Dr. Al: You’ve got to have a really good personal 12-step program to live under the same roof with someone who’s that sick.
I work with people in a way that says, “If you can do it, and that’s what your values are or your religious convictions or your obligation, then there’s a path to doing that.” But most people will say, “I can’t be a partner in the destruction. I’ll give you every opportunity to address recovery, and address the problems in our marriage which will not get better until we get recovery going, but I have some limits that I will tolerate. Until that point I am 100 percent committed but we live in a free country and can redirect our plan at anytime we want to.”
In most family situations, not all but many, the wife is the enabler and much of the drinking behavior, the deterioration is actually accelerated and fueled by the sick relationship.
Mandy: Can you give me an example of that?
Dr. Al: Often when an alcoholic is going downhill they become less responsible. They forget things. They don’t attend to social obligations, and so the spouse takes up the slack.
The spouse might say, “We’ve got to go out tonight, honey. We’ve got these plans. It’s Christmas. Did you get so and so a birthday present? Did you call for your dentist’s appointment?” And so, the non-alcoholic spouse takes on the responsibilities of the alcoholic. Sometimes it’s just controlling the drinks or pouring out the liquor, and doing things like that.
In a psychological sense that obsession with control that the non-alcoholic spouse has to control the drinking of a loved one actually steals the identity from the sick alcoholic. And so the alcoholic, in a conscious or sub-conscious way, already feels less than a full person. Now, that spouse who comes to the plate and takes some of those responsibilities actually accentuates the problem by stealing what identity the alcoholic has left.
Mandy: That’s where a program like Al-Anon could help them recognize what they’re doing, and recognize that they’re not responsible for keeping their spouse’s secrets or hiding everything from the public.
Dr. Al: Some people I would direct more towards a therapist that understands 12-step recovery, and some people are just sick family members that really don’t need a therapist. They can go directly to Al-Anon, or some people are too scared to go to Al-Anon. Most of these people don’t see themselves as the problem. They like to project to the alcoholic, because that’s where the obvious symptoms are. So a number of these people do very well by going to open A.A. meetings where the focus is still on the sick alcoholic. And there are group meetings like that.
I do a continuing care group in Raleigh where we frequently have family members show up not to help themselves but to get help for their loved one. Part of our discussion in these meetings is to say, “Well, the alcoholic is sick, but the family member often is sick in a different way that sometimes can be harder to reach.” So every case is a little bit different.
We did Chapter 26 in The Recovery Book to help take families who are struggling with these things, and get them to a point of traction to start looking at how they can begin to move the equation in the right direction, and a lot of family members begin to hear this message. Then if one person in the family network gets help often that becomes contagious with the family members who need it.
It’s a disease that people die from: somewhere around the world every ten seconds a person dies from alcohol, so it’s not uncommon for people to go downhill and die. But even in those situations often the interventions that a loved one makes can affect their lives and children’s. In my case, we don’t have a family script of addiction anymore because some pretty bad things happened to shake up our family routine and find recovery.
The Divorce Coach Says
Realizing that your spouse does have a serious drinking problem can be shocking. Mostly likely there’ll be an event that brings this into focus. It could be finding liquor bottles stashed around your home, it could be a traffic offense, it could be a personal injury incurred while drunk, it could be a disciplinary action at work. And the reaction is a flood of questions. What does it mean? How long has this been going on? How could you have been so blind?
Confronting the reality isn’t easy. So often we avoid taking action because we’ve already mapped out in our heads where that action is going to lead and we don’t want to go there. Knowing that confronting the alcoholic doesn’t automatically mean divorce may make it easier to have that difficult conversation. That conversation may make the future uncertain and unsettling but if you’re being honest with yourself, it probably was anyway. What having that conversation does however is to create the possibility of change and most people I’ve worked with are willing to work at their marriage as long as there is that possibility.
Once you’ve gotten over the initial shock of the extent of your spouse’s drinking, then even with a layman’s understanding of enabling or co-dependency, you’ll probably start to see the role you’ve played. This too, especially if you do seek help from Al Anon, may be cause for optimism because it means you can choose to change your own behavior and that could change the relationship dynamic.
I agree with Dr. Al’s advice to the non-alcoholic spouse to start living their life. I often give similar advice to people who are weighing divorce and considering couple’s therapy. I think it’s invaluable to get know yourself again, identify your values, try those activities your spouse doesn’t want to do or that you stopped doing years ago, find out what makes you laugh, and make your own needs a priority without feeling guilty. (If you’d like help with this, start with my 14 Ways To Get To Know Yourself.)
Try to avoid making decisions about your marriage until you have a stronger sense of self. That means accepting living in a state of limbo, of uncertainty. That’s an art and it’s worth practicing because that’s often part of the territory that comes with divorce.
Coming next: My conversation with Dr. Al continues as we discuss how to help your children cope with an alcoholic parent.
Al J. Mooney, M.D. is co-author of The Recovery Book: Answers to All Your Questions About Addiction And Alcoholism And Finding Health And Happiness in Sobriety. He is the Director of Addiction Medicine and Recovery at Willingway, and lectures internationally on the latest science and treatments for recovery.
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