2023-10-25 11:16:00
“My daughter must have been three and a half years old. I wanted to dress her for school. I saw the fear in her eyes. I must have been trembling. I told myself that I mightn’t do that to her , a constantly alcoholic mother”. Danny is almost seventy years old. For thirty years, she has not drunk a single drop of alcohol.
Recognizing yourself as an alcoholic is difficult. Many are in denial. According to Sciensano, 14% of those over fifteen drink more than ten glasses per week. This is called risky drinking.
“The pure pastis from the bottle. It was disgusting, but I drank it anyway!”
“It starts little by little” Danny explains. “You don’t feel the moment you cross the border. I got married, I stopped working. I think it was boredom that made me start drinking secretly at home. I drank péket, everything that was drinkable. I drank drinks that I hated and that I hated to smell. Especially anise. I started drinking pastis neat from the bottle!
I was particularly looking for oblivion, no doubt. The next day I woke up and forgot what I had drunk! The exaggeration in my alcohol consumption certainly lasted more than ten years.” Danny poisoned herself with alcohol. Until spending a year in a wheelchair for “polyneuropathy of alcoholic origin. I found myself in a wheelchair because I might no longer walk. I knew the origin very well, but I let all the tests be done because I didn’t want to admit it.
Sometimes my husband found empty bottles that I hid. For example under the false floor of my daughters’ wardrobe. He put them on the table like a trophy: ‘you see, you say you don’t drink anymore, but here’s a corpse!’ And I denied it. About ten years ago, we found another hidden bottle, even though it’s been thirty years since I stopped drinking!”
Alcoholics Anonymous
Danny explains that his sister called her doctor to warn him regarding the drinking problem. Around the same time, her husband heard regarding Alcoholics Anonymous. Danny went to one meeting, then the next ones, and stopped drinking. She had a relapse, but a limb came “get her back”.
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#Alcoholism #trigger #fear #daughters #eyes
