We got there in April 1984, and the move was a horror experience in itself. As I said, I'd only known him for three months and now the first signs of his serious alcoholism begun to show. Although I'd been drinking quite heavily during all this time, I'd never considered myself as an alcoholic, and never met any real alcoholics. I'd never started to drink in the mornings after a party or had to stay at home from work due to the drinking.
Now I really had to deal with it, this man all of a sudden showed the worst sides of his personality. He got completely mad when he drank, the nice job he'd gotten there he kept just for four weeks. I didn't have a job yet. My life became a total chaos, I was used to the security of my hometown, my friends and my mother. Now I was alone, I had to deal with a violent alcoholic and slowly became a real alcoholic myself.
I saw to that I always got more booze than he, I drank with him as we got up in the morning. When he got drunk he became violent, but the didn't really beat me. Most of the furniture in the apartment was destroyed though, and he even threw out some through the kitchen window though the window was shut. We lived at the seventh floor!
Finally, one day when I went to the grocery to do some shopping, something happend. Perhaps some two or three months had passed since we moved there. My heart started to beat uncontrollable, the floor was swaying like on a boat, and if felt as if I was going to faint. I got frightened - thought I was dying, and went out of the store immediately. We lived just next block, but I could hardly make my way home. Stopped and rested on a bench at the square, and after a while I walked home. Even my husband noticed that something was wrong as I was all pale greenish in my face when I got back.
This was my first experience of panic anxiety syndrome. He knew what it was, as he'd been studying psychology for many years, but that was a poor comfort. Once it had started, it just went on, and I could hardly get out of the apartment without a drink. I found out though, in the back of my head, that it had to do with the drinking. If I stayed sober for a couple of weeks I could function as normal.
