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Family

Living With An Alcoholic

Consequences, counsel cited for living with an alcoholic


By Kay Moore


NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)–Everything about Helen’s home looked orderly, even down to the showy bed of azaleas that bloomed annually, as if on cue, in the front yard.


Three freshly scrubbed children emerged every morning for the school bus, about the same time Helen left for her clerical job. On Sundays, Helen’s brood took their places at the neighborhood church, where she faithfully attended her Sunday school class.


Although Helen’s husband, Tom, was away from home a lot, friends accepted Helen’s explanation that his work took him away for extended periods. Only a few friends or neighbors had actually ever been invited inside the home, but all assumed that Helen’s interior was just as immaculate as the manicured yard.


One day, however, when son Tommy’s teacher showed up to chat with Helen about his failing grades in math, the public image was shattered.


As the teacher settled onto the sofa and shifted in her seat uncomfortably, she pulled out, to everyone’s embarrassment, a flask of liquor that Tom had hidden between the cushions.


The family secret was out about Tom’s alcoholism. Things weren’t as orderly as they seemed in Helen’s home, and Helen and her children felt so miserable they wanted to die.


Stories like Helen’s are increasingly familiar in church settings as individuals seek help for living with a “stranger” in the house — a family member who is addicted to alcohol. Many individuals are removing their masks to get help for themselves and to eliminate scars that can severely impact future generations.


The obvious effects of alcoholism in the home are boundless: loss of income, unpredictability, disrupted home life, inability to plan for the future, isolation and domestic violence, to name a few.


A more hidden effect is the feeling of shame. An individual — especially a child — who lives in an alcoholic home has the feeling that something is seriously wrong with him at the very core of his being.


“Someone near to us does something shameful, and we feel shame,” says Dale McCleskey, coauthor of “Conquering Chemical Dependency” in the LIFE Support Group Series (LifeWay Press). “If we were wise, we’d recognize that this is [the alcoholic’s] problem, and we would put responsibility back where it belongs. Instead, we react with thoughts like, ‘What will my mother/ father/neighbors/church members think?'”


The alcoholic’s problem is so big that all other family problems seem insignificant in comparison, explains Tim Sledge, author of another popular LIFE Support Group course, “Making Peace with Your Past.”


“The alcoholic has an extreme need for attention, usually coupled with a magnetic sober personality. These dynamics entice family members to live as if fixing the alcoholic is all that matters.”


Family members feel that their needs aren’t important and that they must give all their energy to caring for the addict. For example, if Tommy felt sad about his failing math grade, he might decline to share this news with his parents for fear that his dad might go off on another drinking binge.


The alcoholic’s family members may grow to think like this:


— I will not speak up for myself.


— I will deny how serious situations are so I won’t have to face them.


— I will settle for inferior relationships. I don’t deserve to have quality people in my life.


— I will look for love out of desperation, since my family didn’t properly nurture me.


— I may act shameless — even if it means adopting my family member’s addiction. That may get me the attention that I couldn’t get otherwise.


This pattern of thinking also puts up a barrier to God, Sledge explains. If children see a parent who is untrustworthy, harsh or unavailable, they may not believe that God is dependable, loving and good, since earthly parents are their earliest models of God.


Family members instinctively try to fix the situation by covering for the alcoholic. They call in sick for him and make excuses for his absence at church or at social gatherings. But covering for an alcoholic doesn’t fix the problem. For example, Helen wouldn’t admit that Tom left home so he could drink more freely. She just worked extra hard to keep the clothes clean, the bills paid and the kids in school. But by hiding the consequences of his addiction, she further enabled it.


A family member may believe, “If I blow the whistle, I have to own the problem and then do something about it,” says Betty Hassler, a professional counselor whose LifeWay editorial team produces the LIFE Support Group Series. “It’s much easier to play along than to confront the issue. If a person confronts the issue, then he or she has to make choices: ‘Do I leave or stay? Do I go to a group or counselor? I have to deal with what others think, how this makes me look, what the kids are going to say and feel. I would also have to confront my anger, feelings of betrayal and grief.'”


Furthermore, focusing on the alcoholic as the family scapegoat keeps other family members from examining their own faults. “The more I look at your faults, the better mine look,” Hassler says. For example, “scapegoating” the alcoholic may cover up for the fact that other family members manage money poorly and are unorganized or lazy.


Although family members may claim to want change, they are often addicted to the chaos that occurs in alcoholic homes, Hassler says. The crisis atmosphere becomes their comfort zone and creates a strong attraction to the roller-coaster ride of unpredictability. While kind of family life is very unhealthy, says Sledge, “it has a sort of stability to it.”


Drawing the line in the sand may involve deciding whether to distance yourself physically from the alcoholic while he or she seeks help. “That would demonstrate that I consider myself worth saving,” Hassler says. Some people don’t bother to look out for their own interests because they don’t believe in their own worth. Self-blame often accompanies this low self-worth, causing a wife to think, “If I were a better person, my husband probably wouldn’t drink.”


Nagging the alcoholic is not the answer, these professionals say. A wife who nags her husband about his drinking may have pure motives but may “insulate her husband from the Holy Spirit by getting him to focus on her [criticism] rather than on the Lord,” Hassler says.


A spouse or family member may believe that by reasoning, persuading or even continuously quoting Scripture to an addict, you can make him reform. In so doing, the family member tries to assume the role of the Holy Spirit in another person’s life rather than moving over and letting the Holy Spirit convict, Hassler says. While praying for the alcoholic, modeling a Christlike life and testifying about God’s redemption in our own lives is important, begging someone to change may only alienate, the professionals say.


Family members must realize that a whole family system can keep an alcoholic drinking, says McCleskey, editor of the LIFE Support Group Series. So he tells people, “Get help for yourself first.” For example, a husband who begins to look within might see that his remoteness, inability to set boundaries, passiveness, indirectness, poor communication skills and fear of intimacy all promote his wife’s drinking instead of discouraging it.


Through personal counseling or participating in support groups, the family member can learn new ways of relating in a setting “where you can listen and talk as well as be accountable,” says Sledge.


Such a group might help a wife see that issues from her own past are contributing to her husband’s addiction. If her own dad was an alcoholic, she may be repeating a pattern she saw in her family of origin, Hassler says. The wife may think, “Mom wasn’t able to ‘save’ Dad from alcohol. I blamed Mom for not saving Dad, so I have to save my husband or I’ll blame myself.”


In Christ-centered support groups, participants learn that their identity is based on who they are in Christ, not on who they are as the spouses of addicts. Addicted spouses may see their mates getting help and desire the same. “In many cases a spouse just stops enabling the addiction, and the alcoholic gets help,” says McCleskey. “The addict in your life loses team support when you stop playing the game.”


Should family members dump alcohol found around the house? Disposing of alcohol can become a control issue, McCleskey says. Instead, he recommends calmly stating, “I found this. I want you to recognize that you are responsible for your actions. Please don’t hide liquor in the closet, or I will no longer be able to ride with you because I will always wonder if you’ve been drinking your hidden alcohol.”


Another common question is, Should family members take drastic steps when an alcoholic abuses family finances to fund his or her habit?


McCleskey urges family members to get godly counsel and to avoid acting out of recrimination. Saying, for example, “We need separate bank accounts so you can’t drink away the rent money” may be reasonable as long as it occurs in the spirit of self-protection and helping the person understand consequences, McCleskey says.


In some cases the spouse may need to seek police intervention or other protection. Although such confrontations are extreme, “the risk of healthy confrontation is better than the certain deterioration that comes with doing nothing,” says McCleskey.


After the family of an alcoholic enters recovery, each family member can take measures to avoid slipping into the old habits and ways of thinking. “The recovering alcoholic may even be the one who raises questions about problems in the lives of other family members,” says Sledge. Previously, family members would have said, “‘I’ll deal with that issue when you stop drinking.’ The alcoholic’s problem made it easy for them to avoid their problems; now the excuse is gone.”


An alcoholic who sobers up but doesn’t deal with the underlying issues continues to foster an unhealthy family system. This confuses family members, who may think that the problem is resolved because the drinking ends.


“True healing,” says Sledge, “occurs when the alcoholic is willing to explore the ‘why’ behind the drinking and to talk to other family members about ways the whole family can be different.”


Reprinted by permission of HomeLife, the family journal of LifeWay Christian Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention.


The Baptist Press email service is a cooperative effort between Baptist Press and GOSHEN.net. Visit Baptist Press on the web at http://www.BaptistPress.org/


~~~


>From a netfriend:


I’ve just read the article


Consequences, counsel cited for living with an alcoholic


By Kay Moore


and I am amazed at how very unhelpful, even damaging,it is for famiilies of alcoholics to be faced with attitudes and beliefs expressed here.


My husband is an alcoholic and over many decades I sought help many places.


I’m a Christian so I sought Christian help mostly…. until I realised I was being shamed, blamed and judged abusively by such attitudes as these. It makes me sad to see that such material is still being offered as “help”.


My husband has now stopped drinking. He approached some churches for help after he quit drinking, and once again, the help was not helpful. It was in the same vein as this article, showing little understanding of the issues for the alcoholic and for the family.


Thankfully God brought me to a counsellor who could educate me and lead me to healing from the abuse I’d suffered from my husband and the people who thought they were helping me. There are many very good articles and education modules at


http://www.gettingthemsober.com


where professionals and families effected by alcoholism can get real help.


I’m not selling anything, I’m just a concerned person


yours sincerely


[Name withheld].

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