Expert: Rebos - 9/28/2006

Question
Thank you for your reply.  Yes, he has been in detox before....several times.  He has already lost his friends, job and family (we haven't talked to him in nine months until just recently).  I talked to him today and asked him what he wants he said, "I want to stop drinking."  However, he is still not ready for us to help.  He said, "He will think about it."  I am going over tomorrow to visit and I am probably going to take him to the hospital or call an ambulance.  I can't let him go on like this.  It already might be too late.  Like I said earlier, "I don't know the condition of his health, I just know it is very bad."  You are right, I am sure his liver is damaged too.  That would explain his yellow eyes.  He is not eating and he has no energy left him.  I think he is past the point of being confrontational.  I am not scared anymore of telling my father how I feel.  I am trying to save my father.  I thank you again for the advice.  You are right he needs therapy and doctor supervision.  I know this...I just need to get him there.  
Naomi  
-------------------------

Followup To

Question -
Where do I start?  I am 32 and the oldest of four, one brother and two sisters.  My father is 53 and an alcoholic.  Has been my whole life.  My parents divorced nine years ago because of the disease and if has only gotten worse.  He has remarried and his new wife is a drinker.  We have had a very rocky relationship and I told him nine months ago not to call me or come over again when he is drunk.  I chose not to be around it, and as far as I am concerned, that is not who my dad is.  He called me Sept. 11, apologizing for being such an awful father and once again he was drunk and crying.  I listened and told him I love him.  Monday I got a call from his sister and brother in Ohio saying he is not doing well.  I went over there Monday with my sister to check on him.  When he answered the door it took my breath away.  He looks like he belongs in a casket.  He is very ill from the disease.  Very swollen, yellow eyes, bloated stomach, slow moving, and very weak.  He went to the doctor last week and the doctor told him he has a pancreas infection and asked how much he drinks. He wants to do blood work and a CT on his stomach.  My dad doesn't like the doctor and won't get the tests done.  He is basically refusing to do anything except read AA on his own and "cut back".  I don't know how to help him.  I know he is going to die if we don't help.  He only has us and he won't let us help.  Now I feel this is our problem, his kids, to intervine and get him some help before it's too late.  He is not working, prob. lost his job.  I talked to his wife and she doesn't have any answers.  Needless to say, they don't have a good marriage.  My question is how do I help someone that is so far progressed?  I don't know the extent of his medical condition.  I know it is bad and he needs medical treatment.  How can I achieve that with someone who thinks they can do it on their own and refuses help?  I need advice.  Thank you so much, Naomi

Answer -
Good morning Naomi:

Thank you for your question. I am very sorry to hear about your father’s condition.

I know that your father refuses to seek help not only for his drinking problem, but also his physical health problems. However, you might want to try an intervention. I have listed further on in this e-mail the steps that should be considered in performing one. If you do try an intervention, make sure that you use a certified therapist who has lots of experience in running interventions for alcoholism. I would assume that the end result of the intervention (if it is successful) would be to your father going to the hospital first and then to a detoxification clinic. Since you have not mentioned if your father ever went into a detox clinic before, I am assuming that he has not.

Your father needs a detox, and some in house counseling. It is not wise for your father to stop “cold turkey” since his health has deteriorated so badly. I would guess that his liver has also been affected. He can sit and read the book of Alcoholics Anonymous till the cows come home and it won’t do him any good… especially, if he continues to drink no matter how much. It’s the first drink that gets him drunk…it may not make him drunk but it’s the first one that leads to him getting drunk.

The best advice that I can give you is to attend Alanon meetings. If close by invite your sister and your brother to go with you and if they say no… you go any way. When you do go you will find that your problem is not quite as unique as you may think. At Alanon you will learn how to live with having an alcoholic in your life, and about the disease of alcoholism. You will learn how to say what you mean, mean what you say and not be mean when you say it. You will learn how to be strong enough to resist the influence that your father has over your life. Alanon is intended to help you and not necessarily your father directly. However, in order for you to be able to help him, you must first learn to help yourself. At Alanon you will meet others who have an alcoholic in their lives, and that their lives have become unmanageable also. Alcoholism is a disease that affects everyone who comes into contact with an alcoholic. Your father is not a bad person…he is a sick person that somehow has lost his way to be able to help himself. Never-the-less, your father must be held responsible for his actions! You may not be able to do anything about your father’s drinking but you can do something about the problem that has developed in your life by having an alcoholic in it. Until you are armed with the right kind of information, and understand the disease, your efforts to help will be for nothing. Alcoholism is deadly and it destroys everything and everyone who comes into contact with it. For meeting locations, you can call your local Al-Anon chapter (check your local phone book under "Alcoholism") or call the following toll-free numbers: 1-800-344-2666 (United States) or 1-800-443-4525 (Canada).

Stopping drinking is not a matter of willpower. Alcoholism is a disease. Drinking alcoholically is but a symptom of a deeper underlying problem that your father will have to face up to in order to stop drinking. Without learning what that problem is, trying to stay away from a drink is known as "white knuckle sobriety", or being on a “dry drunk”. It isn’t very long before your father will continue to drink again and again no matter how many times he may promise to stop drinking. For any alcoholic there is no such thing as cutting down, drinking only on weekends, changing what they drink, or even switching to “near beer” with 0.05% alcohol. For an alcoholic nothing will work short of total and complete abstinence from any thing that contains alcohol or other mind-altering substances (drugs). Of course the exception is a medical doctor’s prescription as long as the doctor understands that he or she is dealing with an addicted person. Unfortunately, all alcoholics must hit their own bottom before they do anything about stopping. I am sorry to say that hitting a bottom for some may mean going as low as a person can go...plus six feet!


If you don’t already know, it is generally believed, by many in the field of alcoholism, that it is a three-fold disease… mental, physical and spiritual. The “mental” part of the illness refers to the mental obsession to drink that precedes the first drink... a pre-occupation with thinking about drinking which is so powerful that the alcoholic must drink. The “physical” aspect of the disease is that once the first drink is downed a physical compulsion takes over in the form of a deep incessant craving that the alcoholic must continue to drink until some outside incident stops them or they pass out. The “spiritual” part of the illness (not spiritual in a religious way) is in the loss of an alcoholic’s values, and a willingness to settle for less and less as the drinking continues. It becomes difficult for the alcoholic to determine the difference between right and wrong or good and bad. The alcoholic develops a change in priorities where drinking becomes more important than health, family, job and friends.

Remember, as it presently stands your life is being controlled by a very sick person. If you don’t go to Alanon the least you can do is get your self out of the picture completely, (which is a very difficult thing to do because, after all its your father and not a complete stranger that we are talking about) and simply tell those who try and drag you back into it that you want no part of it until your father does some thing positive about stopping drinking…like going to AA or some other support program. Unfortunately, AA or any other method that an active alcoholic may try to use to recover does not always work for those who need it, but will always work for those who want it.

As far as your father cutting down, forget it…it does not work! Never has and never will. Until he “admits and accepts” that alcohol is causing him problems there is little you can do for him. As I stated above no one can scare an alcoholic into stopping drinking. Cajoling, hand-wringing, threatening, begging and even putting him away against his will, will not get him to stop doing what he has not made up his own mind to do. Don't think that he does not want to stop… he can't stop when left to his own devices. Also, don't be lulled into thinking that he will stop drinking just because he may say that he will. It's not that he will purposely lie to you… but he will lie to himself because down deep he is afraid to stop. Alcoholism is powerful, cunning, baffling and insidious. An active alcoholic's choices become limited to: attending a recovery program like AA, and/or entering an in-patient detoxification clinic that has an after care outpatient program. He needs some distance between him and his last drink. If he does nothing about stopping then he is destined to die a drunk's death, get involved negatively with the law (if he hasn’t already) or end up in a mental institution (if he hasn’t already). I am sorry to be blunt, but I am only stating what you probably already know. I have never seen an alcoholic stop drinking on their willpower alone. The disease is too powerful. False pride and fear have a lot to do with her not wanting to do anything her drinking problem.

There is no one method used in the recovery of alcoholism that works for everyone, and there is “no cure” for the disease of alcoholism. If you take a cucumber and turn it into a pickle, you can never change it back to a cucumber again...“once an alcoholic - always an alcoholic”. There are recovering alcoholics and there are active alcoholics. That being said… alcoholism is not a moral issue. It is considered a disease by the American Medical Assoc. and there is no shame in being an alcoholic the shame is in doing nothing about it!

I hope that I have not offended you by my directness relative to your question, but alcoholism is a deadly disease. After the detox clinic your father can save himself a lot of time and money by going to AA for his long term recovery. I recommend it highly. Remember, alcoholism is but a symptom of a deeper underlying problem that must be recognized (for him do something about it) or the disease will progress until he (if he is fortunate) hits his bottom before it kills him, or someone else, he ends up in jail, becomes totally un-employable, loses his friends, his family, and most important of all… himself. He’s GOTTAWANNA. It is going to take a lot of discipline and hard work by him, for him to come back to the world of the “living”. However, it is done just “one day at a time”.

Trying to get an alcoholic to stop drinking can be a challenging situation. An alcoholic cannot be forced to get help except under certain circumstances, such as when a violent incident results in police being called or following a medical emergency. This doesn't mean, however, that you have to wait for a crisis to make an impact.

Based on clinical experience, many alcoholism treatment specialists and the US Government recommend the following steps to help an alcoholic accept treatment:

Stop all "rescue missions." Family members and friends often try to protect an alcoholic from the results of their behavior by making excuses to others about their drinking and by getting him out of alcohol-related jams. It is important to stop all such rescue attempts immediately, so that the alcoholic will fully experience the harmful effects of his or her drinking--and thereby become more motivated to stop.

Time your intervention. Plan to talk with the drinker shortly after an alcohol-related problem has occurred--for example, a serious family argument in which drinking played a part or an alcohol-related accident. Also choose a time when he or she is sober, when both of you are in a calm frame of mind, and when you can speak privately.

Be specific. Tell the family member that you are concerned about his or her drinking and want to be supportive in getting help. Back up your concern with examples of the ways in which his or her drinking has caused problems for both of you, including the most recent incident.

State the consequences. Tell the family member that until he or she gets help, you will carry out consequences--not to punish the drinker, but to protect yourself from the harmful effects of the drinking. These may range from refusing to go with the person to any alcohol-related social activities to moving out of the house. Do not make any threats you are not prepared to carry out.

Be ready to help. Gather information in advance about local treatment options. If the person is willing to seek help, call immediately for an appointment with a treatment program counselor. Offer to go with the family member on the first visit to a treatment program and/or AA meeting.

Call on a friend. If the family member still refuses to get help, ask a friend to talk with him or her, using the steps described above. A friend who is a recovering alcoholic may be particularly persuasive, but any caring, nonjudgmental friend may be able to make a difference. The intervention of more than one person, more than one time, is often necessary to persuade an alcoholic person to seek help.

Find strength in numbers. With the help of a professional therapist, some families join with other relatives and friends to confront an alcoholic as a group. While this approach may be effective, it should only be attempted under the guidance of a therapist who is experienced in this kind of group intervention.

Get support. Whether or not the alcoholic family member seeks help, you may benefit from the encouragement and support of other people in your situation. Support groups offered in most communities include Al-Anon, which holds regular meetings for spouses and other significant adults in an alcoholic's life, and Alateen, for children of alcoholics.

I hope that I have helped you with my answer. I wish you the very best and hope that you resolve your present situation. Unfortunately there is no magic bullet or good fairy that will tap your brother on the shoulder and make him “all better” or even save his life. It will take a lot of hard work for all of you. But until he gets tired of being sick and tired there is not too much you can do except learn all that you can by going to Alanon and seriously consider the list of information above.

Hate the disease not the patient. But don’t be afraid to hurt his feelings by letting him know the TRUTH about how you and the family feel about his drinking. Say what you mean…mean what you say…but don’t be mean when you say it!

I hope that I have helped you in some way. I would be interested in your progress, or feel free to contact me again. Thank you Rebos  

Answer
Good morning Naomi:

Thank you for your response. I must reiterate again; that you should go to Al-Anon. If you try to control a situation that you cannot control (and you can’t control your father’s recovery) your lack of control will turn you into a person that you don’t want to be. You will become an angry and resentful person, and in a way you will start hating your father instead of hating the disease. Either that or you may become an enabler. I have seen too many cases where a person tries to help and makes matters worse without some direction. The direction can be found at Al-Anon meetings.

Thank you again for you correspondence, Rebos