The Sober Widow

Well, another holiday season is behind us, and I turned 63 yesterday. I’m locked away in my office upstairs with Primo while some windows are being replaced in my house. I thought this would be as good a time as any to write another blog post.

When I started this blog, I had a linear approach to a timeline. I wanted to present the events that occurred in 2023 leading up to and beyond my transplant surgery. The plan was to continue that timeline to cover the recovery and recuperation, but that’s less important to me now than talking about other things, like the effects drinking has not only on our own health but also how it affects our family and friends who have to watch us go down a rabbit hole of self-destruction.

There are some interesting and funny stories around my recuperation, but I’ll get to that another time. There are a couple of recent events in my life that I want to relay to you instead. The first occurred about three weeks ago and involved a friend I’ve renamed Jennifer for her privacy (although when I asked her if I could write about her, she enthusiastically gave me her approval, but nevertheless when this blog is made into a movie, I think I should protect her, ha ha).

Jennifer and I know each other through work. I’ve never actually met her face to face, as she lives in another state far away. But we’ve talked numerous times on the phone and we got along immediately. Same offbeat sense of humor and appreciation for life, and we’re both hard workers so we appreciated that about each other immediately, and mutual respect was there from the start.

At the time we met, we were both drinkers. Jen not so much as she was pregnant, but certainly when she was able to, she went back to drinking her Tito’s cocktails like me. We would joke around about how after a hard day’s work, we couldn’t wait to start drinking. It was all in good fun – until it wasn’t. She left her department to move on at the company, but we stayed in touch, friends on Facebook, etc. When I got sick, she reached out and continued to follow my journey with compassion and concern. Another friend for whom I’m grateful as she showed great support and then, of course, was horrified like everyone else when I lost Tony.

Fast forward. All through 2024, I followed her weight-loss and fitness journey when she created her Facebook group to track this. When I was physically able to exercise again, I jumped on board and she and her local buddies were there for support as well. And she followed my blog and suggested to her followers to do so as well if they had any issues with alcohol. Given her commitment to fitness, I was surprised as hell to hear from her on her own struggles with drinking. And this year’s holidays seem to have pushed her over the edge, as I got a panicked text from her saying that she had a breakdown and after too much vodka, screamed at her husband and kids, saying some very mean and vile things. To her credit, she recognized immediately that she needed to stop drinking and told me this blog helped her realize that.

You could not pay me a higher compliment.

My goal when creating this was to help ordinary people like me recognize and address these types of issues. Alcohol use is insidious and abuse of it creeps up on you. No one starts out as a raging alcoholic. A few drinks during the week, maybe overindulgence on the weekend or at a special event, are not going to make you an alcoholic overnight. But if your tolerance for it gets higher, and it takes more and more to make you feel the effects, you’re going to eventually drink far more than you should, and chase that state of inebriation to help you manage a stressful life, or maybe even just have a few extra drinks to help you cope with one major part of your life. And I’ve said it before, but the glorification of alcohol in our society is not doing anyone any favors. That’s not going to change, but if we understand that just because Hollywood tells you it’s okay, it’s not, I think that’s really all we can hope to accomplish.

For anyone who wants to know: Jennifer is doing really well as of this writing. She and I connect often and I could not be prouder or happier that she trusted me enough to bring me into her world. I’m so impressed with her strength and I’m glad someone like that is a mother as she is bringing up strong, resilient kids, which we need more of (yes, I ended a sentence with a preposition. Sue me.).

Here’s the second story I want to tell you. First, this is a Q&A from an advice column I follow daily, called “Asking Eric.” I absolutely related to this and want to share.

Dear Eric: My only son passed away six months ago. I told everyone that his death was due to heart problems when it was actually due to the effects of long-term alcoholism. He was 35 and a highly successful lawyer in New York City, as well as being a philanthropist.

He truly had heart problems, but they were caused by his alcoholism. (Alcohol is a poison, but it does not kill us because our liver detoxifies it. However, if one has more than one or two drinks a day the liver often cannot keep up and every organ in the body suffers over time.)

My subterfuge was to protect his reputation as I wanted him to be remembered for all that he had contributed to making his part of the world a better place versus as a drunk. He was a highly functional alcoholic, always on time, never missing work or a trial.

Now, some of my close friends are asking me to correct my story in hopes that others who are hiding substance abuse will have the courage to seek help before the inevitable and sad outcome of long-term use takes the ultimate toll. Should I reveal his secret or not?

– Conflicted in Grief

Dear Conflicted: There is a saying that many in recovery use: “we’re only as sick as our secrets.” Alcoholism is a disease; for many, shame and secrecy allow that disease to fester, spread and destroy. Your son can’t be harmed by his disease anymore, nor can he be harmed by his secrets.

So, if you have the opportunity to tell the whole story and it feels safe for you, take it.

Many grieving parents find some comfort in this. Do an internet search for the 2017 obituary of Casey Marie Schwartzmier, which went viral because of the incredible love and honesty with which Schwartzmier’s parents capture her life, her vivacity and her struggle with addiction. It changed lives when it was published and continues to do so years later.

But don’t do anything simply to appease your friends. Your grief process is the most important thing at the moment. I’m so sorry for your loss and I’m wishing you peace and comfort.

I read Casy Schwartzmier’s story so that I could post this information in good conscience. Man, is that powerful stuff. I highly encourage you to Google her and read it yourself. Talk about honesty. I’ve been very honest in this blog about the things I choose to say, but I will freely admit that it’s really hard to talk about how my drinking has affected my friends and family. I am pretty sure the reason my nieces don’t speak to me anymore is that too many times I was drunk when talking to them on the phone or when they visited me. Although we’re all older now, and I think they know I don’t drink anymore, the damage has been done. I’ve thought about sending each of them a letter, and I’m still working out in my mind how to word it so that the right message comes through. I do feel terrible about how we left things and I want to make it right.

Also – thank GOD my rock bottom was personal illness and not a DUI or heaven forbid, hurting someone else with that DUI. I never lost my job or graduated to drugs or anything like that. What happened to me was terrible and I did almost die, but I didn’t take anyone else with me. I’m not sure I could ever have lived with myself if that were the case. It was bad enough that I hurt my loved ones emotionally.

Anyway, back to the rest of this story. As some of you know, I’ve been in the hospital twice more since Sicily, most recently January 21 through 23 with another UTI. When I was being transported from the ER to the hospital room I was assigned, I was talking to the older gentleman who was taking me. His name is Walter and he is from Germany. He knew I had a liver/kidney transplant and he told me that his ex-wife had just died from liver disease. He was still pretty broken up about it because he never stopped loving her. He just couldn’t live with her anymore because as sick as she was, she would not stop drinking. She denied until the end that she had a problem. Walter told me that he and her daughter would go to the house to check on her, and search high and low for the alcohol they knew she had hidden all around, but were never able to find anything. Yet she was constantly drunk and belligerent about the fact that they were even there to help her. She didn’t qualify for a liver transplant, not only because her liver was too far gone (remember the MELD score?) but also because it was quite evident that she would never have stopped drinking even if she did qualify.

So, she died. And poor Walter was wracked with guilt about it. He thought he should have done more to help her. I tried to explain gently that he had nothing to feel bad about, because in order to successfully stop drinking, she had to want to do it herself. This is not something you can or should do for someone else. If she wanted to live, the power was in her hands, and only in her hands.

When he left me in my room, he put his hand on my shoulder and simply said “thank you.” So then of course I burst into tears, and that story stayed with me for a long time (obviously). I really, really hope I helped him in some small way.

I could blather on and on about this topic, but I think you understand the point I’m trying to make here. We do not live in a silo, or a vacuum. Our actions affect the ones who love us; our self-destruction is not confined only to ourselves. We must always remember that, especially those people who have children. Other adults are one thing, but when young children see Mommy’s personality change right before their eyes, and she suddenly starts screaming at them for no reason, that is going to affect them on a profound level for their whole lifetimes (once, no, but repeatedly? Yes, of course it will).

I’ll leave you with those thoughts for now, and thanks for making it this far with me. Peace.