Living with an Alcoholic Sucks

It's easy to sympathise with an alcoholic. As long as you don't have to live with them. My experience with one was short but traumatic enough that I had blocked it out completely from my mind for some time. 

"Vic" was my father's home nurse for a while but calling him that would be a disservice to home nurses everywhere. His only goal in life was to get as drunk as possible. He figured that working under a doctor would provide easy cash. 

The problem for me back then was cash. I had little and was cheated out of months of pay by certain places. I had to work long hours almost all days to get by. There was no one else at home to supervise. 

2 weeks after starting work, Vic said he wanted 40k per month as salary, which is the same as I earn today while on Covid duty as a government doctor. Once I made it clear that that wasn't happening, his behaviour began to get progressively worse. 

He would ask for money to get groceries in the morning before I went to work. When I returned at night, there would be no groceries. Instead, one would see Vic drunk and talking gibberish. One night, I found him passed out drunk on the floor with the front door wide open. 


It was clear as day that I needed to find a replacement. Firing Vic on the spot wasn't an option because I had no one to help me cover at home for a few days. I was stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea but I realise that my inherent passivity contributed to the problem. 

Of the few relatives that would come visit, none would offer any solution other than suggesting that "I fix this". Vic himself actually came by recommendation from the people my father used to work with. After one drunken altercation while I was at work, Vic left without informing anyone. He had again left the door wide open while I was left wondering where he ran off to in a drunken haze. 

For a brief few moments, I thought that this nightmare had finally ended but I was wrong. Some locals found him at his home and dragged him back to mine. And so it dragged on. 

It was only when Vic got chickenpox shortly afterwards that I managed to get enough time to find a proper replacement. I guess it was an act of God. This whole ordeal must have lasted a little more than a month or so but to me, it felt like years. Every day was asphyxiating. 

The odd thing that was my father actually liked having Vic around. This is likely because Vic was too fucking lazy to actually help him to do some physio. My father was only too happy lying around all day which is part of the reason why while I did consider his opinion, I had to make the final call on home nurses myself. 

People like Vic always have excuses for their behaviour and their family/friends will often make excuses for them. His wife even had the nerve to tell me that it was my father's fault that he was drinking (sure, blame the hemiplegic guy with dementia for your drinking). 

Over the space of 2 and a half years, I went through a lot of home nurses. None of them were quite as bad as Vic, but there were much more bad than good overall. Without me around all the time to supervise, many would not do their jobs and some would get drunk and pass out. My own relatives had a role in supplying some of them alcohol.

Basically, get away from Asshole Addicts

People like Vic have enablers, maybe even family members that rationalize their behaviour. But once you peel back the layers of addiction, sometimes you find that the person beneath was not an innocent soul after all. The sooner you get away from such people, the better. 

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