Separation and Divorce Issues – When One Partner Is an Alcoholic

A continuing education course from CEU-Hours.com

The following material is excerpted from the book:

 

Getting Them Sober – Volume 4

By Toby Rice Drews

You may learn more about the author or the Getting Them Sober Foundation or join the active discussions by visiting the website at www.GettingThemSober.com

Separation and Divorce Issues – When One Partner Is an Alcoholic

One of the ways we get pulled into feeling crazy again is when they say something that is totally nonsensical and abusive about us – and then imply that we are crazy if we don’t agree with them.

A case in point: Ron was married three years to Cheryl. When he was ready to go off on a drunk, she’d know it about four days before it was about to happen. He’d get “that look of nuttiness in his eyes.” Then, he’d start on a roll.

He’d begin by making little cracks to her. When she protested that she didn’t care for his remarks, he told her she didn’t have a “sense of humor.” That she was too “sensitive.”

Then would follow his totally off-the-wall comments about how badly she conducted areas of her life where she knew she did well. But, by the time he finished, her head would be in a whirl. She found herself defending the things she’d done for years that were effective, as if she had made mountains of mistakes.

For instance, Cheryl worked in real estate. She was very good at it. Most of their income was from her rentals. Ron was virtually unemployable by this time, just doing temporary manual labor when he could get it. Cheryl paid the bills.

When he would “start his stuff,” he’d question her ability to make sound real estate buying decisions . . . even though he’d never done it!

When he started bad-mouthing her, Cheryl would get a gut reaction of fear and ques­tion her professional decisions, even though she had always trusted herself before he began all this. Then, after she saw what he was doing, she became understandably very angry, and told him how he was living off her and had no knowl­edge of real estate, and how dare he!

Instead of responding to the issue, Ron would accuse her of “always throwing it in his face that she made more money.”

Then, Cheryl tried to show him how she had a right to answer him that way, since he had said what he said.

Of course, he never answered her directly. He just went on with his crazy­making: “You’re paranoid. I never attacked you. You always think everyone’s always attacking you.”

She: “Isn’t it funny that it’s always you who attacks me! And I never think anyone else is doing that!”

He stops. Goes on to what he was doing (watching TV and drinking beer) and gets anesthetized.

She is exhausted, furious, and wonders how she got sucked into it again.

*  *  *

What did Cheryl do into turn it around and get out from under his power over her?

a)  She worked hard to internalize the fact that he really did understand the truth – he just wanted to get under her skin. There was no need for her to “show him” the truth.

b)  Besides that, and more importantly – she came to believe that he truly wasn’t a tin god to her anymore. That if he chose to try to belittle her, he certainly did not deserve a title role in her life!

c)  Once she began to really believe the above two state­ments, she began to look beyond him for valida­tion and companionship. She once more surrounded her­self with good friends and outward, joyous activities that enhanced her – things she used to do before getting so entrapped with an alcoholic.

d) As her world widened, she went from being with anyone who would have the time to be with her (as she found she had to do, at first) to choosing to be with people who were inherently excited by life, not just “safe.” She used to choose people to be with who had lots of problems because it more her feel good that she had fewer ones. However, she began to see that there were several downsides to that. One was that their persona was basically negative. She found herself slowly cloaked with negativity, even though it gave her a temporary good feeling. Further­more, she could not begin to see all the wonderful options open to her when she chose to be sur­rounded by small-minded negativists. For, pessimism is catch­ing. It very, very subtly erodes the soul. She began into choose friends who spoke more of their expand­ing universes rather than their problems. They were into transcending problems and living in their joys, not their sorrows – and she caught the bug! She grew from survival to enhancement!

Once this happened to her, even with setbacks, she never again lived totally within her alcoholic’s negative universe.

I said in my first book, Getting Them Sober, Volume One, that it’s hard to lose an alcoholic. People have written to me and asked me what I meant by that.

Basically, it means this: You can marry him; divorce him; remarry someone else; repeat the process. And the probability is that he’ll still want to be with you (what­ever that means to him), in the long run.

I know of a couple who have been separated for over 40 years. He lives in the woods of New Hampshire as a resident alcoholic recluse, Each Christmas, Easter, and birthday, he sends her a card . . . and he still considers her “his wife.”

This is not unusual.

This can be useful information to have, to get through the times when you are feeling panicky about losing him.

However, you may ask, “But when will he come back, this time?”

It seems unfortunate, but the alcoholic/addict often begins to return home (wooing you all over again, albeit for a short time before starting on his “junk’’ again) when you begin to not want him around anymore.

He often appears again before you get over him entirely (and you can!). He probably doesn’t want to lose you. He has what I call “alcoholic radar.” (When they are into this behavior, they know just what to do; when to pop up.)

During those terrible panic times when you are un­able to do much else than think about getting him back, it can be very comforting to have this information. And it helps to know that even if he leaves again, if you are willing to put up with it, he probably will keep coming back.

But, it is good to remember the facts: as long as he continues to drink, the alcoholic will probably continue his elusive behavior.

Remembering that can help you to become more self-protective and keep some of yourself emotionally sep­arated from the situation.

Later, when you are calmer, you can deal with the idea of staying in a relationship with an alcoholic (or otherwise emotional­ly-unavailable person).

But, for now, just knowing that he will most likely be back (it you still want him) can help you through these panic-times.

*  *  *

Counselors sometimes ask me, “Why do you reassure her that he’ll probably come back, when it’s healthier for her to realize how sick that relationship is, and that she must let go?”

When families enter treatment, they most likely do not have to be told that an abusive (emotionally and/or physically) relationship is not good for them. They know it.

Very often, her history is that she and the alcoholic have both blamed her for the relationship problems over the years. If I chastise her for wanting him back, I am subtly adding to that blame to make her feel, again, that she is “wrong.”

If a counselor is baffled and shocked by the fact that she “still wants him back,” she does not understand addictive families.

Families’ greatest fear is that “they will lose him.”

Only if we can get beyond that obsessive fear, by telling her the reassuring facts, can we seriously get down to looking at options. For, when her panic dies down, she is often very willing to begin to look at reality. If I press her to look at this reality too soon, she will probably stop treatment, and then there is no chance to help her.

In other words, we do not lose ground by not getting right down to Divorce and Getting On With Your Life. And if I focus on what I think she should do (instead of under­standing that she is nowhere near that, in reality), she inherently knows that I know nothing about her.

When an alcoholic gives us comfort and love on an irregular basis – when we cannot know when he or she will be nice – we are much more bound to them than if they gave us love on a regular basis.

The reason for this strong bonding with someone who gives love incon­sistently is that, since we want the love, we are anxiously awaiting it.

Therefore, we pay a lot of attention to him, watching out for when he might be loving. All this “paying a lot of attention” bonds us very tightly to the object or person to whom we are paying so much attention. This “closeness” is not necessarily “love.” It is often more of a bonding due to that intensity, mistaking it for a “close relationship.”

We do not have to pay such close attention at all to the person who comes home at 6 p.m., is nice, says hello, reads the paper, helps with dinner and cleanup, watches TV, and goes to bed. We know the outcome of our interacting with him; it’s normal. We expect the kindness; we get it regularly. We have no need to spend any time looking for it.

That’s probably why, in healthy families, people seem “less close” than they do in alcoholic families.

So, when you berate yourself for “being so attached,” remember that much of that attachment is not “your fault.”

And, even though you’ve been programmed to respond in a super-attentive way to the alcoholism, just knowing that can help you to begin to detach from the sickening effects of an alcoholic on your life.

*  *  *

And, if you are dating, please don’t worry that you will “turn” a nice relationship into a sick one (because of past patterns). If we pick decent people to be with, we can’t “turn” them into indecent people. If we act in old, anxious ways, and if we are in self-help groups or counseling to end destructive patterns, nice people are patient with us, have compassion for us, and give us time to heal.

I hear a lot from family members that they “can’t totally believe that the alcoholism has that much control over the alcoholic.”

Very often, that statement stems from a belief system that tells the family that “there’s the alcoholism over here – and the alcoholic and his nuttiness over there.”

They think of alcoholism only as cirrhosis of the liver, or ^­late-stage brain damage, or falling-down drunken­ness.

They can’t quite believe that the alcoholism controls all the person’s thoughts, actions, and feelings.

Why is the family unable to get past their own denial?

a)  The family doesn’t really understand that a person’s thoughts, feelings, and actions are highly influenced by toxic poisons acting on the brain/spinal cord/central nervous system.

          The alcohol isn’t just working on the brain when the person is drinking. It takes a long time to get it out of the system, and the alcoholic is usually drinking again before it’s out. So, there isn’t usually any real “sobriety” at all.

          (Picture people going into surgery on twilight drugs. They say weird things and are not “loving and understanding and involved with their spouses.” Picture doing this for months and years, day after day, and you have regularly-distorted thoughts, feelings, and actions.)

b)  The family often wants to believe that there really is a psychiatric reason for all this. This is because if the alcoholic refuses to go to treatment, the family natur­ally feels despairing and hopes that the problem may be something other than the alcoholism so that the alcoholic will go to some kind of “treatment.” (In the hope that something “will take” and he’ll get well.)

          The problem is, the majority of therapists do not understand alco­hol­ism. They often try to help the alco­holic focus on his/her childhood to supposedly “get to the root of the problem.” They think that the “root of the problem” is not alcoholism, but a psy­chiatric reason. They believe, therefore, that the alcoholic can’t really stop drinking until that “psy­chiatric root cause” is found. Then (accord­ing to this theory), the real need for alcoholic drinking would just wither away.

          The alcoholic often agrees to go to this kind of treatment because he knows it leaves his drinking intact.

          The problem is, that treatment approach seldom works.

          Alcoholism is not secondary to a psychiatric prob­­lem. Alcoholism is a primary disease in and of itself.

          Historically millions of alcoholics have died from the effects of alcoholic drinking – while trying to “get at the root of the problem” in therapy. (As a matter of fact, many people do discover, and “work on” their childhood trauma in therapy – and still continue to drink and die.)

          And, even if there is a psychiatric problem in addition to the alcoholism, it is very difficult to treat the mental illness unless total abstinence from alcohol is first attained.

          It is also extremely difficult to even diagnose whether or not a person has a psychi­atric illness in addition to alcoholism, if that person is still drinking. The alco­hol-induced crazy behavior must be at least somewhat abated by sobriety, in order to correctly assess the patient. Many people have been incor­rectly diagnosed as “mentally ill” – when in fact they have alcohol-induced behaviors that mimic mental illness.

          Additionally, it is often difficult to convince an alcoholic to leave ineffective psychi­atric counseling – to go for real help for the alcoholism – because that atten­dance at the therapist’s office is a further excuse to continue drinking! The alcoholic says to the family, “What do you mean, get help? I’m getting help! I’ve been see­­­ing my therapist every week now for five years! What more do you want?” And sadly, many therapists who do not understand alcoholism really believe that the “family interaction” causes the alcoholic’s drinking. Therefore, those therapists focus not on the alcoholism, but on the “family anger” at the alcoholic. As a result, more blaming of the family goes on – this time with the stamp of approval of therapy.

c)  The family sees the alcoholic as such a tin god – so powerful – they wind up with a block against believing that anything is more powerful than the alcoholic. (The alcoholic has told the family that for years, and the family naturally believes it.)

*  *  *

Think about how powerful you think your alcoholic is. Think about how it colors all your beliefs about control issues; about treatment; about what you have the right to do and not to do; and about your self-image.

Caroline was talking with me from her home in San Francisco. She grew up in Chicago and moved to California when she was in her early teens. She had married at 18 and had two children by the time she reached 21.

“I was so unworldly. I went from growing up in an alcoholic home, to marrying my first husband. He was very religious, worked 11 hours a day, and was a good man and very steady – and very boring.

“He was very good to me. But I wasn’t ready for that. I wasn’t treated for the effects that growing up in an alcoholic home had on me.

“What I mean was, I was used to the up-and-down excitement that happened all the time, at home. And then I married very young, this normal man! It was like being buried! So nothing. Evenness. I knew nothing about it; I wasn’t used to it. It was like I was looking around, uneasily, for something to make something happen!

“Then, I met Wayne. He worked where I was work­ing. He was always chatter­ing, always going in and out of the office, always on the move. He talked with me about things I loved; he talked incessantly! I didn’t realize he talked so much, so obsessively, because of the alcohol in his system. I just wanted constant anything; especially constant talking. My husband didn’t talk that much. He just worked and went to church and ate and rested and did everything on time and very predictably. Very normal. You could set your clock by him.

“But, Wayne was exciting! He came on like gang­busters. He swept me off my feet. Absolutely as charm­ing as he could be. I would find little gifts in my desk drawer.

“But there was that side of him (like with a lot of alcoholics) that wanted me to be not only exciting, but the Madonna. He loved the fact that I was also a devout Catholic, and he thought I was very humble.

“He was so attentive at first, that it startled me. For instance, I would mention this record I loved, and it would be on my desk the next day.

“I was falling in love with him. I felt so guilty when I began to realize that. So, I went to my priest. And I said to him, ‘Father, I’m sure I have committed adultery, because of what’s in my mind.’

“And the priest said, ‘Don’t worry about it. Talk about something else with him. Like the weather. Things like that.’

“What a naive, young priest. What a naive, young me! I actually believed it might work! Of course, l tried it once, and it did no good.”

*  *  *

What I find so sad is that young people who grow up in alcoholic families in­vari­ably say to me, “I’ve left all that behind me. I don’t need any help. It’s history.”

The patterns we carry with us!

They attach us to sick situations. They attach us to the wrong people. They attach us to excited misery.

And that need for “excitement” comes in many pack­ages: Exciting jobs (like the young woman who only can “enjoy” high-stress work situations and mountain-climbing vacations. All this after her doctor told her it was dangerous for her heart.)

Or, hours spent each day on the phone with friends, discussing the horrors of illness or who-did-what-to-whom.

Or, hanging out where things are “happening.” ­Liking – needing – the “atmosphere.” Feeling empty when you can’t get there for a couple of evenings.

Telling oneself that “everyone would like this way of life.” When it isn’t so.

Just becoming aware of these feelings, these needs, these patterns – this can be life-changing. When we don’t know that this is essentially harmful to us, that this derives from alcoholic family patterns, we go along blindly and continue with no self-direction.

We remain attached to a way of life that is never satisfying, never contents us for more than an hour or so. And then, we need more.

That subconscious attachment-need for “excitement” keeps many a family member in an alcoholic marriage.

We sometimes think, “I can leave financially; I have no trouble living alone. Why am I still here?”

We cannot extricate ourselves from any pattern until we begin to see it.

Caroline is a physician’s assistant in Wyoming. An indepen­dent, short, bouncy woman who raised five children, Caroline was married to two alcoholics. She tells me it’s “no accident that she is in the medical profession.”

“I was terribly needy, and at the same time, I had this big need to take care of others. Both sides. Both extremes.

“I never felt that I had ever finished my work. I still go home and call in to check on patients. I do that about three times a week. And the other people on duty at night will tell me, ‘Caroline, will you quit calling in!’ Or they’d say, ‘Just let it go!’

“I find it very difficult to quit worrying. I’m living alone, now. And work is a big part of my life.”

I asked her if it was really that work is such a big issue or is it that this is a way to bring home the caretaking.

She thought about it. “Yeah, I think so. I mean, even when I’m grocery shopping – I can’t go through a grocery line without helping someone. If I see a product that someone is looking at, I have to stop and help them choose!”

I said, “We adult children of alcoholics rush in where angels fear to tread!”

We both laughed.

*  *  *

One suggestion that helped Caroline was: go into changing this pattern slowly. When we have a severe case of caretaking – one that is disrupting our lives to some degree – it is a good idea to very slowly extricate ourselves. For instance, if you’ve already helped one person in the supermarket, forego the urge to help another stranger pick out her food. If you’ve made one call to work to see if you are needed, try to post­pone the second unnecessary call that day.

By doing this self-stopping slowly, you can avoid the anxiety that accompanies the guilt from cutting off of one’s caretaking behavior. Of course, if you’re com­pletely sick and tired of it, and ready to end this needless behavior entirely, you’re fortunate! But most people who’ve lived with alcoholism for any length of time, develop huge reserves of irrational guilt about not taking care of anyone and anybody.

How to be good to yourself:

a)  Become aware of your caretaking patterns.

b)  Become aware of their frequency and random targets.

c)  End the irrational caretaking slowly.

d)  Do not beat on yourself for having “done it for so many years.”

e)  Tell yourself you will be a more effective person for when you are really needed if you are not continually depleted by irrational caretaking.

f)  Know that you will eventually change for yourself. You might begin by changing “to be a power of example” for your children. Know that that is okay.

Part Two: How to Help the Non-Addicted Partner Make the Decision Whether or Not to Separate/Divorce

Jenine: “I really felt very, very strongly that, in the end, in any given situation, God would help me. And I have always turned to Him. And I have always asked for His strength.

“1 sort of feel when you are begging the alcoholic to be nice, it^’s like it says in the Bible, something about casting your pearls before swine.”

Toby: ‘That sounds like alcoholism in a nutshell! When we financially support an alcoholic who is abusive, it’s like we pawn the pearls to take care of the swine!”

Jenine: “Exactly. And when I realized that I am worthwhile, it was like a fleeting glimpse. You don’t feel that way every day. There are days you feel rotten about yourself; you feel worse than that. You feel that you are not really worthy of anything, so you take everything that you have to take from that alcoholic, that day.

“But, once in a while, this little light comes on that says, ‘You are worthwhile. You have taken enough of this junk. You cannot demean yourself any longer. You have to get out of this situation because he is going to continue to do that to you.’

“I was always embarrassed that I was taking it. I think that’s when I realized one of the many things that helped push me out: that I was ashamed about where I had allowed myself to be pushed. At the level I had allowed myself to get to.

“You talk about an alcoholic allowing himself to get down to the gutter level from drinking. Well, I had allowed him to push me down into the gutter by his verbal abuse, his emotional abuse. He was never physically abusive, but the emotional and mental abuse was unbelievable.

“I had allowed him to send me into a really low ebb. When this suddenly dawned on me, then every day, in some small way, it would come up again. This revelation about how bad it really was.

“Have you heard of the Hound of Heaven? It^’s from Dante’s Divine Comedy. God is called the Hound of Heaven. And He’s not going to let you go if He wants you as His child.

“God is going to keep coming after you, no matter what you do.

“And I felt that. With all my friends and all my family reaching out to me –  through them – God was working. Through them, He was the Hound of Heaven, coming after me.

“No matter what I did, He was going to make me face up to the fact that I was worthwhile. That I couldn’t^’t live any longer like this.

“I would look up and constantly think, ‘the Hound of Heaven’s after me. I^’ve got to make this decision. I^’ve got to do this. I’ve got to have faith. I^’ve got to have trust.’ I could no longer lie to myself. I could no longer demean myself. I had allowed Tim to do this. I can’t do it to myself. Because God isn’t going to let me. The Hound of Heaven wasn’t going to let me.

“That was what really saved me, helped me, to pull out of that. About a week before my divorce became final, I was driving to work about 9 a.m. I would say my prayers in the morning, on the beltway. And 1 said to Him, ‘Well you know God, this is finally finalized.’ At one time, I never thought that this would happen. That I would be able to make this break. At least, legally. Whether I had done it emotionally or otherwise, yet, I wasn’t sure.

“But I just never realized that when I was asking help from God, I could never ask for help from anyone else. I never asked them to do anything for me. I always felt it was an imposition. And I admired that about myself. I assumed it meant I was ‘strong.’ I always said, ‘Oh, never mind. I’ll be able to do that myself.’ And they’d say, ‘Are you sure?’ And I’d always say, ‘Sure!’

“If I asked anyone to help me, I really condemned myself. I’d be really angry that I had to ask. them.

“I didn’t know that I didn’t feel worthy of their help.

“But I could always ask God. The trouble was, He was putting these people out there, to help me, and I kept rejecting them. I’d say to myself, ‘I can’t ask them to help me!’ I wanted God to do it.

“I wanted that answer in some other way. I wanted Him to wrinkle His nose and make everything perfect. But I didn’t want to go through other people. I would do the work, if He wanted. But I couldn’t ask them to do the work. I felt that that was scut-work, helping me.

“Well, if I’ve learned anything, it’s that other people are truly the instruments of God. They’re His children, and I had to learn to accept His gifts.

“And you don’t necessarily receive back from those you helped. You receive from others. That’s the way it seemed to work for me.

“Suddenly, it’s turned around. You’re not the strong one. They are. And I didn’t want to think that I wasn’t the strong one.

“At least, I didn’t want them to know that I wasn’t the strong one!

“I never wanted them to see that side of me, when I was needy.

“But I learned that they’re there for me. That I could reach out, and ask, and they’d be there for me. They’d insist. They’d be insistent about helping me.

“Again, this was the Hound of Heaven.

“They’d insist on proving to me that I could do it on my own, that I could get out. That I could be by myself. That I didn’t have to be by myself.

“They watched my marriage, and they knew before I did that Tim wasn’t going to get another job, that he’d never really be there for me.

“I was almost 64 years old. I wanted someone with me. I wanted someone to live out my life with.

“But he was never really there for me.

“My therapist said to me, ‘You think he is going to change. What makes you think that?’

“When I was in group, I’d bring up a problem that would arise, and the group would say, ‘Why would Tim act any differently than he’s always acted?’ And I’d think, ‘Come on! He’ll change. I’ll just be persistent. And he’ll come around.’

“I guess I was just so full of denial about the fact that this guy wouldn’t come through in some areas, I just couldn’t believe it. I’d say to myself, ‘Of course, he’ll do that. It means the end of the world if he doesn’t do it.’

“But you know, it didn’t matter to him, that it was the end of my world.”

Beatrice told me that her alcoholic husband was like a chocolate Easter bunny: he looked so good, but when she was really close to him, she saw he was hollow.

*  *  *

Sandra told me she couldn’t wait for her second surgery: it was so good to get out of the house and into the hospital, away from the alcoholic.

*  *  *

Doris decided to leave, after 35 years of an alcoholic, violent marriage. She felt good about it, until her friends said they were shocked and told her:

“He can change, honey. Just give him time.”

and

“Look at all the years you were together. You don’t need to leave him after all those years!”

*  *  *

What are the facts?

Friends, even well-meaning ones, are coming to your situation with advice that often stems from their own needs and wants. Change is difficult, even for others who are watching your change. They don’t know where you’ll wind up; where you might move to; if you’ll see them as much; if you might like their husbands; if you’ll have the same interests, once you change and your world changes. They’re scared, and unconsciously may want you to keep the status quo.

And, if you change, maybe they feel they must look at themselves, too, and their choices.

Also, these friends may be ignorant of alcoholism and the bizarre behavior of the alcoholic. They may think you’ve been exaggerating, a little. That you could, if you chose to, “put up with it.”

*  *  *

If you are thinking about leaving, do it or don’t do it – because you choose to stay or leave. Just remember the facts – and don’t let your decision be muddied up by other well-intentioned, but ignorant, folks’ input.

Only you have to live with the results.

I’ve been concerned, for the past couple of years, about phone calls I’ve received from spouses of alco­holics, telling me about the advice they had received from counselors. Here is a typical example:

Juanita did an intervention with her alcoholic husband. She was invited to family week at the treatment center. She was then told that she “had severe abandon­ment issues of her own,” and should separate from her husband. She should have no contact with him except by telephone and just “work on her issues.”

I get calls like this a lot, lately. Calls that come from frightened family members who are regularly told this by counselors:

a) the family member cannot get well in that relation­ship

     or

b) the alcoholic cannot stay sober in that marriage.

Let’s look at these issues:

It is true that most families of alcoholics have severe abandonment fears. However, one does not necessarily have to separate from another person to deal with these issues. Many persons have successfully detached from the effects of someone else’s alcoholism and have learned to deal with their abandonment issues through programs such as Al-Anon.

Furthermore, it is not necessarily a virtue to force an issue when one is not yet ready to deal with it – in order to prove that “you are really working on your program of recovery.” Isn’t the goal “progress rather than perfection”? Who do you need to prove what to? Could this be another manifestation of people-pleasing?

Also, when a counselor tells a visiting family mem­ber that their abandonment issues are getting in the way of progress of that family unit, the implicit message to the newly-sober person may be that this fear of abandonment is part of the reason for his alcoholism – instead of the true message: nothing got you drunk. (And, when the counselor goes further and angrily confronts the family for “being enablers” – does this not also imply that “something got him drunk”?)

*  *  *

Could it be that some counselors may be adult children of alcoholics who have not yet resolved their old anger toward their own non-addicted parents? Do they still expect that parent to have: a) been perfect or b) thrown out the alcoholic when the parent couldn’t do that?

And what if the couple who’ve been married 46 years do listen to the counselor who tells them that he can’t stay sober around her? Suppose they break up and he still can’t stay sober? Is the counselor going to be around to pick up the pieces? I personally feel it’s dangerous to give advice to people to break up – or stay together – when it is the client who has to live with the consequences.

I^’ve seen too many counselors “shooting from the hip” and advising couples they’ve just met on a one-week intensive family unit to dissolve decades-long marriages.

Now, of course there are times when it is probably advisable for a person to not return home after com­plet­ing an inpatient stay for alcoholism (for instance, if the spouse they would be returning to is actively alcoholic or violent). But even in those cases, there are many times when the trauma of separation is too much to deal with, on top of newfound sobriety. Many women, especially, have found it immensely helpful to attend a large number of AA and Al-Anon meetings every week. When they attend both groups regularly, they are often able to stay sober and stay in the marriage long enough to buy them­selves time. The Al-Anon meetings give them emotional detachment from the marriage problems, so that they can stay in that familiar environment, for awhile, at least. Later (and sometimes it takes years), they have the strength to look at leaving a still-drinking and/or violent spouse. If leaving the marriage had been insisted on from the beginning, many of those now-sober women would not be sober, today.

But this is all a very individual decision, based on more issues than a single “dysfunctional family” diag­nosis. Many women alcoholics find it too frightening, in early sobriety, to deal with facing the world alone and financially-strapped, with young children; many people have never lived alone; many alcoholics – looking to bolster their already-irresponsible attitude toward their families – seek an excuse to further abandon them, instead of becoming responsible, making amends, and seeing if the marriage can be saved.

Now, of course, many relationships and marriages are just not salvageable. But even in those cases, it is often wise to wait a while to make a major change.

The old-timers in AA used to say: No major decisions the first year, if possible. They knew that it’s often easier for alcoholics to run, rather than to “sit still and hurt.” They knew that in the first year of sobriety, your brain is so foggy that many of your decisions are probably way off base. It’s often easier to wait a bit to clear the brain rather than to act impulsively and later try to retrieve a lost partner.

Sometimes, we don’t “make a decision” to change a had situation. Instead, we “hit a bottom” about it and we find ourselves just changing!

Susan G. is a financial services counselor. She coun­sels people from her home-office, often by telephone.

Her alcoholic father lived with her. Sometimes, when she was on the phone with clients, he would have outbursts of temper that could be heard through the house, and clients would ask what it was about. It disturbed the clients and her train of thought so that she was less able to concentrate on the matters at hand.

Susan got tired of putting up with it. She angrily told her father that he’d have to stop. When she yelled at him, “What do you want me to do – rent an office somewhere so they can’t hear you?!” – her father had the arrogance to say “Yes.”

After thinking about it for a minute, Susan realized that that put the onus on her, when it was his problem. She then told her father that if it happened again, he would have to leave the house whenever she had a phone appointment with a client.

*  *  *

Sandra’s son, Ted, was only twelve when he began to confront his father about his drinking, bringing up the subject and talking about the value of Alcoholics Anonymous.

His father then tried to divert and scare him by saying that he’d stop giving him rides to places, saying “I’ll not be your taxi anymore.’’

Ted answered him with: “There are not too many ways you take care of me anymore. One of them is putting food on the table and one is giving me rides, sometimes.”

His father said, “Maybe you and I need to see a therapist to iron out our differences.”

Ted answered with: “Why don’t you just go and see an alcoholism counselor and take the first step towards your own recovery, and then we will talk about counseling together.”

Sandra was stunned to see how well her son was. He was not conned into thinking that the problem was one of “communications.” He knew that it was alcoholism, and that his father could not learn to be straight with his feelings and actions unless he got sober first.

*  *  *

Both of these examples showed courage. What happened to Susan G. and Ted was that they had spent much time in family recovery meetings, and prepared themselves for the time when they would be able to stop putting up with what was unacceptable to them.

That is an important point: No one can tell you what is acceptable to you. Everybody has some thing(s) that if a person “crosses over that line,” are just too offensive to put up with.

In recovery, we get dignity. And that is God-given. It becomes very important because it is a solid and healthy barometer of what can and cannot be done to a child of God.

This is Caroline’s story:

“We had just gotten married, and we were living in the State of Washington. He was going to get this big job, and all of a sudden, he announced that he lost it. Suddenly, he’s out of work, and needs someone to take care of him.

“I kind of knew from his background that he was in and out of work all the time, but I wanted to ignore it. Actually, I had met him years before, when we were still in high school. And he had that reputation back then, as kind of a “slough-off.” But he was charming. So, like I said, I ignored it.

“Now, I can look at the picture, and it’s so obvious. But, when you’re in the middle of it, you don’t see it.

“He continued to womanize. He’d been known for it, but I thought that if we got married, he’d be so happy with me, he wouldn’t do that anymore.

“And then I had surgery for blood clots. And I had other things wrong with me, physically. I was a mess. And here I was married to an unemployed womanizer. And me trying to work and support both of us.

“I mean, it was on our honeymoon that he started telling me that I’ve got to get a job.

“He’d get good jobs, but he wouldn’t keep them for more than six months. And after he got out of treatment and came home, I saw that he was the same person and he would never change. I just knew it. And I was right. He was the same conniver, the same con man.

“I asked him, when he got out of treatment, ‘What did the guys do, when they left the treatment center?’ And he answered, ‘They went back to work.’ And I said, ‘What about you?’ And he answered, ‘What do you want me to do? Go to work for a lousy $15,000 a year?’ And I said, ‘It beats nothing.’ He walked away in a huff.

*  *  *

“I realized he wasn’t going to go back to work. And that I was going to have to support him the rest of my life. Oh, he was going to do little odd jobs and maybe bring in a hundred dollars a month. And he was going to get real excited about it, like a little kid.

“But, it would always have to be a job he liked. He’d never do anything he didn’t enjoy doing. I’d have to, to support him. But, not him.

“He went to a lot of AA meetings. And they told him there that he’d have to change. But he didn’t want to. And he didn’t. Oh, he found socialization; and he found friends; and he found God.

“But, he didn’t find a job!

*  *  *

“Well, I wanted out. But, I was scared, because I was so ill.

“But, I was able to leave because the future with him was more devastating than a future alone. If I’d need a person to care for me, medically, I knew he wouldn’t. Let’s put it this way: he said he would. But, I knew better. He’d do it for awhile, and make a big to-do about it. But, he’d get tired of it quick, just like the jobs.

“So, I left. And got an apartment. The first night in this apartment, I couldn’t get my window closed. I was weak from the illnesses, and I couldn’t close the window. I was frantic! I called a friend who lived up the street, and she came over and closed the window.

“And when I had to get my groceries, I was breathless and exhausted. I found that I had to curtail certain things. I would have to get them into the house, and then sit down for awhile. I would have to learn to do things one step at a time. I’m learning to take care of myself. I’m learning to not do certain things. And that’s hard for me, because I think I was born running!

“You see, I’m an adult child of an alcoholic, and I think I should be able to do everything! I think there is something amiss if you don’t take care of the world!

“Once, I got a maid. And I cleaned for two hours before she came! For two reasons: one, so she’d think well of me, and another, to lessen her load – because I had to lessen everyone’s load in life! Except my own.

“We have so little that we need. That we think we need. We get a peanut and we give an elephant. We don’t ask for a lot. But, if we should happen to get it anyway, we feel so guilty, we give them a thousand times more.

“The point is, after I left, I had to learn all this about me. And, it’s been quite a wonderful journey.”

Part Three: Helping the Non-Addicted Partner to Learn to Discern What Input Will Help with Decisions And Actions

Cheryl was doing just fine. Her grandson’s Christen­ing was approaching. She had made plans to stay at the ceremony for only as long as the religious rites lasted. She was going to skip the social, planned for afterwards – held at the home of the most abusive members of the family.

She had plane tickets and planned to leave for an island vaca­tion immediately after church that day. Nothing was going to spoil her vacation: not the thought of her ex-husband being there with his new drinking-buddy girlfriend; not the thought of her druggie son, who was also the baby’s father; not the thought of her daughters who worked for their father, and who sided with him because he bought them off with new cars and high-tech playtoys.

*  *  *

Cheryl was getting her kitchen redone. She was at the begin­ning stages, where a designer would come to her house and help her look through catalogs and choose colors, textures, and styles.

Gail, the decorator, showed up early. Together, they went through the books. Cheryl chose lovely florals in blues, mint, and peach. Over coffee, they discussed when the work should start. Cheryl said she’d like to have it done by the middle of April, before she went on vacation.

They schmoozed about vacations in general, and Cheryl told her about the Christening, and how she planned to leave right afterwards.

Gail, who never lived with alcoholism, and who could not possibly comprehend the bizarre abuse Cheryl had been subjected to, answered: “But, how could you? You owe it to your family to be at the reception! You should even be having a reception here for them! After all, it’s your grandchild!’

The guilt hit Cheryl like a ton of bricks. She felt as if the six months spent in A1-Anon meetings and counseling had just gone down the drain.

It took many heart-wrenching hours of crisis counseling with Cheryl to help restore the gains she had previously made – so that she could continue with her original self-protective vacation plans.

*  *  *

We can talk things through; we can have insights; we can finally clearly see the truth about the alcoholism . . . and yet, if we have but a smidgen of self-doubt, even a stranger can erode much of our new-found confidence that we’re doing the right thing. (That’s because we are so new at it. It gets easier!)

*  *  *

Meanwhile, it is important for us to discuss what is going on in our lives only with other recovering families or counselors who truly understand the craziness of alcoholism.

Well-intentioned persons who have never been subjected to the bizarreness cannot help but say things that are counter-productive because they start from a different framework of reality.

We leave ourselves too open, too vulnerable, when we discuss our stories with just anyone.

Part of our healing derives from acting with self protection.

We need to internalize the fact that we do not have to explain ourselves to the world.

This is Nancy’s story of the step-by-step process that helped her to make a decision:

“I was in a group of women from either alcoholic or otherwise-dysfunctional families. The counselor was terrific.

“But, at first, I felt alienated. The others in the group were in their twenties, and I was 49. How could they relate to me? And me to them? I thought they’d never understand my problems. They hadn’t been through half of them. They hadn’t lived life yet. Their worries were all job concerns, mainly. They hadn’t been through marriage, divorce, childbearing, child raising. Well, three out of the ten had. But not most of them.

“They hadn’t bought a home, sold a home, lost a home because of an alcoholic. Not yet, anyway. And besides, I had lived with my alcoholic for fifteen years.

“I couldn’t share much of myself, at first. I felt intimidated. These girls were young, but sharp! They’d gotten into counseling so young! Actually, I felt a bit jealous that they know so much and were into getting help so young. They had their whole lives ahead of them, to live healthy.

“One of my difficulties was in confronting my alcoholic husband, Bill. He was an attorney and he ran circles around me. So, my counselor had me practice in the group. She had me tell the members of the group what could be improved about each one of them.

“And that was so hard for me. I am a helper, not a criticizer. I’ve always felt it was important to be nice to people, even if you might be angry.

“I was never really honest with anyone in the world! I always said what they wanted to hear.

“But what really hurt me was that the group told me that I was so nice that they thought I was disgusting! That they didn’t trust me!

“Well, driving home from the session, I told them off! In my mind, that is. But two seconds later, I excused them. I told myself that they were raised in rougher neighborhoods than I was raised in, and therefore, they couldn’t really help being so brutally frank.

“But, I wrestled with it. I thought about it for days. I told myself that I was basically a nice person. and what’s wrong with that? So what if it’s a little dishonest?

“But then, I had to admit that I went overboard. That I never said the truth to anyone, hardly.

“There had to be a middle road there, somewhere.

“1 had to admit to myself that I was nice and didn’t want to hurt people’s feelings, which is sweet. But also, I had to admit that I have always been a people-pleaser and afraid of having people mad at me. And that was not necessarily good.

“So, I had to take these two theories, so to speak, and find a middle ground. I told myself that I could no longer people-please so much.

“I had to find a middle ground where I was not brutally honest, but where I was honest with other people.

“That helped me to look straight at the things my husband was doing. And that helped me to move closer to making a correct decision, not one based on denial.

*  *  *

“Then, I began to see where I had things much more in common with the others in the counseling group, than I had previously thought. All of us were trying to learn to deal with things that were, to some degree, making us unhappy.

“We were trying to stop repeating the same behaviors. Mine, of course, were all about binding myself so tightly to a man who was going to repeatedly disappoint me, and be unavailable to me, emotionally. He would be nice, and then out of the blue, not nice. I’d been involved with a man before my alcoholic who was like that. He wasn’t alcoholic, but what did that matter? They both were unavailable to me, on any consistent level.

“And of course, my problem was that I continued to adapt to it. Continued to tell myself that it would be different. They tell people in AA to ask themselves why they do the same things and expect different results. I had to ask myself why I picked the same kind of man and expected him to change – expected different results?

“And why did I continue to deny that I was doing this?

“What helped me so much was, in group, I went over all my life patterns. I looked at all the patterns of my parents and siblings and saw who were my role models. I said it out loud. Before, it was all in my head. But I didn’t have a chance to change anything until I said it out loud. It was like, it got out on the table, and therefore I couldn’t deny it anymore.

“One of the things I learned about myself – one of my patterns of behavior – was that in the beginning of relationships with men, I always believed them, hook, line, and sinker. That is, if they were charming and loveable-seeming.

“I wanted to believe them totally. I wanted it to be the way they presented themselves to me.

“I wanted it so badly that I couldn’t see it being any other way. Of course, later, after I was so bitterly disappointed in my husband, I told myself the truth about him.

“But what hooked me, was my wanting to believe the fairy tales.

“I figured that if I do this, if we do that, all will be okay. And what I was saying to myself, unconsciously, was that if we do this and that, he’ll change. He’ll be so happy with our relationship, he won’t find it necessary to drink or pull away from me.

*  *  *

“And, then I realized, finally, that I had to leave him. I could not change him. I tried responding differently, but it did no good, in this situation.

“Plus, I had to be honest with myself and admit that I didn’t want to adapt to living that way with him, the rest of my life. It made me too depressed.

“It got to the point in my house, that he and I had a silent, unspoken agreement that I was either going to have to give in and accept his behavior for the rest of my life – or leave. It was like we both knew it, once I knew it.

“It’s like they really do have radar. They just know when we’ve had enough.”

I am often asked by families: “How shall I know if my minister understands the craziness I’m living with?” Or: “How will I know if my counselor will be charmed by the alcoholic and think that I am exaggerating the nuttiness? I’ve been through that scenario once too often!”

*  *  *

I’ve devised a list of characteristics ol typical crazy­making in the family that helps families when they are looking for a counse­lor. Family members take this list with them and discuss them with the counselor. If the counselor is not surprised at this list – in other words, if the counselor is familiar with the crazymaking in the alcoholic home – families have told me that they had satis­fying relationships with these counselors.

(This is not at all an exhaustive list, but just indicative of some of the major points of crazymaking in the alcoholic home):

Some ways alcoholics blame families:

1) The alcoholic evokes sympathy from you; you feel pity for him; you rescue; he has contempt for you even more.

2) They threaten abandonment over and over, and accuse you of clinging and “having severe abandon­ment issues.”

3) They flirt with everyone you know, and accuse you of being pathologically jealous. Name of the game: Gaslight (remember the old Ingrid Bergman/Charles Boyer film? If not, it might be a good idea to rent it at a video store!)

4)  They repeatedly do something outrageously hurtful; you complain and they accuse you of “always accusing them.”

Some universal ways family members tell themselves it’s their fault:

1)  The families take on the blame when the alcoholic is nasty – and give the alcoholic the credit when the alcoholic is nice! Example: Marianne broke up with her alco­holic boyfriend and bemoaned that she would never find another guy “who is such fun.” When her counselor met him, he was one step above Sad Sack Joe. Her perplexed counselor asked if he was depressed. “No,” they said. He always acted like that! The truth was: Marianne was the one who injected the fun into their relationship and gave him the credit for it. It never even occurred to her to think that she was the one who kept the relationship alive. 

2) “Why am I so upset? He’s been nice for two weeks, now.” The wife of the alcoholic has lived with his womanizing for thirty-three years, and when he “hasn’t done it” for two weeks, she agrees with him that she’s “paranoid” when she’s afraid he’ll do it again. And he’s only two weeks sober. She’s taken the junk for thirty-three years and is now taking it in a different form – maybe in a more crazymaking form.

3)  She’s been in counseling for six weeks. She tells her counselor that her father, a drinking alcoholic, always beat up her and her mom. She recounts: “When I was ten years old, I started thinking that my mom should not take dad back because mom was getting beaten.” What about her? It didn’t even occur to her to want her mom to not take back her dad because he was beating her up, too – and she was the child.

4)  She came home and found him with a drinking-buddy woman in their bed. She “threw a fit” and threw them both out. She got another apartment and moved most of the furniture into it. When she told her therapist about taking the furniture, she looked nervous and said, “Honest, I deserved it. I worked, too!” How many times do we feel we have to justify our acts of dignity?

What are some ways that counselors can misread alcoholic-family signals?

1) John’s alcoholic wife, Augusta, picked up yet another man. She came home and told him that she “didn’t want to be married anymore.” They went to a marriage counselor who didn’t see the alcoholism, and told them: “Augusta seems depressed. Maybe she is just sad and wants to leave you, John.” Augusta didn’t even remember the counseling session the next day. Has this counselor ever heard about depression induced by alcoholism?

2)  Melody, recently divorced, was in counseling. Her ex-husband is alcoholic. Three of her four adult children were very anxious to talk with her counselor in a family session. The counselor was pleased with their prompt response to her request to come in for such a session. They, like their father, were charm­ing, quick-witted, alcoholic, and facile in their indict­ment of their mother. The facts never emerged about their own drinking and collusion with their father to defend the family’s alcoholism. The coun­selor had no knowledge of the questions to ask to determine whether or not there was active alco­holism in the children. Nor did she even know that this was of prime importance.

Part four: Hidden Issues After Separation That Keep the Crazymaking Going

If the alcoholic “looks good” it doesn’t mean he or she isn’t alcoholic! “Looking good” is a stage of the disease.

*  *  *

When an alcoholic or other-drug addict reaches a later stage of addiction, he or she needs alcohol or other drugs to seem normal. Their bodies are so sickened from the toxicity that they need a certain level of drug in them to not go into severe withdrawal.

When they get that level of alcohol or pills into them they seem “calm” and “functional.”

But, they can’t stay that way for long.

For, after they drank or pilled enough to satiate the biochemical need for the drug, the calming – and supposedly “normalizing” – effect begins to wear off.

The withdrawal sets in, and it gives off an anxiety-producing after-effect that lasts longer than did the original anxiety.

As the disease progresses, the calming periods get harder to attain, and the anxiety and/or depressed moods get more difficult to shake.

This cycle continues until sobriety . . . the only way to end the merry-go-round.

*  *  *

So don’t confuse a seeming “calm” with thinking there’s not an addiction. It’s just a stage of the disease.

Jan calls me every other week for counseling. She lives in Idaho, and is separated from her husband, Karl. Jan lives in a small town where she can’t help but see her husband or hear about him from others. He picks up the kids every other weekend and keeps them until Sunday evening.

Jan has a part-time job as an accountant. She keeps a spotless house and makes all her children’s clothing, as well as much of her own. She’s a rational woman . . . until he shows up.

Lately, Karl’s litany is to keep telling her that he “is controlling his drinking just fine.” That he “isn’t an alcoholic, like she always thought.”

Jan tells me “how well he seems to be doing” and then tells me that he is doing bizarre things in his apartment, like putting dirty ornaments from the yard on the coffee table and thinking they look good. (This is a man who used to be impeccable.)

She insists that he must be better, since he told her so. But, then she adds, in an “oh, by the way” manner: “Oh, he just got out of the hospital. His pancreas is acting up again.”

*  *  *

Denial in the entire family is multi-layered, deep, and subtle. Jan, even though she knew the facts, did not really “hear” when she heard that his pancreas was affected. Jan knew that that was a sign of his progressing alcoholism, but because she lived with Karl’s telling her for years that “she was over-reactive,” she tended to doubt herself. She believed that Karl was really getting better.

*  *  *

What is the truth?

Alcoholism develops in stages. In the first stage, the alcoholic usually has a higher tolerance for alcohol than do other human beings. He or she can drink more and “hold their liquor.”

In the next stage, the alcoholic usually can get as toxic from the alcohol as before, while drinking less of it. It just doesn’t take as much booze to get sick.

Round-the-clock maintenance drinking doesn’t usually occur until the last stages of the disease. So, if your alcoholic husband or wife isn’t drinking all the time – and therefore seemingly sometimes “controls” it – it’s because he or she has not yet reached that later stage of the disease.

*  *  *

If you find yourself in denial, note it. Make a “Denial” notebook. Write down your patterns in this area. The process of writing them down will enhance your awareness of them when they pop up again. You will be well on your way to recovery when you stay aware of your patterns.

Sandy lives in Michigan. The winters there are not fun for her, especially since she has an illness that lowers her tolerance for cold weather.

Sandy would not be living in Michigan if it weren’t for Mike. They married five years ago. She had her own business in real estate in Florida, when she first met her husband.

He was nice for the first three weeks of their marriage. Then, he began the verbal abuse.

Over the years, he had affairs, he drank alcoholically and smoked pot incessantly, and he was off-and-on unemployed. They basically lived on the income from her business.

Sandy started going to a therapist who specialized in families of alcoholics’ recovery. She began to change her response to Mike. He got scared and insisted that they move back to Michigan, his home state. He told her that he could do better, work wise, but he really wanted to get her away from her therapist.

Scared of losing him, Sandy moved with him.

She had to start all over again, building up a real estate busi­ness, which takes years of work. She got worse, physically, from her illness. She had more bills, therefore, and less income.

And then Mike left.

He is now living off another woman and Sandy will be moving back to Florida when the divorce is final.

But, as she told me, “I want to get on with my life. I partly want to get him back, but mostly, I am so very, very angry. And I feel guilty about it. And I go back and forth between guilt and rage. And I feel stuck.”

*  *  *

Sandy’s story is typical of women who’ve been abused and then abandoned. The rage of these women is not “inappropriate.”

They do not need another person to tell them that “it’s time to drop their anger!”

What they need is to know that they certainly have the right to that anger.

But, that he does not deserve one more minute of her time!

I wouldn’t end the anger for “moral” reasons like “what is wrong with you? You are so angry and it’s been quite a while now?!”

I would work on revengefully putting my energy into getting my life back from this horrible person who tried to use and abuse it.

In a short time, you will be miles ahead of the game, while he is hoping that you are still a victim.

And you will be free.

Dana hails from Minnesota. She lives there, again, after separating from her alcoholic husband, Ned. Dana moved back to her home state with her two children. She’s going through a messy divorce and trying to keep an emotional distance from Ned.

It’s even more difficult because when the two of them do have to talk, Ned is usually vicious.

But Dana feels particularly overwhelmed when he is nice to her: “When the lawn mower broke, Ned offered to bring me his, when he brought the children back from their weekend with him. It sounds crazy, but that got me more upset than anything! Why am I like that? Why shouldn’t I be happy when he’s nice to me, for a change?!”

*  *  *

I don’t believe there’s anything wrong with Dana. I think that she is responding in a very self-protective way, when she doesn’t trust his being nice to her.

Why?

a)  The “good” stuff can be as manipulative – at least as “hooking” – as the “bad” stuff. Spouses of alco­holics are very often all-or-nothing people. They believe that if it’s like it is now, it will always be.

          So, if he’s nice now, we think he’ll always be.

          And where does that kind of thinking lead to? It leads to believing that he’s really a wonderful guy, if he lent you that mower.

          We forget the facts of the entire picture.

          We forget that of course he’ll be nice some of the time.

          No one is not-nice all the time.

b)  When he acts rotten, he’s straight-out with it. You don’t have to look “over your shoulder” to see the “zinger” that’s going to come at you.

          So, if he’s nice, you naturally become wary. You’ve been through this one before! Watch out for the next time.

c)  You realize that if you are wary, he’ll notice it, and point it out, and call you crazy for not being happy that he’s being nice to you. “What’s the matter with you, now?” he yells at you. He loves to act nice and put you on your guard, so that you’ll look over­-reactive when you’re wary.

d)  When you forget the facts, you might partially agree with him that there’s something wrong with you because you can’t be happy that he’s nice to you.

          If this happens, remind yourself that this is, once again, the alcoholism rearing its ugly head. You are not overreacting.

*  *  *

If you’re worried that “his friends” may think you’re nuts for being wary of a nice-acting man: just think of all the bars in the world with a bunch of alcoholics in there, all complaining (to other drinking alcoholics) about their “paranoid wives.”

So a motley crew of people whose brains are soaked with alcohol say to each other that you’re one of those wives who’s “off” for not putting up with their behavior.

Think about it.

“Toby, what is wrong with me? I can’t forgive him! I get so mad at him every time I think about him and this other woman he’s living with!”

*  *  *

I don’t personally believe that God is out to get us. I don’t believe that He’s waiting to zap us for “not forgiving.”

Families of alcoholics – we are so hard on ourselves. We say, “But it’s in the past. Why can’t I forgive him?” And we say this when he’s still doing his junk; when we still see it; when he picks up the children for visitation, and “she” is with him, smirking at us.

This is not “The Past!” This is now. And it’s incredibly difficult to “forgive” when it’s still going on!

Plus – I think that perhaps God wants us to stop tripping over that stone in the road, so that we can get on with our lives, and be useful and productive and effective in helping others. And that can only be completely accomplished by finding peace of mind.

So maybe forgiveness is detachment. It may be just a matter of (as Al-Anon so very wisely puts it) “putting our problem in its true perspective” and “not letting it dominate our thoughts and our lives.”

*  *  *

I believe that we get in our own way when we speak of this letting-go process in such a moral way. We are so hard on ourselves, morally. We think we not only have to put up with this nonsense, but that we have to put on a saint’s face to do it!

It is so much harder for us to get some emotional distance from the abuse when we look at our efforts as if we must be judged on whether we let go of it well!

What kind of God is that who would see us being abused, and then punish us for not getting out of it grace­fully?! Certainly not the God of Mercy and Goodness.

I think when we live with alcoholism for any amount of time, we unconsciously attribute the hostility and anger of the alcoholic (and of our own natural feelings) to our concept of God. Without even knowing it.

*  *  *

I think He just wants us to learn to be as gentle and non-judgmental toward ourselves as He really is towards us.

I believe He feels a lot of compassion for us who’ve lived with the abuse of alcoholism. I think He greatly understands that we often cannot yet come out from under the fear of more abuse – whether we fear that the abuse would come from the alcoholic or from our own alcoholic-family-sickened concept of God.

Most families of alcoholics go through certain stages of mood swings, after a separation.

They are:

a)  Going back and forth between terror and relief and amazement that they had the courage to do it

b)  Gratitude to God for helping them

c)  Inability to sleep and other signals of situational – temporary – depression

d)  Childlike wonder at the vastness of options open, now

*  *  *

What are other feelings that can lead into setbacks?

If we get into:

$   Smugness about having the strength to do it

$   Understandable, continual anger

Anger and self-righteous feelings can carry us through a certain period of time, but they do eventually end. Unfortunately, there is a boomerang effect from extended anger and self-righteousness. Families of alco­holics have much more of a sense of conscience and of “doing what’s right” than do other folk. Therefore, we tend to have guilt after we’ve angered onto someone for a period of time . . . a feeling of “we’ve got to make it up to them.”

This guilt is often subconscious.

What we (unconsciously) tell ourselves is that we need to “make up for our anger” by letting the other person off the hook. And we do that by going back into denial about how bad their behavior really was.

But, when we tell ourselves, especially uncon­scious­ly, that they were not so bad – then, we get blamed, because we left them! After all, if they were really just a little annoying, instead of abusive, then why in the world did we make such a big deal out of it, and leave?

We get back into the old behavior of taking the blame. Once again, we collude with the alcoholic in saying: “the family is at fault.”

The best way to counteract that is to write down the facts. Keep a fact-notebook. That is one of the best ways to end the minimizing that is often at the heart of family denial.

Example of how writing down the facts can help tremendously: Joanne told me about an incident that was so horrible that she ordinarily would have gone into her denial, and forgotten it. But, she had written it down in her fact-file, and could refer back to it when she told herself that he “probably wasn’t that bad.”

This is what she wrote about:

Joanne and her actively-alcoholic husband, Kirk, were in a marriage-counseling session. The therapist asked Joanne what she would really like from the marriage. Joanne answered that she would like it if Kirk came home at night, didn’t drink, that he would be nice, and that he would spend one whole week being good to her.

The therapist asked Kirk if he would spend one entire week being good to her. He shrugged his shoulders and shook his head No. The therapist was stunned that he wouldn’t agree to just that.

What I told Joanne that I found incredible is that the marriage counselor didn’t ask her a very important question: “Do you mean that in your entire 24-year marriage, Kirk has never been nice to you for seven consecutive days?”

*  *  *

Write down the facts. Keep them in a very safe place, so that they cannot be found to later hurt you.

We families of alcoholics go so very easily into denial and minimization, that we cannot trust our memories to come up with the truth. (I can’t count all the times that clients of mine have remembered something, and exclaimed, “I forgot that that happened!” And it was something like “he shot off guns in the house through the ceiling, all the time!” And the client told me this after weeks of her telling me that he “wasn’t that violent.”)

We must be able to remember the truths when we start to “romance the past.” For if we do not, we may have to repeat the past.

*  *  *

Another trap we can get into when our anger dies down is: great compassion for the alcoholic.

We often think that compassion will keep us at a detached distance from the alco­holic – and then we start thinking we are a step above holy! After all, he’s terrible and we’re kind and distanced and that leads easily into thinking we are wonderful.

In reality, that “compassion” is easily done away with as soon as the alcoholic acts up, again. Our feelings then turn into confusion and rage.

True detachment doesn’t feel noble. Nobility feelings are too transient. To keep it up, you’ve got to be so good all the time! (Besides, we tend to turn things around and convince ourselves that our family symptoms of sickness are virtues; we say, “I was so good to him. He’ll never find another one like me!” Then we go about trying to get a relationship with someone who will appreciate our overly-givingness! When, in reality, that is not a virtue! In fact, if we keep it up, we will just hook into another sickie, because only those kind will “appreciate” our sickness of giving too much. A well person will give a wide berth to someone who has to love too much.)

*  *  *

Our fears are the source of our over-abundant need to feel noble. We feel like we’ve got to be wonderful in order to have God’s permission to leave abuse.

That’s just not so. We can be allowed to leave abuse, even if we aren’t “wonder­ful”; and we can leave even if that abuse does not occur all the time.

The alcoholic doesn’t have to be Hitler, in order for us to have permission to leave.

*  *  *

If your therapist, your friends (maybe even your alcoholic too) are all telling you that you’re crazy for continuing to take abuse, then sometimes the one thing that helps is to tell yourself that you’re too sick right now to make decisions. So what you’ll do is go through the motions. Let the lawyer (if he or she is a good one) make the decisions (like “go for half the property” when you want to give it all away to the alcoholic because you feel guilty for leaving). It’s sort of like, “Let Go And Let Lawyer.”

“I had a protection order against him. He had tried to run me over in a car. He was very drunk. At least, it seemed as if he tried to run me over.

“My counselor told me to look at it for what it was. That he did try to run me over. I was actually knocked over a little bit. It would have been much worse, had I not jumped when I saw the car coming at me.

“But I don’t want to believe it.”

*  *  *

Sally told me this in her living room. She said her counselor also told her that if she tried to diminish it or minimize it, it was likely to happen again.

If we try to diminish the truth of the impact of an event, or if we say it was really not going on, then the next logical step is we don’t do anything about it. Then, the alcoholic figures he can get away with it.

*  *  *

Sally went on: “I had left him before that, for a few weeks, because of his drinking and his leaving me alone all the time.

“I took him back because he promised he’d change.

“Ten days later, he tried to run me over.

“We’ve been in divorce proceedings six times, now.

“I had to serve him papers each time again, because I always dropped the proceedings.

“Each time, he promised things would get better. And he desperately wanted to believe it, too.

“Things would get better, for a very short while.

“The last three times, he went to treatment to get me back. And then, he’d gradually let up on his AA meetings, and drop out and get drunk.

“When I’d say things to him like, ‘I have to see the change in you first, before I come back,’ he’d tell me I didn’t trust him. And I’d feel guilty for not trusting him. So, I’d go back. And he’d get drunk. And then, I’d say, ‘See? You got drunk, like I said. I came back too soon.’ And he’d come back with, ‘It’s your fault. You’re always on my back. Looking at me. Watching to see if I’ll get drunk. Anyone would get drunk with someone always expecting it.’

“Actually, the last time, he didn’t promise he’d stop drinking. I guess he knew he couldn’t – and I wouldn’t believe him. So, he promised he’d just drink at home. And I accepted it because I was so lonely for him to be home. At least I’d have a husband at home. And he thought he could control his drinking more at home, then, too. He thought he could be a good father and a good husband, but still be able to drink.

“He does not think he’s powerless over alcohol.

“He says he ‘just drinks beer.’ He thinks that means he’s not alcoholic.”

*  *  *

What to remember, so that you can get out from under the craziness:

$   Alcoholics will blame the family, as surely as tubercular patients will cough.

$   The alcoholic will turn the facts around 180 degrees to accomplish the blame.

$   You do not have to convince them that they’re wrong. They know it.

$   When you spend time trying to convince them of the truth, they know that you feel vulnerable. When you do not spend time trying to convince them of the truth, but just go about your business knowing the truth and acting upon it, they know that you know the truth. And they lose their power over you.

$   Making your life plans according to the threats/promises of a person whose brain is soaked with alcohol, is akin to making your life plans according to the wishes of a mental patient.

$   You absolutely have the right to stay away long enough from a relationship in order to see how it will develop and to see if promises will be kept.

$   If a relationship is meant to be, it will happen in good time, and according to God’s time.

$   It almost never feels right to do the right thing, for alcoholic families. It almost always makes us feel guilty, at first.

$   If it’s good for the family, it’s good for the alcoholic.

Families often say, “I should have recognized his alcoholism. After all, he was an alcoholic when I married him 30 years ago.” Well, baloney! Thirty years ago, who in the world recognized alcoholism? We knew people were drunks, but we didn’t know they were alcoholics.

*  *  *

Anyone who calls you “an enabler” has no concept of what real recovery is. It is important to look at this word and see what it means. Basically, it means that you have cleaned up after the alcoholic’s messes; that you have not been able to stop yourself from rescuing him or her from the consequences of their behavior. The reason you rescued the alcoholic is that you either were very fearful for them, or you were afraid of losing the alcoholic’s love, or you thought that the alcoholic would leave you if you “stopped putting up with it.”

Nobody has the right to fault you; it’s blaming the victim. That’s a terrible thing to do to the family.

Furthermore, when you call someone an enabler, you are giving the alcoholic yet another excuse for his behavior. I’ve heard a lot of alcoholics say, “I wouldn’t have drunk as long if I hadn’t been enabled.”

Alcoholism counselors consider it important for recovery when alcoholics stop blaming other people for their drinking. When an alcoholic says that he or she drank because they “were enabled” – they are adding yet another excuse to the repertoire. And that kind of excuse-making kills alcoholics.

That kind of blaming makes it easier for them to go back out and drink – the next time they think they’ve “been done wrong.”

*  *  *

What if you did enable – rescue – this alcoholic? If you did, you were acting from a very normal instinct to love and protect.

Let me quote from an article in the Baltimore Sunpapers a few years ago. A reporter was at a local outpatient treatment center where families were gathered to view a film. As they watched, many of the family members became visibly angry. The reporter asked why they were upset, and was told by viewers that in the film they were called “enablers.” One woman very articulately stated, “If we love them, we’re enablers. If we’re angry, we’re bitches. When do we win?”

*  *  *

We’ve got to stop calling family members “enablers” because they loved.

Families will stop rescuing when they feel safe enough to do so, when they have lost their fears of losing the alcoholic. Attacking them for “enabling” only increases their fears and feelings of unworthiness.

We’ve also got to stop blaming families for being angry when they are naturally angry because of all the junk that’s happened. We’ve got to help families to learn to stop blaming themselves and how to say, instead, “I did my best, I did what I could, I probably did more than anyone else could’ve done. I’ve certainly put up with more than my alcoholic would have done, had I acted that way toward him.

“Now, I’ve got to start believing my recovery is dependent upon my becoming self-centered in a healthy way.”

Let’s stop putting families in a no-win.

Rita’s story:

“I left him three years after he had stopped drinking. Nothing had changed. He acted the same and indicated to me that he did not intend to change. I went to two or three Al-Anon meetings a week. The women who were secretaries at these meetings were pretty non-judgmental about separations and divorce. They stuck to the principles of the program and didn’t have opinions they foisted on others.

“I began to face the fact that I had good reasons to leave my marriage. I felt like I had gotten permission from my God, through listening to and watching other women who were separated and who stayed in Al-Anon and helped others to go through what they had to go through. And they grew so much! That’s when it finally sunk in to me that I could possibly leave him. I’m not even sure that it was a conscious thought, then.

“Those women were the first women I had met who, when they were divorcing, weren’t beating their feet and gnashing their teeth.

“They had their times, of course. And their crying. And their fears. But they were growing through it all. And praying. And looking at themselves. And trying to turn it into a positive experience. A growth time. And they were succeeding – even when they were hurting.

“I think that’s the first time that I thought about the fact that it was all right. It was permission from the group and from my God, speaking through those people.

“Those women were leaving their husbands and no one thought the worst of them for it.

“I needed that permission.”

*  *  *

When you meet people in recovery meetings – people you respect – who leave their abusive spouses, something happens that often gives others “permission” to leave.

Families of alcoholics are so caught up with irrational guilt, they feel they can’t leave when the spouse is rotten only part of the time.

A spouse of an alcoholic may believe that God will punish her if she leaves; but she can meet and see other recovering families who are thriving and living and joyous and free – and not being punished, just because they left abuse.

Mary E. asked me this:

“My husband is an alcoholic. We are separated. I told him I cannot live that way. I don’t, however, want to get divorced. I want him to get help. There is no way to get his job to do an intervention. They all drink with him, including his boss.

“I do have some influence; he still loves me. He’s just not ready, yet. I’m going about my life, and I’m not focusing on him. But I want to give it some time before I’m ready to take further steps to finalize the separation. To see if maybe he’ll get some help on his own.

“My question is: What can I say to him when he calls me in a drunken rage? I don’t want to make the situation worse. But, I don’t want to take the abuse, either.”

*  *  *

I told Mary, “Say this to him only once: ‘John, I love you and know that this rage is caused not by you, but by your disease. It makes you want to get so angry that you have an excuse to go get drunk. It wants to kill you. And I want you to live. I’m going to hang up the phone and not listen to your disease giving me this abuse. Good-bye for now.’ ”

Mary wrote this down and kept it near her phone, so that when he called, she could say this and not count on having to remember it when she was so upset.

It was one of the things that John later said helped drive a wedge between him and his alcoholism.

What was equally important was, that phone call allowed her to express her self-protection and her dignity and yet left no residual guilt!

She hoped it helped him, too; but she knew that she was only in charge of efforts – not results. She prayed and put it in God’s hands. That let her be free and not waste her life in ineffectual efforts to make his life different.

It’s not a moral issue, this letting-go business. If controlling things worked, we’d all be pretty successful! Instead, what does work is to let go of results!