Living with and still loving an alcoholic can seem nearly impossible. Even the strongest can be broken down by all the chaos that an alcoholic can cause. Whether they are a binger, only drinking occasionally, but excessively when they do, or a practicing alcoholic, drinking every day (or nearly every day), the house can be in turmoil and the alcoholic is the only one who seems not to notice.
I hear you can tell if there is an alcoholic in the house by observing the rest of the family. They are the ones trying to hold it all together while the alcoholic seems oblivious to what is really going on. They seem like the sick ones.
They make the phone calls to work when the alcoholic is too hung over to go in that day; they make the excuses why the alcoholic is missing the family get-together or why a bill (or bills) is not getting paid that month. They are the ones who tip-toe around the house, trying to be quiet so the alcoholic won’t be upset and use that as an excuse to drink that day.
The children living in a family with an alcoholic member are likely to be either trying to be perfect so as not to cause the alcoholic to drink, or acting out to get attention because all the attention is focused on the alcoholic. They may think that if they were better the alcoholic would stop drinking, not realizing that the drinking has nothing to do with them.
Eventually, the children of an alcoholic become as sick as the alcoholic himself. They take on responsibilities that they are not ready for yet because the alcoholic is not being responsible. They assume the role of the missing alcoholic parent by cooking meals, cleaning the house, taking care of other siblings, working after school to help pay bills, and any other duties that the alcoholic parent has shirked.
The spouse of the alcoholic becomes as sick a the alcoholic also, and although they know they are not the reason the alcoholic is drinking they nonetheless take on the same role that the children do but on a grander scale. They may be the only breadwinner, have no social life because they are afraid of letting others know they are living with an alcoholic, begin drinking themselves out of sheer hopelessness, or any other countless ways of dealing with something they don’t understand.
“Everyone around an alcoholic can see how sick they are”, they think, “Why doesn’t the alcoholic see it?” “If he or she loved me they wouldn’t do this to me.” “Can’t he or she what they are doing to the children by their drinking?” “Why don’t they just stop?”
The truth is they can stop, but they need your help. It will take all your willpower and as much outside help as you can muster. The first step is to take care of yourself and your children. When you start taking care of yourself, you take the focus off of the alcoholic and put it on you.
Do not make plans if in the past the alcoholic has almost always let you down and been too drunk to go. Make plans with yourself for you and your children or you and a friend and just go have fun without worrying if this is just another day that the alcoholic is going to ruin. He or she isn’t purposely trying to destroy their lives, they are sick and need help. You can help them want to get well by staying out of the way when disaster strikes.
When he or she has a hangover and can’t make it to work, do not call the boss for them. That is their responsibility, not yours. Do not even remind them to call. If they forget and don’t call, let them deal with explaining it to the boss.
When the bills are late, don’t take a second job to bail out the alcoholic who refuses to work. If you are working and paying all the bills, and the alcoholic is not working, you may want to consider leaving for awhile and forcing the responsibility of working on the alcoholic. If they should lose their home, it is not your responsibility. You are accepting your responsibility and you are providing a home for you and your children. It is the alcoholic’s responsibility to do the same for him or herself.
All these things you must do with no fighting, no threats, no bribery, just stop doing all the things that are the alcoholic’s responsibility and concentrate on you. The more you concentrate on you, the more the alcoholic will have to concentrate on him or herself. Do not create situations that make it harder for the alcoholic but do not stand in the way if situations arise that could cause the alcoholic to want to change?
Do not bail him or her out of trouble from drinking and driving, do not lie for him or her or lie about how much they drink. Don’t stand in their way of anything that happens to them that they caused by their drinking. Why should they want to stop drinking if there are no consequences for it?
The more you concentrate on you and the children and remain calm the more the alcoholic will have to face what he or she is doing because they will not have you to blame for their drinking. If you are not fighting with them, pouring out their alcohol, covering for them when they have problems created by the drinking, lieing for them, they will have to start looking at themselves. It is not a guarantee, but most will see the devastation they have caused to themselves and to others and seek help. One thing is sure though, if you stand in their way of seeing the consequences of their actions they are sure to continue drinking.
When you feel the need to lash out, you need to call someone instead or go for a walk or do something that relaxes you and removes you from the situation. Take the children and go to the park, call a friend and go out for coffee. The more you keep the situation in control and the less you fight with the alcoholic, the
more her or she will come to realize that it is their behavior and not yours that causes them to drink. They will begin to own their behavior as you own yours. You cannot control their behavior and it is not your responsibility to do so. The only thing you can do is control how you respond to their drinking. No response is the best response.
The more you do not respond and spend that time looking out for your well being the healthier you and your children will become. The house will be calm and not the chaos you have lived with for so long. No matter what the alcoholic does it will not affect you the way it did before and although you can be sympathetic when he or she gets into trouble, you will no longer try to solve their problem for them because you will be too busy taking care of your responsibilities to worry about theirs.
If all else fails and the alcoholic continues to drink and not accept responsibility for the problems they are causing, and get help, you may have to consider other alternatives. If you have been taking care of yourself and your home is now calm, you will be in a much better state of mind to decide your future than if you were in the condition you have been living in for so long. It is nearly impossible to make the right decision when we act out of fear or desperation and making decisions when we are in that state of mind is almost always a disaster.
We cannot change the alcoholic, but we can change ourselves in the way we react to his or her drinking.
for help go to :
http://www.al-anon.alateen.org/
http://www.alcoholics-anonymous.org
