Message Boards
Topic : 03/22 Living on the Edge
Created on : Friday, January 06, 2006, 01:45:12 pm
(Original Air Date: 01/11/06) She used to have it all: A husband, a beautiful home, a great job and many friends. But a crippling alcohol addiction for the past 10 years has turned Lisa’s dream life into a nightmare. One step away from being homeless, Lisa trades sexual favors for alcohol just to get through the day. Joani, a recovering addict who's been trying to help, records Lisa's debilitating addiction and the disturbing symptoms of withdrawal when she tries to go without a drink. Lisa has failed in rehab three times and is ready to give up on life. Can Dr. Phil convince her to give it one more try? Talk about the show here.
Find out what happened on the show.
As of January, 2009, this message board will become "Read Only" and will be closed to further posting. Please join the NEW Dr. Phil Community to continue your discussions, personalize your message board experience, start a blog and meet new friends.
User Mood
Distressed Message Emote  |
January 11, 2006, 10:34 am PST
 |
I have something to tell Lisa and with how I'm hearing right now that she is really not seeing the whole picture of what alcohol is doing to her life maybe I should email her a picture of a 1991 honda. What you are seeing here is a picture of my husband from approximately taken 12 yrs ago at a local zoo here in Maryland. I met my husband at a club on April 9th, 1984 when he worked in a local rock group. We got married when our daughter was 3 months old and he drank alot too and I never really seen him as an alcoholic because he would not drink on his days off he respected my wish of no alcohol in the house with the kids. He used to go to a friends house after he got off work and they would sit around and drink to the point that he was driving while intoxicated and I was amazed he would make it home without being in an accident. He got an offer of a job from the Baltimore Sun Paper and asked me if I would move to the border of Pennsylvania and I said yes I would but what he didn't know was the reason I agreed. I wanted to seperate him from the enviroment we were in because if he was asked if he wanted another beer he would say yes and I always said what is so hard about saying NO I have to get home. Moving did wonders he hardly drank at all because he knew he had to drive home from Baltimore and was in no way going to chance getting caught and then one day he asked if I cared that he went to his friends house down there for New Year's Eve and I said no just don't drive home drunk and he said oh no I'm staying over and will be home tomorrow. His little girl stood at the door of our apartment and when daddy gave her a kiss goodbye she looked up at him and said "Daddy are you gonna come home drunk?" Ashley who is now 19 was only three at the time and my husband looked at me stunned and I said "I told you kids remember." That was the start of the decline of his drinking. No matter what though I stood by him and I told him how much I loved him and that it scared me that he might end up in a fatal crash and he always said I love you for the way you care about me. He told friends next door that if it weren't for me he would probably either be in jail or dead. Five years ago the nightmare I had imagined happening in Allentown happened here only two miles away. He was not drinking at all and he chose to go to a halloween party on October 29,2000 my son and I were at a race and I got paged to the office with Justin who was only 12 at the time. I was greeted by a Maryland State Policeman asking me if I owned a 1991 Honda Accord and I told him yes and then he asked if my husband was William H. Kramer Jr. and by this time I was at the point of now being suspicous of what happened and when I said yes he said well there is only one way to tell you this and I sat there looked at him and said oh no don't you dare tell me my husband is dead and my fear had become a reality he had fallen asleep at the wheel and missed a slight curve and rolled our Honda through a corn field here and was killed instantly. I do not want to see anyother family ever have to go through what mine has the past five years. I walked out that door saying bye hon I'll be home Sunday never expecting it to be the last time I saw him alive. I had not even known where he was because they said the crash happened around 4am. The guy who had the party tried to get his keys after he had to much to drink. When I found out that this person knew that I was trying to figure out where he was and did not have the common decency to call me and say that he was at his party. I could have sued him in civil court for my husbands death but I told the personell director to let him know that I wasn't going to do that because my husband was 47 he knew right from wrong and he made a fatal desicion that day and it has ripped my family apart. His daughter is graduating this year and it hurts me so much to know that her daddy will not see her graduate and he won't be there to walk her down the aisle when she gets married. I still can't deal with it totally so I have one thing to say to Lisa "Drinking Kills 95% of the time. My husbands alcohol level was .18 almost twice the legal limit. Lisa you need help you need to get out of drinking and if you don't get a hold of it, its going to kill you the way it did my husband.
