Your own life
The part you mention last, and apologise for.
People in this position describe the drinker for twenty minutes and then apologise for mentioning themselves. This page is about you, without turning you into the patient.
The part you mention last
People in this position describe the drinker for twenty minutes and then apologise for mentioning themselves. So this page is about you, without turning you into the patient.
The markers are ordinary and easy to dismiss one at a time: sleep gone, the phone in your hand all evening, a jolt when a certain name appears on the screen, work slipping, your own drinking creeping up, an illness you have not had looked at, and a household that has run out of patience with the subject.
Three things that are actually true
- Grief without a death. You are mourning somebody who is still alive, which has no funeral, no card, and no week off. That is what the flatness is.
- Vigilance is exhausting on its own. Waiting for a call is more tiring than taking one. Most of the cost of this position is paid in hours when nothing is happening.
- Your own drinking deserves a plain look. A lot of people who ring about somebody else’s drinking are drinking more than they were two years ago. Noticing that is not disloyal and it is not a comparison.
What helps, unglamorously
Telling one person the real version so that you are not the only one carrying it. Putting the phone out of the bedroom. Keeping something in the week that has nothing to do with him. Deciding in advance what you will do if he rings at two, so it is not decided while half asleep.
That is the honest list. There is no technique here, and anybody offering you one is selling something.
When it is more than tiredness
If it has gone past exhaustion into hopelessness, or you are having thoughts of ending your life, that is the thing to deal with first and it is not disloyal to say so. A local crisis line or your own doctor is faster than anything on a website, and the safety page names the routes.
People in your position reach that point more often than anybody admits, largely because there is no role for them and therefore no permission to be affected.
If the worst has already happened
Some people arrive here after a death. If that is you: it was not the missed call, it was not the argument, and it was not the time you said you could not do it any more.
Grief after somebody dies from drinking carries a specific complication — relief mixed into it, and the sense that you are not entitled to mourn somebody you had already lost. Both are common. Neither means anything is wrong with you, and bereavement support where you live exists for exactly this.