Expert: Joseph Lee O. - 3/1/2007

Question
Before I began, I would to apologize for the length of my story.
I have a 35-year old female cousin who has been drinking for 3 years.  She left her home and left behind her two children and husband.  It began when she found out her husband was having an affair. She also says her husband was psychologically abusive. Her children to not have any contact with her at all.  She claims she has called but they do not pick up the phone and they claim their mom has never called. I mostly believe the children, because she does not show any “motherly” expression about her kids, not even at Christmas time.  She was laughing and giggling and did not bother to pick up the phone to call her kids…and she was not even drunk that night!
She moved from Chicago to Houston and is currently staying with one of my aunts.  We asked to come here hoping we would be able to help her.  She is drunk practically every day.  She has been admitted to the hospital because she has thrown up blood.  She drinks 3-4 bottles of vodka daily.  She has gotten fired from jobs because she presents herself drunk.  We have asked her to admit she needs help so she can go to a rehab center for professional help.  After 6 months, she finally accepted.  However, the center told us she did not meet the criteria to be admitted because she did not have withdrawal symptoms and that she only qualified for outpatient treatment (which has failed to attend in the past).  My cousin’s mom, in her desperateness, asked the counselor to reconsider because her daughter needs help.  It turns out that my cousin lied about her drinking.  She indicated that she only drank “once in a while”.  We do not know what to do.  My aunt has asked her to leave because it has become to much for her family to deal with on a daily basis. Her kids are afraid of my cousin, to the point that they sleep with my aunt and uncle.  But my cousin will not leave, she only locks herself in her room and totally ignores everything people tell her.  How can we help her?  My aunt has kicked her out various times and I fear one of these days they will get her stuff out of the house and she will have no place to go?


Answer
Greetings to you, Mayra.

It is important here to first know and understand, and maybe you already do, that your cousin’s drinking is a *result* of something rather than its cause. From the personal experience shared in “Alcoholics Anonymous”, the book, page 51:

“Once confused and baffled by the seeming futility of existence, they show the underlying reasons why they were making heavy going of life.  Leaving aside the drink question, they tell why living was so unsatisfactory.”

So then, the “something” behind your cousin’s drinking is her inability to deal with her “seeming futility of existence”, or “the harsh realities of her life.”  While approaching the mid-point of her life, many or all of her life-long hopes and dreams were suddenly and overwhelmingly threatened or shattered, “when she found out her husband was having an affair.”  Or, maybe she had already been experiencing much frustration in her life and “the affair” was the final blow.  None of that would excuse her present behaviour, of course, but it can be helpful when trying to objectively understand and explain it.

You have asked, “How can we help her?  ... I fear one of these days ... she will have no place to go?”

Who among you has had the most difficult or troubled past and has since overcome it through spiritual means?  At least in principle, here is a “snapshot” of the necessary dynamic of “mutual vulnerability, openly shared”:

“Highly competent psychiatrists who have dealt with us have found it sometimes impossible to persuade an alcoholic to discuss his or her situation without reserve ...
“But the ex-problem drinker [or other formerly-troubled individual] who has found this solution, who is properly armed with certain facts about himself [or herself], can generally win the entire confidence of another ... in a few hours.  Until such an understanding is reached, little or nothing can be accomplished.
“That the [one] who is making the approach has had the same difficulty, that he [or she] obviously knows what he [or she] is talking about, that his [or her] whole deportment shouts at the new prospect that he [or she] is a man [or woman] with a real answer, that he [or she] has no attitude of Holier Than Thou, nothing whatever except the sincere desire to be helpful; that there are no fees to pay, no axes to grind, no people to please, no lectures to be endured - these are the conditions we have found most effective.  After such an approach many take up their beds and walk again.” (page 18)

Your cousin needs the intense personal attention and help of someone who is willing and able (or who is willing to be enabled) to help her find answers to her questions and to learn to live by spiritual principles, and I am here, if necessary, to help that individual do that.

Peace to you,

Joe

Email: leejosepho@hotmail.com