The husband of a childhood friend of mine had a massive stroke in June while they were driving to a family vacation. He’s 47 years old. They have a ten year old daughter. They live across the country from me and all of my information is derived from my friend’s daily Facebook updates about her husband’s progress along with “go fund me” requests since they are now both out of work. (I have not seen this friend in person in maybe the last eight years). Her husband spent nearly a month in the hospital and had to be medevacked to their home state’s hospital after the first several weeks once he was stable enough to be moved. He is now out of the hospital but undergoes daily rehabilitation therapy, has partial paralysis, has lost focus ability in his eyes and a number of other continuing issues. According to my friend, it is doubtful that he will ever fully recover. When the stroke first happened, my friend posted about the lifestyle changes that they both would be making which sounded very positive to me. Both seem to have enjoyed a party lifestyle into their late 40’s. However, shortly into this ordeal, my friend’s daily Facebook posts began to include anecdotes about her daily trips to the liquor store or how she missed a ride to the hospital because of her hangover. Today my friend posted that her husband was drinking a beer with a neighbor. She portrayed it as a Norman Rockwell moment. I read the post and wanted to scream, “he’s drinking!!!” It’s taken everything in me not to post a comment about his drinking. And to be clear, I am absolutely sitting in judgment. I am posting here instead of replying to her Facebook post. And I do so because of cowardice. I will be annihilated if I do comment, not only my friend but her also by her extraordinarily supportive Facebook friends. And so, I thought i would vent here, to you. Thanks for reading and your wisdom is always welcome.
Ooh, this is a tough one and judgement is something I am also working on. The way I have been TRYING to handle it is, not my life-therefore not my problem so what do I really care? As long as it doesn’t effect me, I just try to say whatever and I move along to something else. It’s effing hard, especially when you hate seeing someone you love hurting. Maybe he is just having one to “celebrate” the fact he’s alive. Maybe she’s having a really hard time with the fact their whole life changed and it will never be the same so she’s losing herself in the bottle to cope. I’ve been there over a lot less, that’s how I became an alcoholic after all lol. It may take them out in the end, especially if he ends up drinking a lot. My family has been there a multitude of times, but we can’t fix it for them. I used to BEG my dad to quit drinking because I knew it would kill him. Dumped his booze out when he had it and all. It did, just as I predicted it would before I turned 14. He died 2 months before that birthday. And look where I ended up… We all have our battles to fight and conquer and we get wherever we are going on our own. If that major event wasn’t enough to change them, nothing you can say will help them see the light so breathe deep and let it go sistah!
Thanks Mandi. This is good advice and you’re right. I can’t fix this and it’s not my battle. I’m sorry to hear about your dad --that must have been really hard at 13. Thanks for your feedback, it helped.