Expert: Joseph Lee O. - 7/8/2008

Question
I started al-anon and reading your site.  Thanks for the help.  I don't understand how to show love to my husband and not enable.  I have told him I don't like his drinking, but I love him.  I have told him he is an alcoholic and he knows I attend meetings.  I have told him I have no control over his disease, and apparently he doesn't either.  I am powerless over alcohol - but does that mean I ignore it since he is not seeking help?

Answer
Greetings to you, Nessa.

I believe I hear your struggles, and I will gladly do whatever I can to try to help.

You have written:

>> I don't understand how to show love to my husband and not enable.

First, put aside any thoughts related to intervention.  You are not “enabling” your husband simply because you are not trying to force, cause or manipulate him into doing something about his drinking.  People with interventionist (manipulative) mindsets might want you to believe you are “enabling” if you are not pushing or forcing issues and demanding certain behaviours, but that is just not true.  Enabling would actually only amount to helping your husband avoid the due consequences of his own actions.  So then, just keep being his wife and only doing for him the things you would do if he was *not* drinking ... and then you will not be guilty of enabling (helping) him to continue drinking himself toward death.  If you knew your husband was allergic to strawberries, you would not serve strawberries to him or go get them for him ... and you would let him lay in his own vomit if he went on ahead and got some and ate them anyway ... and you would not call in sick for him when he could not make it to work ... but you surely would learn all you could about his dilemma so you might some day be able to help him understand what is actually going on inside him both physically and mentally or emotionally.

>> I have told him I don't like his drinking, but I love him.

That is fine, and now just be silent about his drinking while continuing to act out your love as best you can in spite of it.  That does not mean you have to pretend you do not notice his drinking, but that does mean not nagging him about it.  That does not mean you must allow him to paw all over you while he is drunk or to be abusive in any way, but it does mean trying to remember he is a sick man who can do no differently than he does (whether drunk or sober).  If you have not done so already, please read the chapter “To Wives” in “Alcoholics Anonymous”, the book:
http://www.aa.org/bigbookonline/en_tableofcnt.cfm
There you will find various insights and suggestions from the wives of other alcoholics.

>> I have told him he is an alcoholic and he knows I attend meetings.

Unless he is accustomed to something like having you alert him when his socks do not match, do your best to refrain from telling him anything about him.  Maybe you have heard this adage: “A man convinced (or ‘told’) against his will (and especially when he did not first ask) is of the same opinion still.”  If your husband is to ever come to terms with his drinking, that will not be because anyone “told” him anything (even thought he might sometimes actually hear what has been said).  The bottom line there is almost always something like this:

“Highly competent psychiatrists who have dealt with us [alcoholics] have found it sometimes impossible to persuade an alcoholic to discuss his situation without reserve.  Strangely enough, wives, parents and intimate friends usually find us even more unapproachable than do the psychiatrist and the doctor.
“But the ex-problem drinker who has found this solution, who is properly armed with [certain] facts about himself, can generally win the entire confidence of another alcoholic in a few hours.  Until such an understanding is reached (mutual vulnerability, openly shared), little or nothing can be accomplished.
“That the man who is making the approach has had the same difficulty, that he obviously knows what he is talking about, that his whole deportment shouts at the new prospect that he is a man with a real answer, that he has no attitude of Holier Than Thou, nothing whatever except the sincere desire to be helpful; that there are no fees to pay, no axes to grind, no people to please, no lectures to be endured - these are the conditions we have found most effective.  After such an approach many take up their beds and walk again.” (“Alcoholics Anonymous”, the book, pages 18-19)

>> I have told him I have no control over his disease ...

He already knows he is free to do as he pleases ...

>> ... and apparently he doesn't either.

He likely believes quite differently at the moment.

>> I am powerless over alcohol - but does that mean I ignore it ...?

I have omitted the “since he is not seeking help” part there because that is no reason to try to do something about something over which we already know we are powerless.  However, your question there is really more about the “ignore it?” part ...

No, it would be foolish to ignore a nearby rattlesnake whether or not we could do anything about it.  So, learn all you can about the sickness in your house and pay close attention to others with experience in learning to survive it.

Please know you are always welcomed to write ...

Joseph Lee O.
Email: leejosepho@hotmail.com
Forum: http://xsorbit28.com/users5/restored/ (new)