My husband has been ill for 5 years but was only diagnosed last year. He is 55 years old and has Fronto temporal dementia. He has semantic dementia and can barely understand anything I say now and he can't say things well as much of his vocabulary is gone. I'm 45 and am struggling most of the time but particularly at the moment. I am resentful of the situation I am in and want my life back, my life feels like a living hell with no escape. I feel like I live in a cycle of anger, guilt and frustration. I can barely spend time in his company at the moment due to being so annoyed by him and my lack of patience. What angers me on top of this is his obsession with alcohol. It's getting worse and he's having at least 2 drinks a night, usually at home but always asking me to go to the pub, which I don't want to do or being obsessed about when he can go out with friends. He doesn't accept it makes him worse as he says it relaxes him. When he comes home drunk he is 3000 times more annoying and I end up just getting angry and trying to get him to just go to bed out of my way but he insists he isn't drunk and keeps trying to talk. I then feel guilty for shouting once he finally goes to bed. I don't think this is ever going to end, is he just going to get more and more obsessed and keep drinking or wanting to drink more? He's always been a pub man but never had a drink every night before now. He's cut down on the amount he drinks when he's out as it takes him a lot less to get drunk but he still sometimes has to be walked home by someone due to the amount he's had. I don't know what to do about it?how to control my anger when he comes home drunk or wants a drink at an 'inappropriate' time? Is this alcohol obsession going to get worse because if so I'm not sure I can cope. Anyone else experienced or experiencing something similar?
Alcohol
- Thread starter Sylvester01
- Start date
I think there can be an element of the PWD wanting to forget their problem. My wife was a bit like that and I moved her on to shandies very successfully so she can now have a few drinks without being a drunken burden. It is very hard to keep ones cool when the other person just seems to be taking the mickey but I suppose that we just have to remember the illness and work to control the situation. I wish you luck along the hard road we travel.
I can really only address one of your points from personal experience: I found that my mother, when she had a couple of drinks was a lot more communicative. In fact, almost more lucid. I put it down to the fact that she was fairly aware that she wasn't as sharp as she had been, so tended to resort to smiling and nodding when she was sober, while after a drink she was less inhibited. Do you think there could be an element of that with your husband?
Alcohol definitely makes the symptoms of dementia worse, in my opinion. It is a long, hard road, but it sounds like you are trying to do everything alone. I was in the position it sounds as if you are in now...and I’ve got some help. It isn’t possible to do it all alone ...and act like a saint at the same time. In the end, I went to the GP and asked him to refer me for a carer’s assessment. In fact that is happening at the end of February (!) but meantime, I have arranged an extra day at a day care centre and, more importantly, have managed to find someone to sleep over two nights a week, so I can have a regular, and complete break.
I’m also beginning a course of counselling. I really need some strategies to cope with the anger I feel sometimes.
A lot of this help was actually triggered by the pharmacist I saw immediately after the visit to the GP. She rang the local carer service on my behalf, and referred me. So, can you research what is available in your area? In some areas Age UK organise everything, in others it is the Altzheimer’s Society. I believe if you go to the home page on this site, you can enter your postcode and find out what is available in your area.
Keep posting...you will always find there is someone who knows how you feel...and there is help available.
I’m also beginning a course of counselling. I really need some strategies to cope with the anger I feel sometimes.
A lot of this help was actually triggered by the pharmacist I saw immediately after the visit to the GP. She rang the local carer service on my behalf, and referred me. So, can you research what is available in your area? In some areas Age UK organise everything, in others it is the Altzheimer’s Society. I believe if you go to the home page on this site, you can enter your postcode and find out what is available in your area.
Keep posting...you will always find there is someone who knows how you feel...and there is help available.
Pete suggested switching to shandies to reduce your husband's alcohol intake but just to help you until you can get some help sorted out, why not get in some low alcohol beer for him? Obviously it would be only an interim measure but if it makes your life just a little bit easier, it could be worth a try.
It's bad enough having to cope with someone who is so abusive to you without adding alcohol into the mix. Others have made much more practical suggestions but I do hope that you can get help.
It's bad enough having to cope with someone who is so abusive to you without adding alcohol into the mix. Others have made much more practical suggestions but I do hope that you can get help.
Dear Syl...
I can relate to your anger and frustration. I too was very young when the Alzheimers diagnosis came into our lives. My husband was 49 and I was 48. In the beginning I was angry all the time. And frustrated. But I only have one life and I had to accept that I could not change this diagnosis and there was no cure in sight. It took a long time. We are now 64 and 63. Today, I seek help whenever I can find it. To cope with this life, I must have time alone to pursue my own life and activities. Once my youngest child who was 11 when my husband was diagnosed was finished with university and out into the world, some of my pressures diminished.
I found I must accept this was what I have been given for now and I try to find solutions to the situation. For some people that means no longer caring for the person at home or divorce. Everyone must find there own path. I do not judge anyone for their choices and decisions. I have managed miraculously to provide for my children and family, with the help of God, family and good friends. I have been able to keep my OH at home, but that is this 24 hours I accept that things will change and it may not always be possible for me continue has I am doing now. I personally have been able to be content with moments of joy....sometimes hours of joy. But it took me awhile for find a way to experience some joy and relief.....I do not feel much love for my husband really, just obligation and duty. But I also accept that, and not beat myself up that this is the way I cope. I try to remember the man he was but it is difficult to connect this person with that former self.Luckily for me, there is a bit of him in there from time to time, where I can connect.
My husband was never a drinker so I did not have this particular problem to deal with....but it sounds as though there were always alcohol issues there with your husband. Perhaps you can find some support via Alanon. Remember regarding his alcohol, you did not cause it, you cannot control it and you cannot cure it, as with his frontal lobe dementia. Good luck.
Its a difficult one.
An obsession with a particular food (usually sweet) or alcohol is one of the main early symptoms of FTD.
When they are mobile and still able to do things like buy alcohol from the shop or pub it is almost impossible to stop them and if you try, that can be a huge trigger for rage. Fortunately my OH didnt get obsessed with alcohol; - only bananas, which is not a problem. I must say, though, that the obsession did pass after about a year. Thats an awfully long time for an alcohol obsession, though and Im afraid I dont know what to suggest.
An obsession with a particular food (usually sweet) or alcohol is one of the main early symptoms of FTD.
When they are mobile and still able to do things like buy alcohol from the shop or pub it is almost impossible to stop them and if you try, that can be a huge trigger for rage. Fortunately my OH didnt get obsessed with alcohol; - only bananas, which is not a problem. I must say, though, that the obsession did pass after about a year. Thats an awfully long time for an alcohol obsession, though and Im afraid I dont know what to suggest.
I have just found this thread which describes my husband very well. Alcohol is an obsession together with sunsetting, checking the door locks constantly over the evening, wanting to go to bed and then constantly going up and down stairs. I have been searching for more information and here it is, all part of the AD pattern of behaviour. Some carers have it worse and I feel for them.
My wife went through a drinking phase so I just bought cartons of grape juice and decanted them into a wine bottle, that way she could drink as much as she liked. I drank it to little did she know my glass had a (generous) shot of vodka in it. Other than watering whatever he drinks down with alcohol free beer, lager, grape juice, lemonade or whatever I don't have much else to suggest other than with time a lot of these problems do go away.
K
K
I feel at the end of my tether. Yet another evening from about 4 o’clock onwards as he obsesses about having a little drink, a half at the pub. This is just the beginning of course, as he then wants wine in the evenings. So I just say no. He appears to accept it but then I heard him out in the hall going into the cupboard, find him with a bottle of rosé and he is licking his lips. He has been out and bought it, unscrewed the cap and had a swig which I caught him at. I managed to nip it in the bud and reminded him that Monday is an alcohol free day. He then told me that he had to do that because ‘you won’t let me go for a drink’. I have to take all this on the chin simply to protect him from self harming with alcohol. Night after night I have this pantomime and even on the nights when he can have one, it’s an uphill battle to limit the amount. This disease is insidious and all reason has gone. It is a big burden and no end in sight. Now I feel a bit better after that rant!
@Grahamstown - I am so sorry you are having so much trouble keeping your OH away from the alcohol. I am sorry I have no further suggestions but wanted you to know I was thinking of you.
Interesting that this thread has been revived as my problems with my wife's drinking have raised their ugly head again since I last posted. My problem is that every trick I try only works for a while and then she gets drunk again. The only time when we have problems that I can't manage is when she gets drunk as I end up feeling hurt and insulted because of her behaviour. I always get over things and just dig a bit deeper into my reserves and carry on, but oh boy!!!!
My latest trick is alternating an order of beers with an order of water for us both. I persuaded her to try this by telling her about an energy boost/hydration trick I used in my marathon racing days and describing the science that would get the alcohol into her system faster so satisfying her need to get drunk. She doesn't actually get too drunk and we have a better time as a result. I wonder how long this ruse will work.
Isn't it a pity that behaving sensibly isn't a trait I often see in my PWD.
My latest trick is alternating an order of beers with an order of water for us both. I persuaded her to try this by telling her about an energy boost/hydration trick I used in my marathon racing days and describing the science that would get the alcohol into her system faster so satisfying her need to get drunk. She doesn't actually get too drunk and we have a better time as a result. I wonder how long this ruse will work.
Isn't it a pity that behaving sensibly isn't a trait I often see in my PWD.
Thanks so much. The crisis is over again now and he has gone up to bed. I have hidden the bottle so that he cannot secretly drink it. He will be fine now until tomorrow late afternoon.
I am with you in spirit as we struggle to keep our PWD safe. My OH had an admission to hospital nearly two months ago which caused quite a decline so that makes me especially concerned to try and keep him safe. Good luck with your efforts too.
I have to see the funny side just to keep sane and I now have 3 bottles of wine with amounts taken out stashed away in hidden places. I am running out of places! I could throw them away but that doesn’t work because he just buys more so my new plan is to buy a bottle of non alcoholic wine and top them up. If it says non alcoholic on any bottle of beer or wine he still wants the real thing as well, but if I top up a bottle with water he doesn’t appear to notice. Would you ever believe it would come to this when you remember the normal person?
No, I didn't expect dementia. We don't have any alcohol at home, which is a shame as I used to like the occasional glass of Port. We only drink when we go to karaoke and my problem is in her favourite bar, where they run a tab system. This means that she can order extra drinks that I don't know about until I get the bill unless I watch her like a hawk. She usually waits until I'm singing and then sneaks extra drinks for herself. Isn't it strange how she can seem to plan that but can't plan anything useful! The trouble is that because you see this type of thinking ability it's hard to then put all their behaviour down to dementia when they get insulting.
Dementia certainly shows us whether or not we are the loving & forgiving type (or is that 'mug'?).
Dementia certainly shows us whether or not we are the loving & forgiving type (or is that 'mug'?).
I so remember the various tricks we had to use with mum. Non alcoholic and .05 alcohol wine would be decanted into an ordinary wine bottle. She could no longer follow a newspaper but she sure could read the wine labels.
The brandy we had more difficulty with as wine was a dinner time or pub drink but brandy would be drunk at any time of day. We watered it down; we locked it in the cabinet in the kitchen with child locks but she found the magnetic key; we hid it in the bottom drawer of my desk in the study but she found it... Bottle finished we did not buy another but she got someone to buy it for her and bring it home. Mum died in February and I have just settled up with her 'drinks delivery boy' (85 years old and walks with a frame) who used to come for 'a cup of tea and a chat' once a week and put the bottle behind some books in the bookcase.
I know I always felt like her parent, though thank heaven it was just alcohol and not Ecstasy!
The brandy we had more difficulty with as wine was a dinner time or pub drink but brandy would be drunk at any time of day. We watered it down; we locked it in the cabinet in the kitchen with child locks but she found the magnetic key; we hid it in the bottom drawer of my desk in the study but she found it... Bottle finished we did not buy another but she got someone to buy it for her and bring it home. Mum died in February and I have just settled up with her 'drinks delivery boy' (85 years old and walks with a frame) who used to come for 'a cup of tea and a chat' once a week and put the bottle behind some books in the bookcase.
I know I always felt like her parent, though thank heaven it was just alcohol and not Ecstasy!
Wow I don’t feel so bad now because I cannot say that I like all this subterfuge but obviously have to do it. I am not sure I would have made a good spy or double agent but I feel like one now. It’s a case of keeping one step ahead all the time. At least he doesn’t drink during the day for now! We are going to lunch on Easter Sunday with some extended family the father of whom drinks like a fish at lunch, a bottle of red is nothing and he is 85 or 6. He has amazing stamina and nothing would stop him but he has not got dementia, I don’t think.
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