Expert: Rebos - 5/15/2006

Question
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Followup To
Question -
i love paul but he is and alcoholic who has no motivation, no dreams, goals doesn't finish carpentry jobs, won't go look for employment, seems to be depressed  unmotivated. Has no desire to do anything. By 5PM he is blitzed... biligerant, loud, cursing, can't take him anywhere... I may as well have a vagrant off the street living here!  He reeks of alcohol and does not want to bathe. i am ready to leave him on the steps of the state hospital with a note pinned to his shirt,"HELP ME"! what am I going to do? I feel sorry for him, and can't bare the pain of putting him out.  he watches the house and my dogs while I work...he handles things for me and I feel safe with someone here when I come home ... Because of the drinking he can't get a job, won't go look,  ...  i wish him  to get a job and come alive, go bike riding, walking to the park, to the movies, work on projects with me. It is like living with a dead person.  loving the dead. Sometimes I want to take poison and die ... take 3 Xanax, get in my truck rollup the windows, lock the doors, start it up, idle  in park & go to sleep; a comforting thought when that kicked in the gut hopeless feeling occurs.  hopeless paul never to change...
Answer -
Good afternoon Kathy:

Thank you for your question. I will do my best to give you some
information that you should consider when it comes to your
boyfriend and the way you feel about his drinking
problem.

You have not mentioned if he ever attended any sort of recovery
program. I will assume that he has not!

You are certainly paying a very high price to have someone watch
your dogs and your house.
You could hire someone to do the same thing with less grief
in your life and probably never
have to worry about a professional burning down your house
or mistreating your dogs.
You do need some serious help for thinking the way that you are!

If your boyfriend does not stop drinking, and you stay
with him, you are
looking at a relationship of
having a lifetime
full of pain and misery. If he does not stop he will get worse. If you
continue to stay you will
become his victim, but never his girlfriend, lover or
wife. Drinking
alcoholics take “hostages� they never take partners,
because their
alcoholism does not allow them to have a normal
relationship with another
human being. Alcoholics who are still drinking are
generally self-centered
to the extreme, booze is more important to them than
ANYTHING ELSE. As
much as he may love you and you love him… his addiction will never allow
you to come first,
booze will always come before you, his health, his
job, his family, and
even his very life. You say that you love him and imply that you mean the world to him…
I doubt that very much because if he did he would stop cold turkey and that
would be the end of it. If you do break up with
him you may be doing him a big
favor by helping to raise his “bottom�. In other words because of his drinking
making him realize that he has lost something (you) that was important in his life.
I know of
many cases where the non-drinker of a couple in the relationship ends up
“joining “ the drinker as a matter of their own survival. What ever
you do (unless you
are also having a drinking problem) don't join him in
his drinking, because to be
a male alcoholic is bad enough, but to be a female
alcoholic is much worse because of the “special� problems that a woman
drunk
faces. You will become his weak prey that he can do with whatever
he wants to.

Since he doesn't work I assume that you are buying his booze.
Just maybe you like being in control!

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. Many enablers
are impelled by their own fears, anxiety and/or guilt to rescue
the alcoholic from
their predicament. An enabler may be meeting a need of
their own rather
that the need of the alcoholic. If an enabler has no
special knowledge or
training in the field of alcoholism and they try to
help, the alcoholic
can sense the ineptness and weakness of the enabler
and they continue on
drinking because they know that they will be forgiven
and rescued time and
time again… and again. In a backhanded way you give
him “permission� to drink by your continued acceptance of
his unacceptable behavior. What ever you decide to do it
should be based upon
your head talking and not your heart. Don't let your
actions appear to be
allowing him to continue drinking. If you continue on
the road that you
are on you haven't seen anything yet. Alcoholism is a
progressive disease
it only gets worse it never gets better on its own.

You should always consider your personal safety above all else.

I would make it very clear to him that you do not want
to hear from him again until he does something positive about his
drinking problem…and then
only after he has been sober in a program of recovery
(like AA) for at
least one full year. Never make any threat to him unless you intend to
follow through with it.

HOWEVER, if for some insane reason you cannot stop yourself from
continuing your relationship with him,
then it would be wise for you to attend
Alanon meetings. If you chose to remain in your
relationship with him and you
don't attend meetings then you will have no one to
blame for your situation
but yourself. If you go to Alanon you
will find that your problem is not
quite as unique as you may think. At Alanon you would learn how
to live with
having an alcoholic in your life, and learn the truth
about the disease of
alcoholism. Alanon is intended to help YOU and not the Alcoholic
directly. In order for you to be able to help
him you must first learn to help
yourself. At Alanon you would meet people who have
an alcoholic in their
lives too, and that their own lives had become unmanageable as a result of
it. Alcoholism is a disease that affects everyone
who comes into contact
with the alcoholic.

Alcoholics are not bad people, they are sick people who need help, but
they must be held responsible
for their actions! You
may not be able to do anything about your boyfriend'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, knowledge
and implications of the disease, your efforts to help
him will not work.
Alcoholism is deadly and it destroys everything and
everyone who comes
into contact with it. If you do not have Alanon's local number call the
following toll-free numbers:
1-800-344-2666 (United States) or 1-800-443-4525 (Canada).

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
is 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) but, 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.

Stopping drinking is not a matter of willpower.
Alcoholism is a disease.
Drinking alcoholically is but a symptom of a deeper
underlying problem
that must be faced up to in order for an alcoholic to
recover. Without
learning what that problem is, trying to stay away
from a drink is known
as "white knuckle sobriety". It isn't very long before
the alcoholic has
to drink again. For the alcoholic there is no such
thing as cutting down,
drinking only on weekends, changing what they drink,
smoking pot or taking
other mind altering drugs or even switching to “near
beer� with .05%
alcohol. For the 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
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! Don't let him take you there with him. Let him
go and get on with
your life. Once again, you may help to save his life
by raising his bottom
even if you are no longer together.

Until he “admits and accepts� that alcohol is causing
him problems there
is little you can do for him. 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, or entering an
in-patient detoxification clinic that has an after
care outpatient
program. 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. 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
willpower alone. The disease is too powerful.

You describe that he is depressed. I hope that you understand
that alcohol is a depressant
and as long as he continues to
drink alcohol
he will have no desire to do anything except to drink.
Especially when he drinks for free.

If you do decide to talk to him about leaving him
you may want to say that you are doing so because
of his drinking and… that
until he gets sober and stays sober upwards to a year or more that you
are breaking off all contact with him for his own good.
You have to get
on with your life. And he has to get his life back on track. An alcoholic
such as you have described your boyfriend to be cannot
cut back and stay cut back.
It's the first drink that gets him drunk…it may not
make him drunk but it's the first one that will eventually get him drunk.
There is an old saying that once you make a
cucumber into a pickle, you can never change it back to a pickle again.
God forbid that you have a child with him and then
become tied to him for the rest of your life.

You have pointed out a problem with your relationship. There is an old
saying
that “if drinking causes problems then it is a problem�.

I wish you the very best and I hope that I have not
taken too much liberty
with you in the way I have responded to your question.
Alcoholism is deadly and it
and not a matter to be taken lightly. Sometimes the truth
is hardest of all to face up to. You can be sure of one thing “The Good
Fairy�
is not going to come down and tap him on the shoulder and make him “all
better� just because you want him to...that's what happens
only in fairy tales, not in real life.
Its going to take a lot of hard work and dedication
to want to change his life. BUT, its done “one day at a time�.

If I can be of further help please do not hesitate to
contact me again
through Allexperts. If you find the time I would appreciate knowing how
you solved your problem. Thank you Rebos.
YES Paul has had treatment before in hi slife.  He was taken to the PEACHFORD HOUSE b4 we were together.  My deceased common law husband, Mark took him to the Peachford house where you kick... they take care of you and get you up every morning and take you to the labor hall or your job if you have oone. you pay every week and go to work.  You get your own place when you can or yu can stay there forever ... Paul stayed sober for a while... had good paying jobs, an apartment but he started drnking again and got wore and worse until he was reduced to living in a camper on somebody's lot...he came to my aid when Mark died, helped me move and fix up my place we slept in sleeping bags and sanded and painted, put in cabinets... he was a good friend of Mark and has been with me ever since. . . looooong story.

YES I WILL GO TO ALANON. 8PM tomorrow.

HOWEVER IS THERE A MEDICINE YOU CAN GIVE A HEAVY DRINKER THAT WILL MAKE HIM ILL AND NAUSEOUS WHENEVER he INGESTS ALCHOHOL?   a good way to get him to stop. When we were babies Mom put VIX on our Pacifires,"000h! yuk! We didn't like it anymore... Do you know of anything like THAT? I could put it in his orange juice at breakfast.He'd drink the OJ and when he takes a swig out of the heaven Hill vdka, he be illin Then he would feel sick and remember "ill feeling" everytime he thnks of or smells it  

Answer
Good morning Kathy:

Thank you for your follow-up question. I can understand the pain that you must be going thru.

Yes, there are some medications that are used in the treatment of alcoholism; HOWEVER nothing will work unless two things accompany taking the meds! The first one is that the person has GOTTAWANNA stop drinking, and the second thing is that the person must (while taking the meds) enter a program like Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). Without those two factors I personally have never seen (in over 36 years of dealing with alcoholics) anyone recover from the “disease” on their own. Other-wise it just won't happen!

In any case the meds and some details are: Alcoholics may be helped in their recovery with one of two drugs approved for discouraging alcohol intake.

Antabuse (disulfiram).When combined with alcohol, even small amounts, this drug causes unpleasant effects, such as facial flushing, throbbing headache, nausea, vomiting, and increased blood pressure and heart rate.
The drug's effectiveness depends on patient motivation. Those who want to drink simply stop taking the drug.
A 1986 study found that Antabuse did not improve abstinence rates, length of time to relapse, or psychosocial functioning any more than counseling alone. But, patients on Antabuse who continued to drink drank less frequently than relapsed patients who did not receive the medication.

The second drug, ReVia (naltrexone), for treating alcoholism, acts on the opioid receptor in the brain to help prevent relapse and reduce alcohol cravings in those who drink.

In a 12-week study of 70 alcoholic men, 23 percent of the ReVia-treated patients relapsed, compared with 54 percent of those receiving placebo. Of those who drank during the study, 50 percent of those on ReVia relapsed to heavy drinking, compared with 95 percent of those receiving placebo.

A study of 104 alcoholic men and women found that patients who took ReVia were about twice as successful in quitting drinking as patients who received placebo.
However, because ReVia was tested in conjunction with supportive therapy, FDA approved its use only as an adjunct to supportive therapy (such as group therapy) in treating alcoholism.

Studies show the drug is nonaddictive. But it can cause liver toxicity when given at doses higher than recommended. Therefore, it is not recommended for people with active hepatitis and other liver diseases.
NIAAA is sponsoring additional studies to determine which patients are best suited for treatment with ReVia, as well as what dose, therapy combinations, and treatment duration work best.

I hope that I have helped you with my answer, but please remember that Paul has got to want to stop drinking for anything that YOU do to try and help him for it to work over the long haul. Thank you Rebos