Dying for a Drink: Slow Suicide with a Functional Alcoholic Spouse

(NOTE: This piece was written over the course of many months, as things were happening, but kept in draft mode until its actual publish date of March 6, 2021.)

Today is August 26, 2020.

The liver is thought to be responsible for somewhere around 500 separate functions. This truly amazing organ is also the only one that has the capacity to regenerate… to a point.

Liver disease often progresses slowly for years. It’s almost as if it mirrors giving up responsibilities along with its owner: More alcohol, less responsibilities.

How it started…

July 29th marked the 18th year since we’d gotten married (and we’d already been together 7 years before that). We’d both forgotten the anniversary again. For most couples, this would be a grievous offense, but we often thought it was hilarious. We also weren’t “most couples”. Our wedding “ceremony” occured at the Santa Ana, CA courthouse. My parents had shown up and threw rice at us as we walked down the courthouse steps after the legalities were over. They were the only people in attendance. Afterwards, we went and got mediocre Italian food at Olive Garden, then went back to our apartment in Coast Mesa.

We never made a big to-do about things like that … ceremonies, anniversaries, and anything falling under what most people would call romance. But that was very on-brand for us.

We also never had children, coming as no surprise to anyone who have known us. We chose cats over kids.

Looking back, all the writing was clearly on the wall that this guy I married would end up exactly where he ended up, but you ignore a lot of things when you’re young.

While I was working at a dead-end job at a copy store, he was working at a video duplication company, and it was killing him. It was a very unhealthy environment with a lot of internal drama, oddball hours, and an owner who actually encouraged employees to do illegal drugs to stay up all night. I encouraged him to quit the job. He ended up quitting and moved back in with his mom in Orange County while I still lived in L.A. Around the same time, I was starting to do more and more graphic design projects on the side. I ended up getting fired from the copy job, which was definitely one of those, “blessings in disguise” type of things. Maybe someday I’ll write about that.

Not working, he spent some time writing music, but not doing much else. A guy he knew would come by his mom’s house with a case of wine. They would sit on her patio talking, drinking, and smoking. They were adults, so his mother never said anything about it. And he was never one to turn down free booze. This continued for a long time. Little did I know, this was the start of it all.

Eventually, I suggested we get an apartment together and that he help me run the small graphic and web design business I started since he didn’t have any other employment options at the time. He agreed and we found a 1 bedroom place in Costa Mesa. At least it got him out of his mom’s house and working again. I can’t remember the exact year now, but I think it was around 2000.

The problem was, the daily ritual of wine consumption was by then a serious habit. He’d go off to coffee in the morning, then go to Trader Joes for a couple bottles of “2 Buck Chuck”. He’d usually wait until after lunch to get into them, but even then, that was “day drinking” and I knew it.

In 2002 he suggested it would probably behoove us to actually get married. Neither of us was interested in finding anyone else. We got along great, we loved each other, and the tax benefits were a lot better than what we currently had.

Behind the facade…

If someone isn’t with a person all the time, they don’t really notice when things aren’t “right”. I know his friend’s impressions of him were that he was fun, always happy, and into having a good time. He was also a talented music composer and artist. What they didn’t seem to see, was that he was the classic example of the “tortured artist”.

I can’t remember when I found out that a number of his family members had committed suicide, but it might of coincided with one of his own episodes of deep depression. My personal struggle back in those days was anxiety, not depression, so I never fully understood how someone could actually want to die. Even in the darkest depths I’d sunk to while struggling with panic attacks and anxiety, I was still able to appreciate life, see beauty in the world, and know that better days were coming.

Before we’d moved in together and before getting married, I remember sitting on the step outside of my old apartment in L.A. after a particularly rough month where the only time I left the house was to get the mail. He came strolling up the sidewalk that day and sat down next to me. We didn’t say anything, just sat in silence, but he always had the uncanny ability to know what was going on with me emotionally. I’ll never forget what he said…

“You know… there are stars going supernova out there.”

Out of all the things to say, that’s what he said, and honestly, it was a turning point for me. It seriously changed my perspective about a great many things and it became something I could hold on to as I dug my way out of the dark hole I’d ended up in. I was able to free myself of anxiety and not look back, but his depression only grew…fueled by every cheap bottle of wine he drank and no matter what I tried, it didn’t seem to do much help. Still, he always told me, if it weren’t for me, he wouldn’t “be here”.

2007

The business was going pretty well. We had some major clients, work was coming in, and he was specializing in Flash animation and illustration. But everything still wasn’t happy.

His mom had been diagnosed with stage 3 cancer a few years prior and it was a slow decline. It was late March and I remember going to visit her at her house. She was in her early 60’s, but she looked like she was 80. Her hair had turned white. She sat propped up in bed, a mere shell of her former self. I swear I could feel death sitting there with us in her room. She struggled to take a breath, each time making that particular noise that people on their way out do. I’ll never forget it and all the emotions that went with it.

On the evening of April 1st, he went out to Trader Joe’s to get more wine. When he came in through the back door, I was sitting at the counter. I knew something was wrong as I could tell there were tears in his eyes. He said, “Well, mumsy’s dead.” It wasn’t like it was unexpected, but there was still a tidal wave of emotion that came with the announcement. Losing a parent is a tough deal. What’s worse, he didn’t get to attend the death bed vigil. He didn’t get to say goodbye. All he got was a phone call that she was gone. He was a wreck for awhile after that and honestly, never quite got over it.

We had been planning to move away from Southern California. My parents had property in Oregon, so he suggested we look around there. In May of that year we got in touch with a realtor and made the trip north to look for a home. We found a perfect place. At the same time, his mom’s house was just put on the market. We put in an offer, contingent on the sale of his mom’s place. Through a sheer miracle, her place sold in just 7 days. We were able to talk his uncle into allowing us to have some of the money out of the small trust that had been set up after his mom’s death. We used it for our down payment.

By June of 2007 we were officially residents of Oregon. At first, the change of pace, change of scenery, and distance from our old life was like a breath of fresh air. There were people and things in Southern California that he desperately wanted to get away from. I thought that maybe between not being around the old friends who encouraged the drinking, the depression would start to lift. It seemed so, or he did a really good job of hiding it. He was still working, still making art, and still making music.

When the thing he specialized in (Flash Animation) started going obsolete, it seemed like the depression really kicked back in. I encouraged him to try other things. He disappeared into making music again for awhile.

A long, downhill battle…

There were things I started to notice as the years passed. For example, if we went out to eat, he would always order an alcoholic beverage, even if he had already consumed a bottle (or more) of wine by that point of the day. We’d go up to the mountains to ski and snowboard and he’d bring a metal water bottle filled with wine. We’d go camping and the wine would come along too. He’d still have coffee in the morning, but rather than having breakfast, he’d open a bottle of wine. He’d joke about “being a wino”. Worse yet, so would his friends. Everything was still just a laugh. Everyone knew he liked his wine.

In 2013, my parents finally sold their house and bought a place about 5 miles down the road from us. I was happy to have them here as I’m the only child, so as they were getting older, I knew it was my responsibility to look after them. They knew he liked the wine. Any family gathering had to have wine for him. They noticed that he often had a glass of wine with lunch or dinner, but I don’t think they fathomed the full scope of the problem.

It wasn’t until they came by one morning when I had the garage door open and was in the middle of putting out the trash and the recycle bin that they really saw what was going on. The big blue recycle bin had approximately 25 empty wine bottles (a week’s worth). They were shocked. They stood there speechless for a minute before I broke the silence and said, “Yeah, that’s what he drinks in a week. This isn’t a new thing.” The cat was officially out of the bag.

Now I hail from a long and glorious line of drinkers. My own father was working his way down that path until I came along and he gave up the heavy drinking. His dad made it all the way into his 80s drinking from bottles of vodka he had stashed everywhere, including the truck of his car, up until the week he landed in the hospital with kidney failure. It wasn’t even the drinking that technically killed him, it was a bout of pneumonia he acquired while in the hospital that took him out. My paternal great grandfather wasn’t as long-lived and succumbed to a failed liver in his 40s. Plenty of hard drinkers on the mom’s side as well.

The one thing I can say about drinkers is they will be the ones who decide when they’ve had enough. Some of them never do decide that they’ve had enough.

Alcohol robs you of many things.

The smart, intelligent, talented, and funny guy I’d met all those years back in art school was fading away. Yes, people change, but sometimes things change the people. When you’re around someone all of the time, it’s harder to take note of subtle changes in their personality, but it was around 2013 that I noticed a real negative personality emerging.

Obviously, I wanted to help this person I loved deeply, but any time I offered help or tried to talk about the elephant in the room, I was shot down. Because you see, a functional alcoholic is much less of a trainwreck than someone going at it full bore. They can still work, they can still carry on intelligent conversations, and in many ways they can still show they care about the people who care about them. It makes it very easy for them to deflect any comments that they might have a problem. Meanwhile, the other problem is, after years of alcohol abuse, even with crappy wine, it seriously affects your brain.

Alcohol abusers like to hide and they like to wallow and they definitely do not like to be “told what to do”. There were periods of time where to the untrained eye, it seemed like there was only 1 bottle of wine very slowly going down on the kitchen counter. What was actually happening, was there were 2 or 3 more hidden in various places around the house… behind the couch in the back room, behind the computer in another room. Sometimes it was beer that was hidden. I used to find empties in the unused fridge we have stored in the garage. On trash day, he’d sneak bottles out into the recycle bin in the early morning, probably thinking I wouldn’t notice. I’d lay in bed as the recycle truck came and listen to them all descending into the truck, the cacophony a kind of metaphor for what I was bottling up inside. I wondered what the recycle guy thought?

The human body has an amazing way of compensating for damage. It will chug along with all it’s autonomous tasks basically until failure. Long term alcohol use has a wide variety of effects on the whole body.

I think it was in 2016 that he started complaining about his feet and lower legs hurting… like a pins and needles type feeling. Meanwhile I was googling things like “alcoholic neuropathy” after he would crash out on the couch for the night. I once emailed him an article about it only to be met in the morning with a vindictive kind of rage I really wasn’t expecting… “Why would you send me something like that? Do you really think that’s helpful?” To which my only response was along the lines of, “Dude, chill. Just thought you might want to know.” A minute later he’d be fine. All the while, I knew what was happening. Alcohol was just not robbing him, it was robbing me too.

He started eating less food, always complaining about nausea or “weird stomach pain”. Looking back, this was simply the first stage of cirrhosis, or Compensated cirrhosis. When I mentioned that, that was definitely not well received. Basically any “challenge” to his drinking or mention of health issues was met full force with the negative personality.

There was no talking him into going to the doctor. We have a good friend who’s a nurse practitioner who I kept in the loop but there was only so much she could do with a patient unwilling to be a patient.

No intervention.

He started watching that horrible Intervention show on tv. He’d sit there and make comments like, “Wow, they’re way more fucked up than me! At least I don’t drink a whole bottle of Jack every day or am addicted to heroin!” I really wouldn’t have any comment for that. Really, what could you say? Addiction is something that is different for every person. One person’s bottle of Jack is another person’s 3 bottles of red wine.

Don’t think I didn’t research intervention. I like to be informed when I’m facing a problem. The more I dug into the research, the more I uncovered what a low percentage rate of success intervention and forced treatment have. Remember the part about drinkers being the only ones who can truly determine when they’ve had enough? It’s true. The more I’ve lived with it, the more research I’ve done into it, the more I've come to understand that you can not force an adult to change their life if they are unwilling to change. It’s a complete uphill battle. People have free will. It doesn’t matter how much you love them or care about them. When it comes to their weapon of choice, nothing else matters to them except being able to continue doing whatever it is they’re doing, unfettered.

So medical treatment was refused, he outright said he would never do an intervention, and any and all forms of therapy were refused. I’m sure this is how alcohol abuse proceeds for most people. Anyone looking at it form the outside in might be shaking their head and chastising the other person or spouse like, “Why didn’t you DO SOMETHING!?” Well, free will is a hell of a thing and so is forcing another person to do something against that free will. To those folks, I honestly wouldn’t even wish they were in my shoes to have to know first hand what I’m talking about.

Why I never left…

I’m sure equally perplexing to many onlookers is why I didn’t just say to hell with this and leave as I lost hope that he would be able to put the breaks on the alcohol consumption himself. Again, I have to point out the “functional” part. For many years, life was very normal and except for some few day binges, no one could have even detected that he had a problem with booze. Most people thought we had a perfect life: running a successful business together, nice house on 2 acres in a beautiful area of Oregon, etc. And he was never abusive to me.

On a whole, we rarely even argued, even though arguing is part of every relationship. We’d never stay mad at eachother for very long.

Sure, I’d talk shit with my friends about stupid things he’d do, but it was things like blowing a work deadline, or laying on the couch watching trashy tv shows rather than mowing the grass. He did manage to work, he loved to cook, we went on small adventures, had great conversations and enjoyed many things together. Not everyone living with an alcoholic can say that. Everyone’s situation and how they feel and are affected by it is different.

A snappy retort to a challenge is not enough to make me bail on someone who I care about and I know is fighting their own battle… even if I know they’re slowly losing that battle. This is what I signed on for. I don’t abandon people. I took that, “in sickness and in health” vow (even if it was at a courthouse) and I’ll see it through to the end. My theme song is that old Lynn Anderson tune, “I Beg Your Pardon (I never promised you a rose garden)”. That’s all I’ll say about that.

A turn for the worst…

I would say 2017 was the real turning point. At this point, I was pretty sure he had at least stage 2 liver disease. Knowing that the liver can actually regenerate itself if it hasn’t turned to scar tissue, I still had hope that he could get healthier. I tried to encourage healthy habits, like making and eating dinner, but between a rental property that I was in charge of renovating, running the business, and keeping the house in order, I was letting the stress get to me. And then one morning when I was leaving the rental property, a woman ran a red light and t-boned me. I found myself in the emergency room with severe rib and neck injuries. For the next 12 weeks I was in constant pain (and I’m not into pain killers at all). The car was totaled, I still had to see the rental renovation to completion and I didn’t get any break at all in work. To top it off, my best feline friend died a couple months later and my aunt died a little while after that.

By the fall of that year, the days where my significant other reeked of wine, had discontinued personal hygiene, started forgetting more and more things, and began to lose interest in things he once found enjoyable, were really stacking up. It was getting difficult to even go places in public without just feeling like all eyes were on “the drunk” because of his crazy appearance, smell, and chatterbox tendencies. He was never anything close to a well-dressed man, but he went from average to hobo. If you happened to say anything along the lines of, “please go take a shower” you’d get the same vitriol you would as if you’d said, “please admit you’ve got a serious problem and stop drinking”.

The next couple years he ate less and less food. I’d wager for months on end, he might have ate maybe a couple hundred calories of actual food a day and the rest of the calories came from the wine. No amount of trying to get him to eat more food or making special meals worked. He started buying one of the larger 1.5L bottles of wine and a regular bottle of white wine and said he was “cutting back”. He stopped drinking coffee in the morning and went out only to procure the wine for the day. I would often be awake late at night and hear him get up, go into the kitchen, chug wine, then stumble back to the couch.

By late 2019, he had lost most of his muscle mass. His arms looked like he was an 80 year old dying man. His face was sunken and thin. He skin was incredibly dry, flakey and mottled. He complained of nausea a lot and would sometimes throw up. He had diarrhea every night. He walked like someone who was 86, not 46. Yet every morning, he’d leave the house early to go get that wine.

I remember the last argument we had. It of course started with me making a statement such as, “Could you give cutting back on the wine another try?” I also mentioned how difficult it was to watch someone you love destroy their health. He broke down yelling about how everyone always, “told him what to do” and he was sick of it. I kept my cool, asking who always told him what to do, to which he just responded, “everyone”. I knew this was the alcohol and the depression talking. If I always “told him what to do” and was a controlling person, his ass would have been in a rehab facility years ago. He also broke down in tears talking about how “no one” ever thought he had the talent to do anything–that even in grade school people thought his parents did all the work, not him. Even though myself and others would tell him how talented he was, that what he did produce in the form of art and music was great, and encouraged his artistic endeavors, he was still haunted by these thoughts.

That little disagreement ended with him making the statement that he’d be better off dead and it stands as one of the worst things he’s ever said in my opinion because of how stupid and wrong it was and how sad it made me feel that he could not win his battle with those thoughts.

August 2020

I need not get into what a whacked out year 2020 has been on many fronts, but my spouse’s long road of alcohol abuse is currently reaching a crescendo.

He’s admitted his problem, claims he is “trying” to get better. Our medical friend has been helping as much as she can, but with a patient who still refuses medical treatment or even to get blood work done, it’s hard. Her and I have talked privately about how things are likely to play out. What will happen when I call 911 after a collapse? Will his liver completely fail first, or will a heart attack, kidney failure, spontaneous bacterial peritonitis, or internal bleeding take him? Will I just wake up one morning and find him dead on the couch? These are real conversations that are happening. Will our health insurance policy cover hospitalization? Is our life insurance policy paid up? Does he need to have a signed Advanced Health Care Directive if he continues to refuse any medical treatment? What if he doesn’t have a will? These are real life things I’m facing as I type these words.

Most everyone I know who knows what’s going on has shifted their worry more to me than him. They’ve kind of given up hope on him too, which is its own kind of sad. I’ve been the one leading a healthy lifestyle all these years. I’m the one who will be left if this train completely derails and falls into the chasm.

And still, I’m the eternal optimist. If there is still breath, there can still be will and fight left in a person. Many long-term alcoholics have come back from the brink of death and lived the remainder of their years healthier and alcohol free. Will he be able to do it?

Right now, he spends most of his days on that couch watching tv. He has made some progress in cutting back the amount of wine he drinks, but he still drinks. He’s made some progress on eating more food, but he doesn’t eat enough. His body does not have the quality fuel it needs to recover.

I think about all the good times we had. How there is a very real possibility now I may lose my partner and my friend for good. I’m full of sadness for him. It’s been painful to watch the slow decline over the last several years and all of these more sudden and serious health problems the last month. It’s painful to see his eyes and skin turning yellow and when I point it out, have him adamantly say, “I’m not seeing it!” and “I’m feeling much better.” Last week I looked him straight in the eyes after that and said, “If that’s what you have to tell yourself to get through this, then that’s fine, but take this seriously.” He claimed he was. The next morning he bought more wine.

His abdomen is swollen with fluid (the medical term is ascites), he’s developed edema in his legs and feet. These are all things that are hallmarks of later stage liver disease. It’s painful to watch your friend who’s a medical professional say to him, “I can’t say for certain without lab work, but you don’t have the time to slowly wean yourself off the wine. It’s now or never. Your liver is failing.”

September 15, 2020

It’s been about a month since I last typed anything on this deeply personal piece. Today, things finally got bad enough — serious enough, to rattle the alcoholic. Today, he stopped drinking. From here, we start to find out together what real “recovery” may look like.

After gaining about 60 pounds in fluid, and agreeing to non-invasive treatment, he’s been prescribed diuretics.

There really is no magical cirrhosis treatment plan. Once the liver is scarred, that scarred tissue is pretty much non-repairable. At advanced stages, liver transplant is the recommended treatment and until that, it’s the management of symptoms of a slowly failing or barely functioning organ. I need not really get into the fact that the transplant wait list is impossibly long and anyone on it has to be completely alcohol free for quite some time. That is not some fail-safe we could ever rely on. Besides that, he doesn’t want a transplant. He doesn’t want any invasive treatments at this point.

It’s been a couple weeks and he has not yet agreed to do lab work, but being sober for the first time in well over a decade, he’s definitely well aware of the damage he’s done. I actually overheard him talking with one his best friends about an ex-roommate who drinks – “She might want to rethink that, or she’ll end up like me.” Rather profound for someone to admit that only a couple weeks after stopping drinking.

October 8, 2020

His body has responded well to the diuretics. Still no lab work, so it’s all just a guessing game of “how much functional liver does he have left?” It’s not like the ascites has gone away — it’s still very much there, but the diuretics are at least doing their job so that he doesn’t balloon up like the Michelin Man again. He’s still jaundiced and has not been able to put back any healthy weight yet.

I’ve read so many stories now of other’s journeys. Everyone with cirrhosis has a different battle. For some, they beat the odds. For others, they simply become another statistic.

This is something he’s going to have to live with for the rest of his life. He literally drank away his health and it’s a crap shoot from here on out how much health he can gain back and if he even can. Forever the eternal optimist, I’m hoping he’s the one who beats the odds. Forever the eternal realist, I know the odds are stacked against him. Decompensated Cirrhosis is typically a death sentence with a life expectancy of “up to 2 years”.

November 1, 2021

He did agree to get bloodwork in late October. The results are not great. Without more lab tests, it’s hard to know exactly how much liver function he has left. On the upside, he’s still eating more food than he was, helping me around the house, making me dinner, and expressing how grateful he is that I’m here to help him.

January 15, 2021

I haven’t written any updates for a couple months because I was just “in the moment”.

Four months ago he stopped drinking. He’s managed to stay out of the hospital during this time, but the symptoms of decompensated cirrhosis are worsening — severe jaundice, ascites, edema, loss of appetite, a severe form of anemia, whacked out blood pressure with an elevated heart rate, severe dry skin and bruising. Our medical provider and friend has scheduled an appointment with a liver specialist, but the first available appointment is April 29th. At this point, he won’t make it to that appointment not because he doesn’t want to go, but because he won’t be alive by then.

Since October we haven’t really talked a lot about the fact that his drinking led to his current state, but through comments here and there, he’s let me know that he messed up. He’s said, “I stupidly thought I was invincible … that nothing bad would ever happen.” I’m sure a lot of alcoholics think this. In a constant, drunk haze where you’re completely out of touch with reality, it’s probably very easy to think everything is okay and that it will be okay.

I don’t need to rub salt in that wound, especially at this stage. The past is the past and can not be changed.

I know back in September, he thought that because he’d stopped drinking, he was going to get better. He had a couple great months in October and November. I’m grateful to have had that because he made sure to express how much he appreciated I stayed around–how much I meant to him. And that may be something that so many people don’t understand or aren’t lucky enough to get. All relationships have their ups and downs. The ones that last are the ones where you’re able to accept the good and the bad.

Since the beginning of December, he basically lies on the couch all day watching tv, too weak to really do much of anything. For years he had no fears or qualms about death because it seemed like a very far off thing that he could laugh off. He would joke about how he wouldn’t make it to 50, not thinking then that he was slowing becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. I think he knows it’s the end and he’s resigned himself to his fate. The last act in this tragedy. His stoic calm is impressive. I know deep down, the clock is ticking. I don’t think he’s told any of his friends what’s really going on. I’m just trying to stay in the moment. I make him food, I give him back rubs, we talk about some of the fun times we’ve had, but we do not talk about The End. One thing I do know is he still doesn’t want any invasive treatments, advanced life-saving measures, or to rack up a huge hospital bill. He’s trusting me to make decisions when decisions need to be made.

Our friend popped by to check on him today. When she was leaving I walked outside with her and she said, “I hate to be grim, but we’re just slowing down a freight train at this point.” All I could say was, “I know.” My friend knows. She sadly lost her other half to the slow decline of Crohn’s disease. I deeply appreciate everything she’s done to try and help and for her perspective. She reminds me all the time that I need to be sure to take care of myself during this time.

February 7, 2021

It’s Superbowl Sunday and he seems incredibly tired. He slept through most of the game but at points, still managed to talk trash on the Chiefs and some of the ads. I made us some Annie’s Organic cheese and spirals and broccoli, which he ate a little bit of. There is a heaviness in the air. I’m feeling really grim about things.

February 8, 2021

I awoke to find him restless on the couch in the living room. He had thrown up in the kitchen sink and was refusing water and food. I made him a cup of tea anyway and he drank half of it. By afternoon he was getting more and more disoriented. I knew he was going downhill fast. I called 911 at 4:48pm.

The paramedics did not have an easy time getting him out the door, but because I had the wherewithal to put a blanket down on the couch before he laid back down on it, the guys were able to scoop him up. The neighbors were out in the cul-de-sac with concerned faces. I didn’t have time to explain anything to them. The ambulance left. His father and I followed after that down to the hospital.

I had to wait about 30 minutes before they let me go into the ER room. Because of COIVD, only 1 visitor a day is allowed. He was restless and wanted to get up. The ER was slammed and they were short staffed. I did my best to keep him calm and in the bed. I also had to explain to each nurse and doctor that came by what the situation was. They hooked him up with electrolytes and blood. By the time test results came in a couple hours later, they were grave. I had to be his advocate. I had to let everyone know he was a “DNR” (do not resuscitate)–that he didn’t want invasive treatments or life saving measures if it came down to that. Off hand, I noted we were in Room 13.

By 11pm, we finally got placed into a hospital room in their PCU (one step below ICU)… also room 13. It was a bad omen. He was still very disoriented and did not want to be there. They had to use restraints on his arms as he kept trying to pull at IVs and get out of the bed, even in his incredibly weakened state. When they got him settled and left the room, I did my best to try and calm him. I told him not to fight this–that it was okay to let go. I’m almost certain he thought he was still on the couch.

February 9, 2021

I got a call from someone at the hospital wanting to perform a procedure to extract fluids from his abdomen. I vetoed it and asked for the doctor to call me. About 30 minutes later the doctor called and said his MELD score (a score they use on liver patients to predict mortality) was as high as it goes. I told her to be frank and asked how much time he has left. She guessed maybe a week or two at most. I knew she was shooting high. My gut told me a day or two at most. I told her to have him put on palliative care–keep him comfortable and full of “the good drugs”.

When I got to the hospital early in the afternoon, the nurse mentioned he was not very responsive or lucid. When she left, I asked him if he wanted to talk to his best friend. He said “sure”. I had been texting everyone, letting them know what was going on. Many of his friends were shocked because, as I suspected, he said nothing about how ill he was. I was able to do a Facetime with one of his best friends who he’s known since middle school. We both kind of lost it at the end.

Apparently, even in the time of COVID, if someone is on palliative care, our hospital will allow up to 4 visitors any time of the day. His father was able to come by. That was heartbreaking. Having no children myself, I can only imagine what those feelings are like. Your kids are supposed to outlive you, not die at age 47.

A woman and a chaplin came into the room. The chaplin was rather cool and not pushy and left after I told her he didn’t have any requests in that department. The other woman tried to push me into doing home hospice. I stood my ground that he would not need it as he didn’t have much time left and moving him at this point was pointless. He would have rather not died on the couch.

When we were alone together in the room, I asked him, “Can you hear me?” He said yes. I asked if he knew who I was and and he said yes. I said, say my name and he did. Whatever state his consciousness was in, he was at least a little bit aware that I was there. I asked him if he’d seen his mom yet and he said, “not yet”. I then told him that his mom is coming by to pick him up and that they’re going on a trip together but I can’t come with them. I said I would meet up with them later. I told him, “you can not stay in this place where you’re at now, you got me?” And he said, “yeah”. He drifted off after that and seemed to be sleeping, so I came back home.

The End

The next day the pushy home hospice woman who was calling herself the “comfort care nurse” called me from the hospital and reiterated that I could come down at any time. I asked how he was today and she said, “Oh he’s the same as yesterday”. When my friend and I got to the hospital about 90 minutes later, we discovered that was a bold-faced lie. He had moved into the “death rattle” stage. I phoned his father to get down there quick. I asked the nurse how long he’d been like that and she said, “quite awhile, I can’t believe no one called you. He’s transitioning”. So this was it.

Before I’d left the house, I charged up his old iPod and brought that and his headphones. He loved music his whole life and hadn’t been listening to it the last couple months (I think it just made him sad) so I wanted to make sure he coasted out with some good music. I turned the iPod on and started playing some of his favorites. About 10 minutes later, the iPod shuts off. I’m unable to get it back on. I look at my friend and said, “The iPod died before he did!” (yes, we all have a morbid sense of humor). I took it as a sign that he wanted me to pick the tunes, so I started looking up some of our mutual favorites on YouTube and started playing them on my phone.

Meanwhile, this “comfort care nurse” insisted on coming into the room and doing everything in her power to get me out of the room, from suggesting I, “get up and take a break” to saying things like, “oh, people in this state don’t want their loved ones to see them”. I was honestly so shocked at her behavior, I really had no words other than, “I’m staying” as I glared at her. It was the literal end of his life… the last hours, minutes, and seconds I would get to spend with him on this physical plane of existence and she was trying to ruin it. I am not squeamish about death and I certainly wanted to fully feel and be present for this momentous event. I get that some people are not like that, but I am clearly not one of those people.

For 4 hours I sat on the bed and held on to him, saying things like, “Well, you’re coasting out on the good drugs, just like you always joked you wanted to!” as well as commenting about what track was playing and the memories it brought up.

At around 6:45pm, the nurse (who was awesome btw) suggested she give him the full dose of morphine. I said, “Do it.” Besides one final interruption with that incorrigible woman asking me to, “step out in the hall, I need to know what mortuary you’re picking” (for real!), who I pretty much ignored, I was right there, holding on to him as he shuffled off this mortal coil. His breathing slowed to short, labored gasps. I leaned in close and put my hand on his chest. I said, “Your mom is here. I love you. I’ll meet up with you later.”, as he took his last breath. I let the music play a little bit longer.

Parting words…

If you’re here, reading this, I’m guessing you might be somehow affected by alcohol or by an alcoholic. Or perhaps, you’re simply curious.

It wasn’t easy to swim through all the emotions of everything that led to this moment in my life and the end of his life, but here we are. I can only hope that through writing this, I can somehow help someone else. I don’t mind telling his story. He had a lot of regret in his final months and I do feel he wanted to caution people to not make the same mistakes he did.

I hope that just maybe, I can offer some sort of “I’ve been there” type of consolation to others or change the mind of someone on that path with alcohol so that they stop for a moment to think: Am I dying for a drink?

I have written other pieces in the “aftermath” you may also check out: “Never Say Goodbye, Say Caio” and “Embracing the Abyss of Grief”.