA. It is not a religious organisation and is a practical answer to the alcoholic problem.
  I tried to control and in the end stop drinking both on my own and with the aid of a very patient alcohol counsellor. Eventually she sent me to a psychiatrist who told me to go to AA. I was not pleased but after one last defiant attempt to go it alone I phoned the number I was given.
  Nobody could have stopped me drinking. I had to admit the problem and be willing to accept the help on offer.
  It is a baffling and distressing illness both for the alcoholic and the family who suffer around him/her. The sister organisations of Al Anon and Alateen are for the partners and children of alcoholics to help them cope with the situation even if the alcoholic is no longer living with them. The sense of hurt and misplaced guilt can be hard to come to terms with.
  Peter
  

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• 5. At 11:28am on 13 May 2008, Chris Ghoti wrote:

  I hope very much that the post at #1 was not from someone who was already troubled, and will now be made by such censorship to feel rejected as well.
  
  If the person who wrote post #1 has been hurt by its being silenced, please believe that it isn't us-on-the-blog doing this, it is an anonymously operated, arbitrary censorship system that nobody posting here understands.

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• 6. At 1:44pm on 13 May 2008, Chris Ghoti wrote:

  Thank you to whoever was responsible for having a look to see what was wrong with the post at #1 and getting it put up because there was nothing whatever the matter with it. Better late than never, or something.
  
  I do think that if a new poster appears in such a potentially sensitive area their post might perhaps be looked at and passed a bit faster: this was a long delay.
  
  Peter, congratulations on your determination over so many years: that is a heartening thing for many of us.

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