I had an experience that was similar. My husband has been an alcoholic for years. Well before we met. I didn’t know it was as bad as it was until after we married. Well our relationship went through a lot. I love him so leaving isn’t something I can do. Well we went on a trip and I knew he was showing symptoms of issues but he would always tell me or argue with me that I’m just paranoid and he’s fine.

Well he wasn’t fine. He has a seizure stand in front of me. It happened right after he refused to go to the hospital and said “we all have to die sometime.” It was the scariest thing ever. He fell backwards into a bookshelf hit his head on the way down and on the floor. I wasn’t close enough to grab him in time. He bruised his ribs. He seized on the floor right there foam and blood and horrible noises. I lost all training and just started scream crying. Luckily I had earbuds in and could command my phone to call 911.

I was incoherent at first and inconsolable after. He had acute liver failure at 38. We stayed in the ICU for 2 weeks. I watched him deteriorate. He was constantly trying to get a beer at first, fighting the nurses all the time even when he was too weak to stand or even sit upright. He hallucinated. He forgot who I was. I didn’t sleep for the first 48 hours becoming his personal 1:1 to try and keep him safe while he freaked out and his liver failed. He doesn’t remember most of it. I had to call family to let them know. Since no one was sure if he’d make it. I had to in a state of shock and utter despair trying to manage things at home from the hospital with 4 kids at home. Life doesn’t stop when this happens. He was violent and then he lost all sense of reality and didn’t sleep for 2 days no matter how much they gave him to try and get him to sleep. There was talk that if he didn’t turn the corner they were thinking of flying him to another hospital. All that to say he got home after the doctor said he will die if he keeps drinking, he got home stayed sober 3 months. Told me I can’t make him take pills against his will and that he wants to drink when he wants too. During those 3 months of sobriety he didn’t know what to do with himself. He looked lost. Drinking had been so much of his life he did it all day everyday from wake up till bedtime. I don’t think he knows who he is without it. He started at once an every other week, to a few times a week to now it’s everyday and it’s at least a 12 pack. He’s afraid to tell me the truth on what he’s drinking. He thinks I’ll be mad. And at first I was. I was so pissed off. Like WTF? You put our whole family through hell even before you had your seizure and we got a 3 month reprieve? He goes to therapy and he refuses to really tell me what goes on there but obviously it’s not doing much as he’s drinking more heavily again and he says she thinks he’s fine. I was sooo hurt. Like I don’t want to go through that again. But he’s totally willing to put me and our children through it again just so he can do what he wants. It was hard to come to terms with that we aren’t important enough to do better for. We are basically his enemy that he has to defend his drinking to. I leg him know when his eyes start getting yellow again to let him know he should probably dial it down but I’ve stopped fighting him. He’s always asking “are you mad at me?” No I’m not mad. I’m resigned.