Expert: Joseph Lee O. - 1/9/2007

Question
Is this a common effect for most alcoholics. Did this ever happen to you, if you dont mind me asking. He drinks every night with 6 being the least. I have talked to him about it several times even telling him i am on the verge of leaving until he has delt with his drinking problem. He addmits to being an alcoholic and when i bring his drinking up he then says he will cut back. Is there such a thing as cutting back or does he need to stop completly? He does good for awhile and then goes right back to where he started drinking every night 6 or more. Its just a never ending cycle.
I really want him to be happy and i know that drinking makes him happy and he is more fun to be around when he is then when he isnt. I just dont know the steps to take for myself what i need to do do i leave him for awhile to make him realize this is a major problem and i am serious about it or do i continue with this never ending cycle. Any suggestions. THANKS

Answer
Greetings to you, Michelle.

If you have a father or uncle or brother or just about anyone else you know loves you and only wants the very best for you, then sit quietly for a moment and imagine him saying this to you: Michelle, you are presently headed into a lifetime of troubles in which you will one day wish you had nothing worse to deal with than a drunk wetting your bed every night.

You have asked:

>> Is this a common effect for most alcoholics? Did this ever happen to you, if you don’t mind me asking.

I do not recall ever wetting the bed, but I do know other alcoholics have.  I once worked as an aide in a detox center many years ago, and it was not at all uncommon for the bodily-function-soiled clothes of many coming in to go straight into a plastic trash bag and on out to the dumpster.

>> He drinks every night with 6 being the least. I have talked to him about it several times even telling him I am on the verge of leaving until he has dealt with his drinking problem. He admits to being an alcoholic and when I bring his drinking up he then says he will cut back. Is there such a thing as cutting back or does he need to stop completely?

Here are a couple of excerpts from “Alcoholics Anonymous”, the book, a book you should begin reading just as soon as you possibly can:

“All [alcoholics] have one symptom in common: they cannot start drinking without developing the [physical] phenomenon of craving [and drinking out of control].  This phenomenon, as we have suggested, may be the manifestation of an allergy which differentiates these people, and sets them apart as a distinct entity.  It has never been, by any treatment with which we are familiar, permanently eradicated.”

“We alcoholics are men and women who have lost the ability to control our drinking.  We know that no real alcoholic ever recovers control.  All of us felt at times that we were regaining control, but such intervals - usually brief - were inevitably followed by still less control, which led in time to pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization.  We are convinced to a man that alcoholics of our type are in the grip of a progressive illness.  Over any considerable period we get worse, never better.
“We are like men who have lost their legs; they never grow new ones.  Neither does there appear to be any kind of treatment which will make alcoholics of our kind like other men.  We have tried every imaginable remedy.  In some instances there has been brief recovery, followed always by a still worse relapse.  Physicians who are familiar with alcoholism agree there is no such thing as making a normal drinker out of an alcoholic.  Science may one day accomplish this, but it hasn't done so yet.”

In a nutshell: First the man takes a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then drink takes the man ... and there is nothing any man can do about any of that.

>> He does well for a while and then goes right back to where he started drinking every night 6 or more. It’s just a never-ending cycle.

Again from “Alcoholics Anonymous”, the book:

“[Alcoholic men] and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol.  The sensation is so elusive that, while they admit it is injurious, they cannot after a time differentiate the true from the false.  To them, their alcoholic life seems the only normal one.  They are restless, irritable and discontented [while sober], unless they can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks - drinks which they see others taking with impunity.  After they have succumbed to the desire again, as so many do, and the phenomenon of craving develops, they pass through the well-known stages of a spree, emerging remorseful, with a firm resolution not to drink again.  This is repeated over and over, and unless this person can experience an entire psychic change there is very little hope of his recovery.”

>> I really want him to be happy and I know that drinking makes him happy and he is more fun to be around when he is than when he isn’t.

What you have just described is the initial seduction of alcoholism:

“For most normal folks, drinking means conviviality, companionship and colorful imagination.  It means release from care, boredom and worry.  It is joyous intimacy with friends and a feeling that life is good ...”

Then after an ever-worsening time of his peeing all over himself and you and any children you might bear him:

“... But not so with us in those last days of heavy drinking.  The old pleasures were gone.  They were but memories.  Never could we recapture the great moments of the past.  There was an insistent yearning to enjoy life as we once did and a heartbreaking obsession that some new miracle of control would enable us to do it.  There was always one more attempt - and one more failure.
“The less people tolerated us, the more we withdrew from society, from life itself.  As we became subjects of King Alcohol, shivering denizens of his mad realm, the chilling vapor that is loneliness settled down.  It thickened, ever becoming blacker.  Some of us sought out sordid places, hoping to find understanding companionship and approval.  Momentarily we did - then would come oblivion and the awful awakening to face the hideous Four Horsemen - Terror, Bewilderment, Frustration, Despair.  Unhappy drinkers who read this page will understand!”

"An illness of this sort - and we have come to believe it an illness - involves those about us in a way no other human sickness can.  If a person has cancer all are sorry for him and no one is angry or hurt.  But no so with the alcoholic illness, for with it there goes annihilation of all the things worth while in life.  It engulfs all whose lives touch the sufferer's.  It brings misunderstanding, fierce resentment, financial insecurity, disgusted friends and employers, warped lives of blameless children, sad wives and parents - anyone can increase the list.
"We hope this volume will inform and comfort those who are, or who may be affected.  There are many." ("Alcoholics Anonymous" the book, page 18)

>> I just don’t know the steps to take for myself what I need to do ...

1) Begin reading “Alcoholics Anonymous”, the book, and especially the chapters “To Wives” and “The Family Afterward”.
2) Look for “Al-Anon” in a phone book or newspaper and go sit in on a few meetings there.
3) Show this letter to your father or uncle or brother or just about anybody else you know loves you and ask for some help getting into a stable and sane living situation.

>> Do I leave him for a while to make him realize this is a major problem and I am serious about it ...?

Leave him for just as long as it takes for you to come to know, understand and recognize in him at least two years of permanent recovery from chronic alcoholism.

>> ... or do I continue with this never-ending cycle?

If you take any other path than what you have just heard a little about, that is exactly what is going to happen.

You are welcomed to write as often and as much as you like, Michelle, and my prayer is for everlasting peace for you.

Joseph Lee O.

Email: leejosepho@hotmail.com