Expert: Clyde - 10/8/2009

Question
I have a 27 year old son who left home when he graduated from High School to go to college. We always thought he would go somewhere in his life because he graduated with honors in school and went to a top college and double majored, he is someone that has always put a lot of pressure on himself and never has fit into what he calls the "normal" world. I believe he started drinking in college and has never stopped. He was supposed to go on to Law School, got a full scholarship but quit after the first month, said he couldn't stand being around the people. When my son in not drinking he is a very pleasant person, I love being around him but when he gets drunk he turns into this person that I don't even know or like, he is very a very angry person and I can tell he has a lot of pain in him. He feels he just doesn't fit in with anyone so he drinks to get away from it all, so he says. He also says he drinks because he can't sleep at night and that is the only way he can sleep. My son spent two years in Japan teaching English, a place where they drink a lot, two years in Germany, another drinking place and is now back here with us for a couple of months until he can move on. I don't know if I can handle him being here, he doesn't drive and living in the suburbs is driving him crazy, he accuses us of keeping him in prison because he can't get anywhere, anywhere I'm sure he means the bars so instead he brings home a 12 pack or more of beer every night and drinks it all and then gets very ugly and nasty. To tell you the truth I am scared to tell him he can't bring beer to the house and my heart is breaking at the thought of kicking him out because I know he has no money and know where to go, he thinks AA is rotten and he's not a drunk, please tell me what I can do this is tearing me apart.

Answer
Mary,
   Thank you for your questions and for the honest sharing of your feelings and angst.  This is what you are facing - the angst of living with a person who does not know who they are.

   Most alcoholics fall into this category - they simply do not know who they are and they are lost in what they thought was the solution - alcohol.  See, it changed how they felt and the first experience with alcohol usually comes at a time of great anxiety for them.  The early years of your son's life were evidently hard for him (this is no slight on you as a parent, so please do not say it makes you the blame - you are not to blame) and when he discovered alcohol it must have been the euphoria he was looking for to change who he was.  You indicate you can detect the change in him from sober to drunk.  It is amazing, isn't it, how one can be so oblivious to the truth.

   After many years of drinking the alcoholic has some pretty deeply engrained habits and routines - the chief one is getting drunk.  It doesn't really matter the reason - happy, sad, wife or no wife, job or no job, death in the family, birth in the family, beautiful day, crummy day, joy, geographical change, etc.  The list could go on and on.  The solution is to come to an understanding that they are being duped by a substance that has them mentally and physically addicted.

   A little more on the psychology of growing up and knowing who God made each of us to be.... Unless we discover who we really are and accept who we are, we can become quite neurotic and maybe even psychotic.  You indicate that he says he never fits in and that is one reason why he drinks.  Well, it is good that he can pinpoint this as a reason.  Perhaps he is like me, I am an INFP person living in a world of people who just don't understand me.  The INFP is a designation of the Myers-Briggs personality profile.  We, as INFP's, are about 2% of the population!  That means that 98 out of 100 persons do not think or feel like me. The I = introverted; N = intuitive; F = feeling; P = perceptive.  Without going into a lot of detail about all this, suffice it to say that for my twenty years as a drinker, I thought I was an ESTJ or E= extroverted; S = sensing; t = thinking; and J= judging.  That personality type is 180 degrees out of phase with an INFP!  You can see the dilemma we are in as an alcoholic - the drug makes us into who we believe the world wants us to be.

    Keep in mind this is terribly simplistic so be cautious about using my own experience too much to discern any help it may be to your son.  The key here is for you to know there is an explanation for all this.  It takes years and years to understand all the ramifications of the psychological aspects of their own psyches and unless someone is willing to start the journey, they probably will never do it in their lifetime.  Will your son?  Who knows.  Will he be intrigued enough to learn more about this for himself?  Who knows.  Any book on the Myers Briggs personality profile would be a good start for him.  There are numerous websites that will also provide free simple tests to "type" one's self fairly accurately rather quickly.  Perhaps if you showed some interest in this aspect of the drinking "thinking" it may help to entice his interest.

    Until he decides to look at life differently he is simply not going to change and you can not change him either.

    It generally takes a rather severe "bottom" for an alcoholic to begin to see that life in the bottle (or beer can) is not life at all. This bottom is a necessity, however.  You say that he is not in favor of AA and that is because AA works on the psyche. It is not easy and it is not always pleasant to look at ourselves in all the truth we know is really there.  I would guess he is afraid of step 4 - made a searching and fearless inventory of ourselves and then step 5 - admitted to God, ourselves and another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.  Those two steps will scare off a person who is not sufficiently beat down by the drug.

    My suggestion is that you tell him sternly that it is not acceptable for alcohol in the home and refuse to cater to his needs for rides everywhere - excepting AA meetings, however.  Take him to all of these that he will attend (but then watch that he doesn't find a likeminded buddy who may be using AA meetings for rendezvous of other secret drinkers). He needs to know that his behavior is not going to be tolerated.

    I know this sounds simplistic and I do not have any ideas of his capacity for anger and rage if you do this.  Be prepared to call in the police if he becomes belligerent and force him to leave your home if he can not respect you and your wishes.

   I hope this may have helped lessen your anxiety over all this.  You are not at fault.  He is not at fault either.  Alcohol got a hold on him and he is living the alcoholic lie. It is a disease - it is not a moral issue - and it is deadly.  Some people never get that and they die drunk.

   Write again if I may be of any further help.

Grace and Peace,
Clyde