She watched him stagger in the general direction of the sofa, making an effort to hold up the walls as he went, his feet shuffling across the carpet. "You're drunk again." Becky's heart was pounding with anger and frustration. She knew he would deny it as he usually did, even though the whiskey fumes washed over her like waves on the shore, filling the entire room with evidence of his drunkenness. Between the whiskey and the cigarettes, Becky found it difficult not to feel nauseous when she was near her husband.
She had moved into the second bedroom several months previously but was beginning to think that even that was too close. "Would you consider going to AA?" she had asked him again a few weeks ago.
His answer had been typical of him. "No, I don't need to go."
"But surely even you must admit that alcohol has had an adverse effect on your life. Eventually your health is going to be seriously affected by it. You probably already have liver disease because of it. And you could hardly call our relationship functional. You're going to have to do something, Paul. I'm not going to continue to live like this. You're going to have to decide what it's going to be - me or your alcohol." Becky knew she was nagging but was having difficulty controlling her feelings of frustration.
He had stared at her, seemingly unmoved by her words. And then he had shrugged and turning his back on her had gone to get himself another drink. There, she thought, was her answer. She was beginning to suspect that there wasn't much mixing going on in those drinks, more like undiluted whiskey. He added a little ice but drank it before the ice had a chance to melt.
Today he sat slumped on the sofa, smoke curling around his face from the cigarette he held in his hand. Her heart continued to pound. She was tempted to just turn and leave right now. One day, she was afraid, he was going to burn down the house. He was an alcoholic, like his father before him had been. And his mother hadn't been far behind. Becky admitted to herself that Paul hadn't had a chance but if he wasn't going to help himself, she couldn't do it for him. She was slowly beginning to admit to herself that she wasn't going to let him drag her down with him into his misery and whatever hell it was he existed in.
He had lost his job about a year ago because of his drinking - drinking on the job to be exact. And every day when she arrived home from work, she found him like this. He had made no effort to look for other work and with each passing day instead had gradually drunk more until by dinnertime, he was usually passed out. It was no longer a marriage or a relationship of any kind. Nothing existed between them any longer.
She continued to watch him. "I can see you have made your decision."
He raised his head slightly from his chest and through bleary, unfocused eyes glanced in her direction. "Wh ... you talk ... 'bout," he slurred his words and then his head fell back onto his chest again. Becky knew that would probably be it until morning for him.
Walking over to where he lay slouched in the corner of the sofa, she took the cigarette from between his fingers and butted it out in the nearby ashtray. And removing the glass from his unresisting fingers, she carried it into the kitchen. The counters were littered with dirty glasses and crumbs from his morning toast. The forty pounder of whiskey sat uncapped on the table along with a glass, moist with condensation. She grimaced. Another water mark was visible on its surface.
Going back into the living room she threw a blanket over him. There was a time when she would try to get him into bed but that time had long since passed. She had phoned his doctor and told him how much he was drinking especially since his job loss and then had set up an appointment for him. That had served no purpose. On his return home he has said everything was fine.
"Did the doctor say anything about your drinking," she had asked.
"No, he didn't mention it. He said everything was good. He did say you had called him though. I don't know what you're so worried about, I don't drink much."
Becky could only shake her head. Sometime later he had complained of stomach pains and she'd suggested he go to the doctor again. Surprisingly he had gone and even taken tests. When she asked him about the results, he had only said that it was nothing serious; nothing that was going to kill him."
'Maybe not immediately,' she had thought, 'but it will eventually'. She had thought during the last few years of their marriage of the children they might have had and that she was now glad they hadn't had. She had been consumed with a deep sadness at the time when she realized it wasn't going to happen but realized later that it would have been difficult for children to witness a parent in an inebriated condition on a daily basis. What would it have done to them? What had it done to him seeing his father drunk and belligerent and very often violent? ...
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