When we buried my brother-in-law six months ago, I found vodka in my husband’s truck, which wasn’t exactly surprising. I was scared and confused. I did not want to admit that my husband had a drinking issue, but I knew right away that he did. Regrettably, for more than a year, my husband’s substance abuse problem went unnoticed because he became skilled at hiding it as an alcoholic.
We live in Germany and when the reality of the addiction sunk in, I thought my first opportunity to seek help would be closer to home. Behind my back, I found a wall of impossibly high price tags. Inpatient rehab in Germany is thorough, yes but the prices are incredibly high. The full rehabilitation program has high costs running into tens of thousands of euros, and the waiting lists were months long. We didn’t have months. I spent weeks ringing up clinics and filling in forms to convince insurance people that they were constantly doomed. I was fatigued before the treatment even began.
A friend, whose family has gone through something similar, pointed to Ukraine when that happened. She offered us to habe a look at the Vector Plus clinic located in Odessa. Honestly, my first reaction was to be skeptical. I felt almost ridiculous sending my husband far away from home for treatment of his addiction. Nevertheless, I was curious enough to research and was surprised by what I discovered.
I recall how I had finally realized what stage 3 alcoholism resembles in a real life situation, not in the clinical definition of alcoholism in a paper, but in my own house. My husband was not falling and talking mumbles every night. He was functioning. Going to work. Keeping up appearances. And that was why it had been so long so invisible. However, within, the dependency had established itself so that the intermittent omission of the drink caused him nervousness, peevishness, and even violence. I was Googling things I never imagined myself searching: how can I do something when a husband is drinking and violent, how can I do something when a person drinks daily, how many days are left to live, - because, yes, I went there. I searched stage 5 alcoholism and the stages of alcoholism and the pictures that accompany such searches and I sat by the burden of the reading I was doing.
I was also getting myself into the more silent, more humiliating searches the ones to which you do not tell anybody. On what sins is a drunken husband granted. What is the reason why a husband is a drunkard through karma. I am not a very spiritual individual, but when you are sitting alone at midnight and trying to figure out how your life got to this stage of your life you resort to anything that would help it make sense. I do not believe that I was seeking a genuine solution. I believe I was seeking a cause that I did not have to bear - and at last, gradually, I realized that there is none. It just is. And the only question is what now do you do?
We filled our bags and flew to Odessa. I did not know what to expect, this was the first time I had been to Ukraine. But since we stepped into the clinic in Nedelina Street I felt like we have a hope for recovery... The first consultation lasted what seemed to me to be hours with Dr. Natsinets or head physician, a man of more than ten years of experience in the emergency and addiction medicine field. The phases of dependency of my husband, how it would be like to be detoxified, what happened afterwards. He did not whitewash it but did not make it despairing.
The mode of treatment was designed in three steps. This was followed by detoxification - flushing out the alcohol in his system, withdrawal symptoms, body stabilization. I will not say that this was an easy watch. However, the medical team was monitoring him 24 hours a day, and I was kept informed at all times. The clinic is open round the clock and I never felt that I was in the dark.
The second stage was on what the clinic refers to as, normalization of state - curing the psychological craving, the mood swings, the neurological upheavals that accompany long-term alcohol dependency. This is in the area where the psychological approach of the team was brilliant. Cognitive-behavioral therapy, interpersonal therapy, and systemic family therapy are some of the therapies to be applied in Vector Plus, rather than medication. Some of these sessions involved me. I hadn't expected that. I did not anticipate to be considered as an aspect of the treatment but the team realised that addiction does not exist as a vacuum. It lives in a family. It lives in a marriage. And one issue that came up, cautiously, tenderly, was the question so many spouses are afraid to bring up: can an alcoholic love? Not that they love, but that the addiction has covered over that ability with something that is inaccessible. There was no simple answer that our therapist gave. According to him, love and addiction co-exist in a painful and complex manner and that recovery is what enables the reappearance of love when one is considered. I'm still thinking about that.
The third stage was regarding stabilization - establishing habits, reintegrating into society, preventing of relapse. The clinic has recreational program that consists of fourteen activities that aim to assist the patients to re-link up with real life in a planned, assisted manner. My husband began to sleep during the night again.
Being a wife to an alcoholic, I have been subjected to an emotional rollercoaster.
Anger. Why did he lie to me?
Shame and denial. Why was it that I did not know there was a problem? How did I miss the signs? I cannot imagine this is taking place. Why is this happening to me?
Sad. I do not want it to be this way; why not give up drinking? I do not like to see him do this to himself.
Fear. shall my husband die as his brother? I had read sufficient about the fears of the alcoholics, it was not the death itself, as I discovered, but the loss of the escape which alcohol means. The thought of living life without drugs, filters and being raw. I have learned that fear is not something weak. It's the addiction talking. It required expert assistance to begin dismantling it.
In college, a very large proportion of the individuals I knew were binge drinkers. Although this is not my case since I was not a heavy drinker, I am very easy-going and aware of the fact that binge drinking is a rite of passage to many. I followed along the currents and joined in my quota of debauchery, but was equally happy when I graduated since I had also hoped that a number of my friends would have passed the stage of partying. Nothing bad about a cocktail or two, mind you, but I was not going to get blacked out.
I have met my husband via a common friend and we dated together on-and-off until we got married. His family is big with a party on every occasion but I never suspected the presence of a drinking problem in him. Heavy drinker? Sure. However, as we became older, we would consume less alcohol or at least I was consuming less alcohol and when it was revealed that his brother was a drinker, my alcohol consumption was virtually brought to nothingness. But that is when my husband felt like drinking more than ever before and begin to hide it so it could not be noticed by anyone he loved.
I am also observing our friends as they continue with their life journeys, nearly everyone is married, has a house and kids. And then there is me: in an apartment in Odessa, Ukraine, rented, well away home, struggling to pull myself together in the spirit of my husband struggling to pull himself together, as well. I have pitied myself here and there. I have wept into horrible Ukrainian instant coffee at two in the morning asking what our life would be on the other side of all of this. Asking myself whether I was not a fool to be there. I had read the forum discussions, the ones where unknowns argue on why you should not live with an alcoholic, and they mention all the reasons in a manner of grim certitude. I understood those reasons. I had lived most of them. However, I was also not prepared to arrive at such a choice in a scared and exhausted state. I would have preferred to make it, had to make it, out of a clear place.
But outside the pity-parties I have also wasted plenty of time in myself, setting personal limits, and seeing the psychotherapist at the clinic, Dr. Zhogno, who has a knack of telling you just what you need to hear even when you would not have preferred to hear it. He addressed my husband directly on his trends in a stern and loving way, unlike what I had ever encountered.
Suffice to say, I, along with my husband, have both undergone very high levels of personal development in the course of our stay in Odessa. I was told by my family back home that I was different on calls with them.
But despite all the transformation and development, I still do not know precisely where it will lead us to. The process of recovery is not linear. And there is a line, at last, after a very long time, we are both walking it.
And, in case you happen to be the loved one of an addict, and you find yourself saying, What do I do, when a family member is in a drinking spurt, and will not consent to treatment - whether your husband or your mother or your parent or your building partner is the victim of a drinking spurt - here is what I can tell you on the other side of the darkest days of my own life.
It's not your fault
That's right. The drinking problem of someone else does not concern you. When you look at a loved one who is in an addiction problem, it is difficult not to take the problem personally but you must realize that the one he is fighting is himself. This happens when you see a spouse losing control and when you are just standing there with a helpless attitude next to a loved one who is in the middle of a binge and cannot listen to you. This aspect of not accepting help is part of the illness. It does not declare your value or your affection. Addiction and codependency often go hand-in-hand, and since discovering my husband is an alcoholic, I have learned a lot about the two. Thanks to therapy, I've discovered that while I'm not a full-blown codependent, I do have some characteristics that I am addressing.
You need professionals. What you require are those who know the physiology and psychology of dependency, what the person fears and what could get to him when everything else fails. This was precisely led us to Vector Plus.
Boundaries
I qualified my boundaries as soon as I discovered that my husband was a problem drinker. My boundaries also involve leaving my husband alone when he is intoxicated and not staying with him when he is a drunkard. These were the boundaries that he and I had agreed upon and I retained them.
What Vector Plus taught me that was reinforced during the sessions of family therapy is that the boundaries are not a punishment. They are buildings on which they can recover both individuals in the relationship. Their employees exemplified this: strict limits concerning treatment, expectations, no facilitation. I learned it as a lesson.
Support
My social network in Odessa was less than I had never experienced. No relatives around, no close friends, only my husband and a staff of strangers that soon did not seem strangers. The clinic members, including the doctors and the support staff, handled us as individuals, but not cases. My husband was also assured of anonymity that is absolute by Vector Plus and this implied that he would be free to heal with all his heart without the fear of being stigmatized or of professional repercussions back in his home country.