And on and on

I have been a very good little worker at work of late.  This is not to say that I ever let myself be a really bad little worker at work, but I haven't been the best this winter/spring as I was dealing with the distractions of my personal life (which at times seemed more like my personal hell).  I have accomplished things in a very timely manner and quite well.  Last week I even got out way ahead of myself (which was weird), so my vaction of all next week shouldn't hurt so bad.

 

However, the personal life that had seemed like it was fixing itself up, has hit a bump in the road.  Sam fell off the wagon twice in the last week.  Last Tuesday he got kind of stressed out about a friend and decided that half a bottle of vodka would make him feel better, and it did for a while until he realized how it would make me feel.  Instead of letting him head out and drink more, I asked him to stay in and talk to me and to stop drinking with what he had.  And we stayed up late and I listened to him prattle on with all the excuses his disease would give me to get me to play along nicely.  I simply pointed out that I disagreed with the babble his disease spouted and kept him talking and not drinking until he could fall asleep. 

 

This weekend he was oddly sleepy.  We went to bed kind of early Friday night (well for a Friday) around 11 and slept way in.  Then he was busy all Saturday making a stew for a couple of friends we had over for dinner, and we went to bed early again at like 10 and we slept in until 10.  Then he napped after we went over to clean my apartment because my roommate returns tonight, and I wanted to make sure the house was left in good order.  I tried not to let him nap too long because I knew he would never go back to sleep and that is a terrible way for him to start the week (especially a week when we are picking my roommate up at the airport late tonight and then going to the Elton John and Billy Joel concet tomorrow), but he couldn't fall asleep.  I however could since I had not been napping as much as he had all weekend (being wrapped up in a few novels).  Since I was there sound asleep and he couldn't sleep, he remembered some Sake he had noticed in our fridge a few days ago.  It must have been very old sake, and it angered me to find he hadn't mentioned it to me earlier, but he is an alcoholic and I would wager that he is at best in the early stages of recovery.  So he drank the entire bottle (he says it was a little bottle) in order to help him go right to sleep (he says).  And I slept through all of this.  I awoke when he was fully dressed and about to leave the house to go out to his favorite piano bar, and I knew immediately that something was wrong.  I asked him what was going on?  Where had he been?  What was he doing?  I got out of them that he hadn't been anywhere. . .yet and then asked him if he had been drinking, and he admitted he had.  It was a little past two in the morning.  I asked him not to leave, and he didn't.  I realized he hadn't gone to the Sunday meeting he had decided he would start attending, I guess he had slept through it.  I spent the next two hours awake. . . just hanging out with drunk, unsleepy, alcoholic who is my partner.  We talked a little, I listened a lot.

 

We especially talked about 90 meetings in 90 days which is a program that alcoholics are encouraged to do when they first give up drinking.  He wasn't going to do it when he gave up drinking at the end of May beginning of June because he wasn't sure he needed AA.  Then he wasn't going to do it when I nearly broke up with him right before my birthday because he was doing AA, and his therapist said that it was probably alright not to start it if he didn't fall off the wagon, but if he did, he would have to do it.  I asked him about it last night.  He says he will start it, but he can't start it until we get back from Colorado.  Basically because he cannot tell his parents he is an alcoholic.  I have encouraged him to tell them because I think they will end up being a bigger asset than he thinks, but I also understand his fear.  I do however think he won't ever get truly recovered until he can tell them about it honestly.  He doesn't want to tell them about it until he has been on the path to cure for a while, like after he has finished a 90 meetings in 90 days course.  I sort of dropped my course of arguing then.  He isn't going to do what I want of him.  When we return from Colorado, then I will see what happens.  Hopefully that will entail him starting 90 meetings in 90 days.

 

It is very interesting how I feel like I deal with this now.  My reaction is kind of clinical.  I feel like a nurse.  Well, not in the moment exactly.  I cry because this is heart-wrenching, but I also sort of pull my chin up and set to work and do what needs to be done, like staying up late with a drunk alcoholic.  And in reflection, my experience of it becomes sort of matter of fact and sterile.  I guess it has to be to put one foot in front of the other and move along.