Expert: Jurriaan Plesman, Nutritional Psychotherapist - 5/21/2011

Question
Hello,
    I found your site and you have been a big help already. I don't know if I can write this "short and sweet" though. My son is 26 years old and his Dad and I divorced when he was 9 due to his father's drinking problems and other things like finances, etc. My son is a very handsome, very smart young man but has been a hard-core functional alcoholic since about age 18. He tried college at my expense but flunked out due to drinking and drugs. He wrecked his car twice while in college drinking and I paid to have it fixed once but not the second time even though he expected it. He joined the army after that and went AWOL and was all over Mexico and California on the run. I kept wiring him hundreds of dollars because he would tell me he was going back to Fort Benning, GA to turn himself in. He never did. He was having a good time on my money with his buddy drinking all over the country. He did end up back and they caught him but he just received an other than honorable discharge. He has had two DUI's and had a very bad accident with the second one, only involving himself but lucky he wasn't killed. That was approximately 5 years ago. He could have had his license back within 1 year but he has never tried. He paid his fines, did 3 days in jail and never attempted to get his license back. He always works and has a welding trade. He goes to work but relies on somebody for transportation. He goes from one woman to another until they can't stand his drinking any longer and they throw him out. He had a little girl with a woman who really put up with longer than most did because of the child. She finally had enough. He is a beer drinker, generally at least a 12 pack/day and much more if he is able. He drinks to get drunk, has black-outs, goes on binges for days, the whole nine yards. He abuses marijuana and any form of "pain pills" if he can get them. I am 51 years old and have had 3 total hip replacements as well as a repair of a perforated gastric ulcer, following his AWOL stunt and break-up from a bad 12 year relationship. I was fortunate to meet my current husband in West Virginia. That is where I am from and my son was raised. I worked for the State of WV for 20 years and ended up in 2005 having to retire on disability due to the hip. My current husband and I moved to Bradenton, Florida, on the southwest coast. I needed to find a good orthopedic surgeon and I wanted to get away from the cold and actually all of the chaos and drama. At that time, my son was just going from woman to woman or whomever would keep him. He did not live with me but always wanted a ride or money which I always did out of guilt because he to this day blames me and his dad for all of his problems. He has never taken responsibility for anything. Anyway, my now husband and I moved in June, 2005 with the intent to finally have peace and quiet, peace of mind and good health. Lo and behold my manipulative, controlling and co-dependent sister moved here right behind me. That's another story. But in June, 2008, after Greg, my son, had burnt all of his bridges with everybody, had a great job ironworking and spending $1000.00 a week on drinking had no place to go and no way to get around, called and begged my husband and I to move to Florida. He made all the promises to change so we thought we'd give him the benefit of the doubt. He stayed with me 2 days, met a woman in a bar and moved in with her. Got a job that I was getting up at 4:30 am every day with a bad hip and packing his lunch and taking him back and forth to work. I had pawned all of my jewelry off previously to give him his beer and cigarette money before he got his job. He stayed with this woman about 1 1/2 years until she had enough of his drinking. Every holiday he came to our house, he was drunk. He gets cocky and obnoxious, not violent. He hooked up with an older woman by about 20 years at the welding plant where he worked right after the other one threw him out. She let him move right in and they got married (his first time) in November of 2009. They have stayed together and he did better with her, not going to bars at least. She bought him a boat and he actually got his US Coast Guard License to do fishing charters. They lived at least 30 minutes away from me so that was ok. He would go on binges and she would threaten to kick him out and he wanted to come here and I'd say no. I have just been sick over the whole thing. He quit his job welding to go into the fishing charter business. That didn't do well because he couldn't drive to get to any jobs. She told him he had to go to work. Mind you during this past year and a half he hadn't been around too much but always called and would be drunk alot. Then, he gets a job a mile from where my husband and I live and they just moved two houses down from me. It has been pure hell. He wants to sit at my house every night drinking because his wife is stoned. He has been on binges for days and she keeps threatening to kick him out and she thinks he can come here. I am sick and unhealthy, both mentally and physically, and this is destroying my once perfect marriage. My husband cannot stand him and has tolerated him for me. He keeps calling me at 7:30 in the morning for a ride because he usually rides his bike to work but he said he had flat tires ( he lied). I didn't answer the phone and this was 3 days ago and I haven't answered since. The wife apparently left for a  couple of days and she is back now but I have talked day and night and consumed my husband with this drama until he doesn't want my son back in the house. I know I need to start al-anon and that is my intention but what do I do now about trying to stay away from him because he is killing me. He never realizes that he has done anything and last time I talked to him he was drunk and I said it would be hard for him to get a Captain's job never being sober and he did his stupid drunken laugh and then tries to turn everything around on me and picks on me and finds fault. I really don't want to talk to him now or see him until he gets help (which he said he will never f---in quit drinking for anybody but how do I tell him this without hurting him? I appreciate any help and I am at the end of my rope. I have a wonderful patient husband who is ready to leave me if I don't stop this and I couldn't stand for that to happen. I love my son but I hate his alcoholism and what it makes him. He doesn't want help yet and may never but I am not giving him rides any more. He says he hasn't eaten if the wife is gone and can't get to the store. I said "ride your bike". What do you suggest? It is a big mess.

Answer
Hi Susan,

Your long message is a tale of the behaviour of most alcoholics, who gets along by manipulating loved ones and avoiding responsibility of their illness. You will contribute to and maintain his illness so long you keep on supporting and rescuing him. There is nobody in the world that can help an alcoholic, except the alcoholic himself. Alcoholism is not a "psychological" illness, as it is a physical and biological illness. The psychological suffering are merely the symptoms of the underlying biochemical abnormality, that causes an alcoholic to behave the way he is.

If an alcoholic wants to get better, he himself needs to treat the underlying biochemical abnormality that is mainly responsible for his behaviour. This may have been inherited  by a faulty gene running in the family, but genes can be beaten by the right treatment. He can treat himself once he understands the nature of his disease. 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...

The first step in treatment is going on a hypoglycemic diet ( See our web site). If problems persist, it is best to consult a Nutritional Doctor, Clinical Nutritionist or a Nutritional Psychotherapist for further diagnosis and treatment. For more information please look up our web site or the INDEX for article that may be of interest.

_______________________________________________
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