Paula Ganzi McGloin

Original Air Date: January 14, 2024

Paula Ganzi McGloin wrote the autobiographical book “Bottles In The Basement: Surviving An Alcoholic”. After watching her husband die, her story has a happy ending, finding love and marriage at Match.com.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to Sunstein Sessions on iHeartRadio,conversations about issues that matter. Here's your
host, three time Grasie Award winner, Shelley Sunstein. I want to introduce
you to Paula Ganzi McGloin. Sheused to live in our area. For
all I know, she used tobe a listener. She now lives in
Delaware, but she's out with abook called Bottles in the Basement Surviving an

(00:26):
Alcoholic. Paula is kind of wellknown in our area because she has written
for The New York Times and alsofor Newsday. She has led a fascinating
life with a happy ending that we'regoing to tell you about. But first,
this whole idea of you lived withan alcoholic husband for a very long

(00:53):
time, basically living separate, liveshim in the basement, you upstairs.
How long did this go on?And of course the big question I have
and everyone had for you, waslike, why the hell did you put
up with that for so long?Well, thank you for having me on,

(01:14):
Shelley, and those are very goodquestions. I'd say that living on
separate floors last and probably three orfour years, Why I put up with
it? It? Like so manythings in life. It evolved over time

(01:34):
where it you don't think it's goingto last forever. You just think it's
a lip, and all of asudden it becomes the norm. It was
when I was so frustrated with myhusband's life, it was easy to compartmentalize,

(01:55):
if you, if you will,his messy, awful life downstairs and
mine neat and tidy upstairs. Ofcourse I tried to change that, having
him, you know, bring hishome office was initially the reason for him

(02:16):
being in the basement, but then, of course it turned into an escape
and it turned into rock bottom.So in the beginning I was used to
him spending time in the basement that'swhere his home office was. And then
eventually there was a TV and arecliner, and one night he fell asleep
in the recliner, and all ofa sudden, and then once I realized

(02:39):
that he was an alcoholic, thenyou realize what the basement has become.
It's hard to leave. You know, you've asked why did you stay,
and a lot of people do howlong were you married? Twenty three years,
so he had a long history.And as I say, not all

(03:01):
the years were bad. It wasreally the last four or five years,
so you keep thinking he's going toturn it around. You know, things
will change. Because we're both socialdrinkers. It wasn't unusual to have scotch
in the house. But and inthe beginning, I'm not I'm in disbelief.

(03:23):
No it can't be you know,no, no, you know,
I can't be smelling alcohol on hisbreath before breakfast. But then you realize
it is, and then you're watchingfor all these red flags. He's pulling
away so that you can't smell himif he's you know, all the breath
mints, hiding things and all that. And then eventually when I confronted him,

(03:47):
he said all the right things andmade all the promises. And then
after that it just slowly became thislittle war of ours. So living soon
sparate lives on separate floors became thenorm. When did you first realize he

(04:09):
had a problem. I remember itwas a Sunday morning. We're home,
it's the weekend. He's making breakfast, you know, eggs and bacon,
and I went to kiss him orsomething. Yeah, I went to kiss
him, and he pulled away,and you know, and then he made

(04:31):
this excuse. Oh, look atthis look at this article in the newspaper
or whatever, and then all ofa sudden, your radar is up,
and even though you don't believe it, as I said before, then then
you're building a case. You're startingto look for clues and start snooping around
into his life downstairs. And thenyou see the hidden bottles, and you

(04:56):
find the bottles in the trunk,in a in a bag, and you
know, and you had to watchhim die. It was awful, but
I have to say he died itturned around so quickly. I mean,
he was what I would call avery efficient alcoholic. He was also a

(05:20):
high functioning alcoholic, which I havean issue with with that phrase, which
I'll get to later. But ahigh functioning alcoholic nobody realizes they work,
they drive, they're not slurring theirspeech, they're not falling down drunk,
and when they're careful, they don'tsmell of alcohol. So nobody knows,
including sometimes their loved ones, thatthey're an alcoholic. And then, but

(05:45):
as I said, then you seethe clues and you realize what you're living
with. I am speaking with PaulaGanzy McGloin. She is the author of
Bottles in the Basement, surviving andalco alcoholic. You say you have a
problem with the term high functioning alcoholic. What do you mean by that?

(06:08):
Well, I understand the term,and it makes sense in one way.
They're conducting their life as normally asif there's nothing wrong, even though they're
drinking usually large amounts of alcohol.But I think a more accurate term is
low visibility because what they're doing ishiding under the radar. Nobody knows,

(06:31):
their colleagues, their family, theirfriends, and the impact on the loved
ones is harder because if someone ismarried to i'll say an alcoholic, where
it's obvious they're falling down drunk peopleautomatically, your friends, your family,
they know the problem. A highfunctioning alcoholic is hiding it, and sometimes

(06:57):
many times the loved ones do atfirst because they think their husband's going to
turn it around. This can beso he's going to get better, and
there's shame and guilt and all that, and after hiding it and keeping the
secret for so long, it justbecomes the norm. So when something happens,

(07:18):
an accident or they die, it'sincredibly it's it's so hard for the
loved ones because they're left, they'releft holding the bag. What happened?
What you know? Why didn't youdo something that kind of thing? Did
you have guilt? Oh? Yeah, I don't know one person who's been

(07:44):
with an alcoholic who doesn't, whohasn't had guilt. You feel that you
could do something like we're walking thatimpossible line between being a caregiver and being
an enabler. It's an impossible situation. I would print out lists of AA
meetings nearby. I would find thetherapists that specialized in alcoholism. I try

(08:11):
to get him into programs. Iremember, even as I said, we
lived in New York and Long Island, and I remember there was one program
in the Hamptons, and I waskind of like, you know, pitching
it. It'll be like a spot. Like we do so many things.
We bend over backwards loved ones ofalcoholics to help them. But the only

(08:33):
person that can help the alcoholic isthe alcoholic. There's nothing you could do
to change their ways. And mytherapist, my husband's therapist, you know,
after he passed away, said,you know, when I was struggling
with the guilt, there's nothing youcould have done to change it. Would
you have done anything differently? Paula, I might have well preface it by

(09:00):
saying I want to caution loved onesof alcoholics and their friends and family.
Sometimes when people ask that, itbrings up the sense of blame, and
I don't want any loved ones tofeel that they did anything wrong. The
alcoholic was an alcoholic because they choseto be so. But looking back,

(09:24):
maybe I would have told more peopleand that might have helped me more.
Maybe it would have helped my husbandbaby telling more people. It's interesting because
you have two stories in your book. You actually could have had a different

(09:46):
title because the other thing I wantto ask you about is you found love
and happiness after you tragically lost yourhusband and you found this through online dating,
Like you could be a guide forthis for no, seriously, for
you are one of the success stories. So what advice would you have for

(10:11):
successful online dating? And this waswhen you were how old? You were
close to fifty or you were fifty. I was already fifty. Yeah,
I was like almost fifty one.I would say, don't listen to the
naysayers, Oh, it's impossible whenyou get older. No, actually it
was a relief. It was fun, you know. I looked at it.

(10:37):
I don't have to find someone.I had a good life. I
had wonderful friends and family. Itwasn't like I needed to replace my life.
I just wanted to make it better. And I think when you're older,
you're a little more confident in yourin yourself. So just be careful,
be safe. You know, don'tmeet someone that you haven't known,

(10:58):
and you know, always meeting apublic place, and of course you google
them as soon as you get theirlast names and see what you can find
out about them. But I wouldsay enjoy it, like once you've done
all the safety checks, enjoy itand have fun. And you never know
who mister or ms right is goingto be. Be go, you know,

(11:22):
on every date, even if thefirst five minutes to do like this
guy isn't for me, Have agood time and be nice. You never
know. Are there any red flagsyou would tell people to look out for,
I mean other than the obvious withthe cat fishing and you know,
yeah, well I would say forme personally, if if someone's profile said

(11:48):
they never drank, I was concernedthat that was a red flag that they
were recovering alcoholic. And although Ihave a lot of an enormous amount of
respect for recovering alcoholics. For me, that would have been too hard a
road to go down. And youknow, like no smoking. I didn't
smoke things like that. And alsoyou found a little plus that you never

(12:13):
had children, that you were awidow. That kind of enhanced your image
in the online dating community. Ohmy god, it so did being over
fifty, not having an ex husbandaround. And in terms of the you
know, meeting man, I thinkit was easier that there was no you

(12:35):
know, children, sizing them upand down. So yeah, I was
a catch in that sense. Sotell us about your husband and how you
knew who he was the one.Well, we met on match dot com
and our first date was magical.We met at a local restaurant, initially

(12:58):
for drinks, because that's how youalways do, That's what you always say
in case you don't want to commit. Of course, we ended up having
dinner, closing down the restaurant.One funny story of that, you know,
or conversations continuing and walking out intothe parking lot and Billy had parked
in the parking lot. I wasa block or two away, so continue

(13:18):
on our conversation. We just automaticallysat in his car and he was playing
music or something, and then likethree minutes into it, you know,
the alarm goes off that I thinkevery girl has been taught, you know,
like, you're in a strange man. You've never met this man,
You're in his car, get out, and in the middle of a sense,
I was like, I gotta go, and I jumped out. But

(13:39):
obviously it was a happy ending.We were we're together eleven years, we
got married four years ago. It'sjust been wonderful. So to all those
people out there, whether they're widowsor divorced or whatever their history is,
if they're looking for love, pleasekeep By the way, did you watch

(14:01):
The Golden Bachelor. I didn't,but two of my friends watched it and
I was like, you know what, I got to give it a try,
did you. Yes. I don'tknow why I don't like reality shows,
but I am like hooked on TheBachelor, the Bachelorette, and this
one was really one of the bestones, and it actually revitalized the whole

(14:22):
franchise. And for the longest timethey wouldn't do The Golden Bachelor or Golden
Bachelorette because I thought, ah,nobody's going to watch older people find love,
and they found just the opposite.Okay, we have thirty seconds.
What if we not told the audiencePaul Aganzy McGloin that you'd like to tell
them, or about your book,Bottles in the Basement Surviving an Alcoholic thirty

(14:45):
seconds. My book is available onAmazon, and I think it will bring
comfort and peace to the fat millionsof loved ones of alcoholics just by reading
my story. I hope they'll findcomfort and peace. And you're a great
later, I have to say,I mean, it was such a fast
read, and yeah, your lifeis just it's a happy ending to a

(15:07):
very tragic, tragic story. You'vebeen listening to Sunstein Sessions on iHeartRadio,
a production of New York's classic rockQ one O four point three