AboutDruideck Expertise All questions are important,
I have over 22 years of personal experience with alcoholism and recovery issues.
Advanced Counsellor Training / Experience with treatment and AA.
Experience Over 22 years of recovery from alcoholism.
Counsellor in an alcohol outpatient office.
Experience as client and as counsellor in treatment center.
Expert: Druideck Date: 5/2/2008 Subject: no happy ending
Question QUESTION: My wife and I have been estranged for about a month now as I had to ask her to leave because of her alcohol abuse. I have 2 boys from a previous marriage. I have not spoken with her and she has been living with her father. I keep in touch with her mother and was informed that her father had kicked her out because she would not abide by his rules. She left her fathers was arrested for being drunk put in jail overnight and then called a freind to pick her up. She stayed with her freind overnight and then went straight to drinking again the next morning. She has been in and out of rehab for the last year and has not gone for more than a few days being sober. She is suicdal and now out on the street. I feel I have done everything I can do but at the same time I fear for her life. Given that she has no money and nowhere to live I am wondering how can she get sober now when she couldn't or refused to when she had full support from everyone and now has none. I no she is the only one who can save herself but I truly feel that she just wants to die. I no I can't save her but I almost see her as terminally ill and can't imagine not being there to hold her hand. On the other hand she isn't the same person I married and in some ways that person is already dead. At this point I feel there is no happy ending to this story it is more a question of where when and how she will die.I am at a loss as what to do. I am having a great deal of trouble imagining her alone on the street but can't have her in my home. If you have any advise please let me know. I believe she feels she wont hit her bottom untill she is dead.
thanks, Scott
ANSWER: Scott,
I know it is a terrible feeling
to see your wife in this condition.
It is very hard for alcoholics to
see how ill they have become.
The alcoholism has a way of
making a person either deny
or not care about helping themselves.
It is a terminal illness if they
are not treated in a recovery program
to abstain.
Ironically, it is when alcoholics
hit bottom that they are more
likely to see themselves clearly
and are then more likely to be
willing to stay in counselling,
treatment/rehab and AA meetings.
Rehab is not enough in my own experience.
Recovery requires ongoing vigilence,
no excuses and AA for at least
the first year to be safe from relapse.
If you help your wife before she
is truly ready to accept help
it might just soften
things for her and prevent
her from truly realizing she
can not overcome this problem alone.
On the other hand, I too would not
want to see her die on the streets.
You can not help her by just making
it possible for her to start drinking
again. Her promises will not mean
much at this point as she can not
stop drinking without attending
treatment and/or AA for at least 90 days.
I would only do what you can do
without bringing your own life
down along with hers.
Get her some suicide hotline numbers,
info, literature, phone numbers of AA people or counsellors.
Don't give her money, she will buy
drinks.
Help in ways that make it harder to drink,
offer to drive her to AA etc.
You can not ultimately control her
desire to live or die.
Give what you can safely give but
be cautious as she will drink again
without giving herself up to recovery.
People do die of alcoholism and
sometimes there is only so much
you can do. Take care of yourself
and your own feelings. Go to Al-Anon
yourself for help in dealing with her alcoholism.
You need support as well as her right now.
Tough time for sure but miracles have happened
to many drinkers.
Try reading the stories near the end of the
AA Big Book online: http://www.aa.org/bigbookonline/en_tableofcnt.cfm
Preventing suicide: http://www.cmha.ca/bins/content_page.asp?cid=3-101-102
---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------
QUESTION: Thanks for the advice, since my last question my wife has been arrested for trying to break in to a house of a friends neighbor. Her friend signed a peace bond and looked after her for a couple of days. She told her friend that something clicked and she was finished. She went back to detox for a couple of days and left although I'm not sure the circumstances. I know she is on a waiting list for rehab but that could take a month. She is now on the streets with no money and staying in a shelter. I have talked to her mother who received a call from my wife saying that she was using and being on the street is not the place to sober up. I can't imagine what she is having to do for smokes booze etc. If she has to sell herself which she had done many years ago I know there will be no turning back. Part of her problem is the guilt and shame of doing that some 12 years ago. What do we do in the mean time until she gets into treatment. I'm not sure if she really wants it or is just desperate at the moment and doing it because she has nowhere to go. I worry that she will get into debt for drugs etc. and owe favors. She is not a bad person but will certainly be around many.
Answer Scott,
the nature of alcoholism is that it
requires the almost decimation of a person
for them to break through their denial
and reluctance to do what it takes to be
helped.
It is very hard to realize that
often the help people get while drinking
contributes to keeping the person
from hitting bottom mentally and emotionally.
Hitting this bottom as a person is often
the only way for them to see how bad
the problem is.
She is struggling with herself in this
illness but whether she quits and
sticks with detox and rehab/AA is
something she will have to decide
at some point or she may continue
on and even die from some related
problem. The key issue here
is that it is her responsibility
and no one else can
control or change the outcome
ultimately.
I know the worries are real,
you nor I wish to see this happen
to her. Sometimes the greatest
thing we can do is surrender
to the reality and the powerlessness
we feel.
If you try to soften things for her
she will have an environment where
she can continue to drink
and be irresponsible for herself.
This is called enabling and the
urge to make life easy for her
will also make drinking easy.
We all know how hard it is to
behave badly and
to live a good life at the same time.
Allowing her to make these mistakes
is a high form of love.
It requires letting go and trusting
whatever the outcome is, it will
be best. Worry will not change
the situation, helping her
will only be beneficial if she
starts attending AA on a regular basis.
At this point it is probably her only
hope to start a new life and stay sober.
This advice is the only certainty
I can see in her present state
of desperation.
Detox and rehabs are good but she will need
the long time support of AA to succeed,
I believe. All of this is up to her
to decide of course.
