Expert: Jurriaan Plesman, Nutritional Psychotherapist - 7/24/2009

Question
This is all new to me. My wife of 10 years came out of detox two weeks ago and is attending intensive outpatient counseling and AA meetings. She has been an alcoholic for 3-4 years and has not had a drink for 15 days. She also had an affair for 4 months during the worst of her alcoholism, just before going into detox. She told me about the affair when she came out of detox. I am very happy she is finally taking the steps that could save herself and our marriage. I am fully supportive and will do anything that I can to help her and make our marriage work. The problem is I just cant get the vision of her with another man out of my head. It is eating me up inside. I cant determine if this was a conscience choice to have an affair or was it induced by the lack of clear thinking due to daily consumption of alcohol. I fear that she may finally become a very successful recovering alcoholic but the marriage will end because I cant trust her anymore.

Answer
HI Gary,

Whether the marriage will end is entirely up to you and your wife. I can explain that alcoholism is very strongly related to depression. Depressed people are unhappy without knowing why and therefore they usually blame their partners or their relationship with significant people. It is like the syndrome of "The grass is greener around the corner" in an attempt to escape the perceived "source" of unhappiness and "doing the geographics" taking their illness along, wherever they go. Depressed people usually believe erroneously that happiness lies somewhere else. Of course if you leave her she has to accept that you don't love your wife. When she fully recovers from her illness, she may have to realize that she deserves something better that what you can offer her in state of crisis: "unconditional support"!

Alcoholism is a physical disease in the literal sense of the word. No amount of talk therapy can resolve the problem The physical illness has to be addressed FIRTST before we can deal with the "psychological' damage. Most alcoholics suffer from hypoglycemia and the first step in treating alcoholism is going on a hypoglycemic diet. It may take some time before the physical aspects of addiction has healed. In order to treat alcoholism one needs to understand the underlying biochemistry of addiction. I am afraid AA is not able to do this. Please read:

Why Alcoholics Drink? at
http://www.hypoglycemia.asn.au/articles/WAD.html

Alcoholism (Addiction) is a Treatable Disease at:
http://curezone.com/upload/PDF/Articles/jurplesman/alcoholism_treatable.pdf

Drug Addiction is a Nutritional Disorder at:
http://www.hypoglycemia.asn.au/articles/drug_addictions_nutritional_disorder.htm...

Depression is a Nutritional Disorder at:
http://www.hypoglycemia.asn.au/articles/depression_disorder.html

Self-help Personal Growth Psychotherapy at:
http://www.hypoglycemia.asn.au/articles/self-help_personal_growth.html


If self-help therapy does not work, I recommend that you wife see a Nutritional Doctor, Clinical Nutritionist or a Nutritional Psychologist.

I hope I have been able to help.
_______________________________________________
Jurriaan Plesman, Nutritional Psychotherapist
Hon. Editor of
The Hypoglycemic Health Association of Australia.
www.hypoglycemia.asn.au
Author of "Getting off the Hook"
Freely available at Google Book Search
Skype: jurplesman