Expert: Rebos - 1/13/2007

Question
my husband has been battling with alcohol for about 3 years the passed 6 months has been like hell on earth he was admitted to hospital dried out and did ok for about 3 weeks then decided its christmas! why should i be denied a drink and has been on the road to destruction since. i managed to get him to agree to go to the doc who was good and prescribed him libriam to do a home detox but he wont take them. his mother and brother are alcoholics so he chooses to sneak of there all the time. he will come home say he will make a fresh start, but then disappear by the time i get up at 6am and go back to them and hit the bottle or cans again. i have two teenagers children and all three of us are totally confused.

Answer
Good afternoon Lesley,and thank you for your question. I hope that my answer will in some way help you out of your situation.  What I have to say is also meant to apply to your children, where applicable.

Yes, alcoholism can destroy the family unit, but (and it’s a big BUT) you have to understand that you are totally powerless over your husband’s drinking. You must stop trying to control something that you cannot control. If you chose, you and your teenage children can get help for yourselves by attending Al-Anon and Al-Ateen meetings. You may not be able to do anything about your husband’s drinking but you can do something about the problem that has developed in your lives by having an alcoholic in it. At Alanon and Al-Ateen meetings you will find out what you can do to help your husband, by first learning to help yourselves. Until you are armed with the right information about the disease and its implications, your efforts to help him will be for nothing. Alanon can be reached by calling: 1-800-344-2666 (United States) or 1-800-443-4525 (Canada). If you decide to go to AlAnon remember that dirty four letter word TIME. Give it time to work! DON”T MAKE ANY THREAT TO HIM THAT YOU ARE NOT 100% PREPARED TO FOLLOW THROUGH ON!!!!!!

Your husband should never be rewarded for any of his irresponsible actions. He must be held responsible for them. Something must be done to stop his spiral downward. It is very common for an alcoholic to lie about their drinking. They will usually lie at the drop of a hat to protect their right to drink. That is what alcoholics do! Social drinkers don’t have to hide their bottles, lie about their drinking, find excuses to continue drinking or go to their relatives house to drink.

I am not a medical doctor, but I am surprised that an MD gave your husband Librium, and told him to go home and detoxify himself. In my humble opinion; that is like giving candy to a diabetic or a cigarette to someone who is trying to stop smoking. Alcoholism is an addiction and Librium is a mind altering drug that your husband should have not been given, especially to self medicate himself. It’s true that he may have been given Librium or other mind altering drugs at a detoxification unit, but it would have been given under a controlled situation by their medical staff. Giving an alcoholic mind altering, drugs to be “taken as directed” is just giving your husband booze to “chew”! In fact if he hasn’t ever gone to a detox clinic (or even if he has) it may be a good place for him to get some distance between him and his last drink, whenever that is. I would suggest that he enter himself into a detox to get counseling and be given some medication that will ease his withdrawals to help that he not have seizures or heart problems during that time. And the go to Alcoholics Anonymous regularly!

Alcoholism is cunning, baffling, insidious and powerful. It has no cure…once an alcoholic always an alcoholic! So to speak…“once you turn a cucumber into a pickle, you can never change it back to a cucumber”. The good news is that there is recovery from the disease and it is accomplished “just one day at a time.” I’m sure that you have heard that saying before. It has been my experience to have never seen an alcoholic recover on their own willpower for the long haul. No one can scare an alcoholic into stop drinking. All the cajoling, hand-wringing, threatening and begging in the world will not get them to stop doing what they cannot do on their own. Don't for one second think that your husband does not want to stop drinking… he can't stop when left to his own devices. Don't be fooled into thinking that he will stop drinking on his own just because he says that he will. It's not that he will purposely lie to you… but he will lie to himself because down deep he knows that he can’t stop. Unless your husband goes to a program like Alcoholics Anonymous he is destined to die from one of the many complications of drinking alcoholically, get involved negatively with the law or end up in a mental institution plus destroy you and the children in the process. Counseling may be good for him (if you can get him there) but what he needs is a support group like AA so that he can identify with other alcoholics.

It is generally believed (in AA which has the best track record for recovery) that alcoholism is a three-fold disease… mental, physical, and spiritual. The “mental part”; deals with the thought that precedes the first drink...thinking about the drink in between the drinks…a pre-occupation with thinking about drinking which is so powerful that the alcoholic must drink. The “physical part” is that once the first drink is downed a physical compulsion takes over and the alcoholic must continue to drink until some outside incident stops them. And last but not least, the “spiritual part” of the illness. Not spiritual in a religious way, but in the loss of values and a willingness to settle for less and less as his drinking continues. Stopping drinking, for an alcoholic, is not a matter of willpower. Alcoholism is a disease; the AMA says it is. Drinking alcoholically is a symptom of a deeper underlying problem that must be faced up to in order for your husband to recover. Without your husband 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 an alcoholic must drink again. For an alcoholic there is no such thing as cutting down, drinking only on weekends, changing to beer or wine, or even switching to the 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 mind-altering substances (drugs). The exception is a doctor’s prescription as long as he or she knows that the patient is an addict!

Each one of us has a breaking point, especially so when we see a person that we care for destroying their life. It is important to understand that an alcoholic is a very sick person who has a “disease”, BUT YET MUST BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR ACTIONS. It is also important for you to hate the disease and not your husband. Alcoholism is a disease that affects not only the alcoholic, but all those who have the unfortunate experience of having any contact with an alcoholic. And, by the way there is Alateen for children who should also gain some insight to the illness. Alateen is sponsored by Alanon.

I can’t advise you as what to do, but I will say this…If your husband is allowed to continue drinking, doesn’t turn himself in to a detox clinic, and then continue to faithfully go to AA EVERY DAY after his detoxification is over, you are setting yourself up to living a miserable, unhappy and abusive life.  Alcoholism never gets better…it only gets worse. In any case you have to be strong and insist that he does something about stopping drinking. Think carefully before you say anything to him about his stopping drinking; say what you mean, mean what you say, but don’t be mean when you say it! Once again remember it is most important for you to NEVER make any threat to your husband that you are not 100% willing to follow through with! I hope that you do not become an “enabler”. It is very easy for those who are close to an alcoholic to become “enablers”. An enabler is a person who allows an alcoholic to continue drinking, primarily by their acceptance of the alcoholic's actions and not holding them accountable for their unacceptable behavior. Any “verbal” or physical abuse by him of you should not be tolerated at all. If this is so a restraining order against him would be in order to remove him from the house. Many enablers are impelled by their own anxiety and guilt to rescue the alcoholic from their predicament. If an enabler has no special knowledge or training in the field of alcoholism and try to help, your husband can sense your ineptness and weakness and continue on drinking because he knows that he will be forgiven again and again. I hope that you do not turn into such a 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! The following is what the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism suggests when dealing with an alcoholic.

“Getting an alcoholic into treatment 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 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. These groups help family members understand that they are not responsible for an alcoholic's drinking and that they need to take steps to take care of themselves, regardless of whether the alcoholic family member chooses to get help". (End of suggestions)

I don’t want to overburden you with any more details than I have already written. If you have any specific questions feel free to ask me a follow-up. Thank you, Rebos