Expert: Clyde - 10/18/2011

Question
My husband was in outpatient treatment for 2 months, relapsed, drank for another 2 months, detoxed at home, 5 days later had another drink. That was 3 weeks ago. He attends AA daily, has a sponser that seems to care, and sees a counselor twice a week. He maintains that he hasnt had a drink in three weeks, but it shows on his face and affects his speech. I go to Alanon and I read Alanon books. I pray for him. He sayes he has lost his faith and doesnt know how to get it back. I know that I cannot control his drinking, but I still worry about him losing his life. We have been married 23 years and I cannot turn my back on him. I have read about Wet Brain and post acute withdrawal syndrome. Could this be what is happening to him now? In the past he has been forthcoming when he has fallen off the wagon so I dont know why he wouldnt be this time. I know I am probably grasping here, I just feel like we are doing everything right and getting nowhere. I try to be patient but I know if he doesnt stop he is not long for this earth. Thank you for listening and any help is appreciated.

Answer
Mary,
   Thank you for your question.  Firstly, let me say that you are doing everything right.  Do not change your tactic against this formidable foe called alcoholism.  It means to destroy.

   That being said, please remember you can not do anything for the alcoholic in terms of his quitting drink. You can lead him to the water so to speak, but you can not make him drink water.  Alcoholics drink for a variety of reasons, most so deeply held within the psyche that it takes a long time to really put one's finger on the cause.  We speak of the onion being peeled in recovery meaning that the root or seed of the issue is so deeply at the center of so many other things that it takes time to get through to it.
 
   You do not say, but I hope your husband is of the "spiritual" type person.  If he is religious he will not be helped to a permanent solution.  Spiritual types are eventually able to grasp on the the concept of a Higher Power, rather than some idea that has been falsely planted in their head from religion.  All sorts of things complicate our walk with God.

   Finally, the only way I got sober was to hit a bottom sufficient that I would go to God wih a desparate plea of "Help Me!!" - and He did, immediately.  Drunk and in a blackout, I drove home some twenty miles, got home and went to bed, and the next morning woke to sobriety, and a newness that has not stopped for some 17+ years.  All because I surrendered to a Higher Power.

   I will pray for you and your husband and hope that he, too, might find the place where he really surrenders to the demise he faces if he does not come to realize that all he has done, really, is give his life over to a silly thing like a liquid called alcohol.

   Do not give in to the desparation and do not see his death because of alcohol, should it happen, as something that you could control, that you caused, or that you could have cured.  That is not the way to see life from day to day - hope and pray and then allow others to find it or lose it on their own.  As tough as that may sound - it may just be his only hope.

Grace and Peace,
Clyde