Aggressive, argumentative, abusive
My husband is an alcoholic. He has tried Anti-buse (3 days) and then started all over. I arranged for him, at his request, to have the implant – it lasted three days and he was back on the bottle.
He was retrenched at the end of January 1999, although he has had a serious drinking problem for a number of years. But since his retrenchment, and the difficulty in finding work, his drinking is now totally out of control. He has been employed on contracts (shuts) but because of his drinking this does not last long. He keeps telling me that he wants to work, but at this rate I don’t see it happening.
The things he has done when under the influence read like a horror story.
He has on three occasions knocked me about, splitting my lip in the process and scraping the side of my face when he knocked my head into a wall. He has stayed away from home, on the pretext that he was working, which was a lie. He left home one Saturday morning, supposedly to go and work, and just never returned hom. The Sunday morning I went to the police to report him missing. He turned up the Sunday night, under the influence, with a cock and bull story about being hijacked.
His drinking makes him aggressive, argumentative, abusive and a liar of the first degree.
In one of his “states” he knocked my father down, resulting in my Dad ending up in hospital and two weeks later my Dad died. He squeezed my little budgie to death because the bird was too noisy. He accuses me of having extra-marital affairs. He is verbally abusive towards me. The list is endless. Why I have not yet left him I myself do not know.
I just know that, at the rate he is presently going, he will not see Christmas let alone the dawning of the year 2000. I have no idea what to do. All the screaming, pleading, begging, threatening and silent treatment seem to have no effect. On telling him just last night (16-09-99) that I had had enough and was leaving him I was told it was because I have someone else to go to and because I have now inherited money from my Dad that is thrown into my face as well.
It is about time something serious was done about all forms of alcohol. Everyone is screaming about the effects of smoking but nobody seems to care that the effects and after effects of alcohol are far more serious.
Motor vehicle accidents, murder, spouse and child abuse, pregnancy, you name it. So many of these incidents are caused through alcohol abuse. In South Africa we have ads on the TV glorifying the users of alcohol. The guy who sees a fishing net being set and dolphins caught in this net. He dives, cuts the net and releases the dolphins. He then relaxes on the beach with a rum. A little girl walking through a minefield gets rescued by some “newspaper guy”. Afterwards he and his buddies relax in the pub with a glass of something or other.
What exactly is the message being conveyed. All heroes drink? To be a hero you must have a drink after your heroic deed? Rubbish!! The idiot with the dolphins would have ended up drowning and the fool in the minefield would have blown himself, the little girl and half the countryside to smithereens.
I hope I have note whined on too much, but one does not always get the chance to air ones view on alcohol and the alcoholic.