Ok I'll post more about my weekend as I process it and write it up.   Suffice it to say it was a doozy.  The level of intenisity just went up a notch with B's treatment.  Briefly, I've just put them on notice that he's not pulling the punches any more.   Either he's 100 percent in the program or I'm 100 percent out of it. 

So what I'm going to post here is a letter I wrote to the counselors at the treatment center.  I did this because I was getting jerked around by them once again and I'd had enough.  So I told them in no uncertain terms that I would be there during the lunch hour to place in their hands personally a history of my relationship with B and how his alcohol has affected our life.  So without further ado.....

My Life with an Alcoholic    (February 21, 2005)

The Journey Begins

B and I were married on Sept. 4 1993.  We met through our work, which I started in August of 1988.  We began dating (sleeping together) on December 24 1988.  We moved in together in the spring of 1989. 

When I met B I was living with my roommate from college.  We would all drink together and innuendo’s would be made about having a threesome.

In the time between 1989 and 1993 Brad had gone through 2 jobs.  The period of time between his two jobs was a lengthy one.  I recall it being a bit over 4 months but it could have been as long as 7 months. 

Also, during that time we would go out drinking or have a party at our apartment.  B would always drink to the point of intoxication and would frequently pass out. 

I remember one time he came home from a party and he had a rip in the seat of his pants and was bleeding from a wound on his butt.  He said he fell into a glass coffee table.

From 1993 to September of 1997 we lived in Eden Prairie.  B had another period of joblessness for a year.

During our marriage his inappropriate behavior in regards to sexual relationships continued.  If friends would come over he would try to hug, flirt, and make flat out suggestions of sleeping with him, or with both of us.

The Downward Spiral

In the summer of 1997 B decided that we should move back to Fargo.  It was a suggestion that came out of the blue.  We had discussed moving up here when we retired.  B is not from the area and has no immediate family of his own in the area.  My family would be the only family support he would get here.  I mentioned this too him several times and he was all for it.  Said it would be a good change.

So Sept. of 97 found us moving to Fargo with neither of us having a job.   I took some time off until December of 97 when I began my job, of which I am still at.  B found work the spring of 98. 

The drinking continued but it was all now contained within the walls of our apt.  Or the occasional night out to the bar.  Every time he drank he would drink until he was intoxicated and sometimes past that.  He would often stumble around the house and would need the whole next day to recooperate from his drinking or he would begin drinking again. 

The amount of alcohol consumed became greater with each episode until he arrived at the point of being able to drink between half and two thirds of a 1.75 Liter bottle of whiskey.   On occasion he would manage to finish the whole bottle.  My alcohol consumption dwindled with the increase in B's.

In the summer of 1998 I became pregnant with our first child.  B’s drinking increased yet again.  Not in the amount but the frequency.  By January of 99 B was once again jobless.  This time it was due to a abscessed boil on his butt that he had to have taken care of surgically and he didn’t want to go back to work and worry about drainage/leakage.  This was a very good job that he walked away from once again.  He decided that he would try to be a Stay at Home Dad.  The drinking continued during this time.

By August of 99 he had had enough of staying home and taking care of babies so he was working once again.  Thus began the on again off again period of having a job.  From that time until now B has had 10 different jobs. 

Also during this time B began another inappropriate behavior.  We had internet connnection and when B would come home from work, (he would always have a job that was in the evening or at night) he would begin drinking and get on the internet.  He would get in the Love Chat Rooms and would start talking to all the women in there.

He would drink all night and would play the music loud.  On occasion waking the baby.  I would see that he would be chatting away with these women and they would have no idea that he was married.  On four occasions that I recall I saw him personally type misleading information about myself:

1. On one occasion I had died in child birth and he was left taking care of the baby.
2. On another I had run away with my lesbian lover and had left him with the kids.
3. On yet another I was just his roommate.
4. And yet another one was I was his wife but we had an open relationship.

I spoke with one woman personally on the phone when he woke me up and he was trying to get us to be friends.  She also was not aware that we were married.  There were two times I was woken up and he was on the phone with some woman while he masturbated.  One time he asked me to join in while they had the sex play on the phone.

There was also another woman that he continued an email correspondence with and was only cut off when I found out that they were making arrangements to meet at the bar when she was in town.

B would also rent adult movies.  He said it was the only way I would get interested and “wet” for him.  I eventually would go to bed early on the nights that he came home with those movies and would wake to find him watching them while masturbating.

I became pregnant with our second child the summer of 2001.  B’s drinking once again increased.  It was now up to every third night, sometimes every other night with a day of recovering in between.  The joblessness frequency increased. 

The first time B was without a job he attempted to watch our daughter.  After that it was decided that we should keep our then only child in daycare so he could look for a job.  This was ok the first time it happened.  He would go look for a job.  After that he spent more and more time at home watching TV and looking for a job in Sunday’s classifieds.  So not only did we have the loss of income we maintained the level off outgoing cash.

After the birth of our first daughter I met a friend through my mom and her mom.  She had a son close the same age as our daughter and when we first put her in daycare she was our daycare provider. 

When she would come over to visit B would once again begin the sexually inappropriate behavior.  He would take her socks off and rub her feet.  He would also try to touch her by pretending to tickle her.  All of this was done in front of me. 

He also would make comments about us both coming to bed when he reached the point of almost passing out.  It got to the point of her not coming over anymore.  When I called him on the behavior he would tell me that she was the one that started it.  That when I wasn’t around she was making comments about wanting to “be” with him.

B’s inebriation became so extensive at this point that when he was sufficiently drunk, in his mind, he would attempt to walk around the house.  He would often find himself falling into walls or furniture.  Several personal items were broken in this manner and several wounds and bruises were created this way.

Another behavior that came out when he was drinking would be nightmares about his army days.  He was in the service for 3 or 4 years.  He would watch war movies, specifically Saving Private Ryan and Hamburger Hill.  As he watched them he would begin to wave his hands around and behave like he was in a jungle or in the movie himself.  When he would finally pass out in bed he would holler out in his sleep about watching your backs and incoming.

One night in the middle of one of these episodes I asked him to please go to sleep as I was tired.  He reached over and placed his hands around my throat and squeezed lightly.  He said the he could snap my neck in an instant and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it.  I managed to get away from him and I told him the next afternoon when he was sober that if he laid a hand on me again I would call the police. 

In January of 2003, he was on a drunken spree and had hollered through out the night keeping me awake.  He had said he wanted to talk to me but when I would come out to the living room he would proceed to call me names.  Finally at 5:30 am I got the kids up and dressed and got them in the car.  I drove around for a bit waiting for daycare to open. 

I received a call while driving around from another friend of mine.  She had just gotten off the phone with B and he was suggesting highly inappropriate things.  And had made a comment to her that made her believe that he was either going to hurt me and the girls or himself.  She told me that she didn’t feel it was safe to go back.

So I called my parents and went to stay with them for a brief period, from Feb until about mid May.  During our separation B had attempted suicide and I was called to the hospital because he kept crashing on them.  He had written out a detailed note with times and amounts of medication he took through out his night of drinking.  He managed to take all of his prescription medications that night. 

We were to begin a treatment program at that time but he never did start one.  In all B has tried to do a treatment program 4 times.   The fall of 98 while I was pregnant with our first child, the spring of 2003 after his suicide attempt, and the winter of 2004.

The winter of 2004 he had the intake evaluation done at Drake and Bureau but never went back to begin the program.  Excuse after excuse came up.

I have been going to Al-Anon since B's suicide attempt and have grown from it. 

My feelings and Observations

I am feeling frustrated over B’s alcoholism.  My anger at him has grown and there has been no place to vent that.  I continually tried to hide his drinking in the beginning. 

I am angry that I have been the one to have to grow up while he continues to stay stagnant in his development.  I’m hurt by his constant barrage of name calling and sexually inappropriate behavior.  Even after telling him of my feelings on situations that he wants me to try he continues to disregard me. 

I’m tired of the disrespect I receive.  Our sexual relationship has dwindled to the point of nothing in the last year, year and a half.  I feel used and cheap when he wants to only have a relationship when he’s drunk.  Our communication has become non existent when he’s sober and explosive when he was drinking.

I feel confused when he can be nice one minute and the next he’s calling me names or yelling at the kids for some supposed infraction that they have done.  When asked one time why he was yelling at them he said they were thinking about doing something and he was just keeping them in line.

I feel sad for our oldest, who will be six in March.  She has grasped the concept of drinking at far to young an age.  She would often run to her room crying and saying that daddy hated her and only liked Madie after being yelled at by him.  When she found out that we would be moving in with my parents she stated that she was happy because daddy wouldn’t miss her or me, just Madie.

I feel disgusted by the sexually explicit displays and comments in front of the children.  Specifically his constant refrain of “I want to lick you” with the children sitting there.  Sure they are only kids but someday they will understand just what he meant.