Expert: Rebos - 10/1/2006

Question
Have you ever heard of an an alcolohic that has to have someone in her family be the "bad guy" and for all it's worth, that alcoholic spends her time and engery consumed with turning every family member against that person that she has labeled the "bad guy" until she is satisifed that she has everyone believeing her and has turned the family against that "bad guy".
The alcohoiic stops at nothing to turn everyone against this person...lies, horrible lies that would have you believing that the person she is speaking about is a horrilbe, mentallly deranged, cold, calulating monster...when in fact, that is not even close to how that person is in reality.
The alcoholic has been doing this to our family for over 30 years...she always has to have some family member being the "bad horrible monster" that everyone must hate.
My sister has been an alcoholic for 30 years, and is married with 2 grown children. I am one of 2 older sister's, both of us have our families and to date, all live in different states. We all try to get together during special occassions, holidays, etc. And every single time there is an explosion in the family, all roads lead back to the alcoholic sister. The last family explosion, and in the new age of computers, made it even more explosive since the alcoholic sister was able to send the family horrible, horrible emails, as well as getting her 2 grown daughters (who believe everything their mother tells them) to send the family horrilbe emails...it turned into a horrible, ugly exchange of hateful, hurtful, distructive words, and the end result is a family torn between believing the alcholic (who has lied about everything) or believing her sisters, (who have lied about nothing) and believe it or not, the family believes the alcoholic, and that just makes no sense to me and my other sister. We have lost our precious nieces for nothing...the amount of destruction is huge.
My sister will tell you that she is "not an alcoholic, in fact, she does not drink at all." her husband and her grown children believe her and will protect her at all costs. If something happens in the family that was the cause of her drinking and if you confront her drinking, she will go after you, latch on to your juggler and suck your blood til you die. She will call the family members, friends, friends of friends, she stops at nothing until she has everyone "hating" the person that dared call her "an alcoholic"
Almost a year ago, when the alcoholic sister thought she was getting away with "emailing my grown daugher's old boyfriend on that "myspace.com" web site and thought she was going to have some kinky fun with him by pretending to be my daugher...she was busted when the boyfriend was able to crawl into her site and identify her. When I confronted her behavior, she stated she was trying to "protect my daugher from this old boyfriend and she was going to trap him by starting up a "suggestive" email to him....blab blab blab..." the alcoholic's 2 grown daughers and her husband believed her and all of them turned on me and my daugher as though we were the guilty ones...it didn't stop there, the alcholic sister had to make everyone in the (world) now believe that me and my daugher were the most horrible people on earth, and she went on an all out mission (once again) to turn the family, friends, everyone she could get to listen to her that we were the most horrible people alive. she won't rest until she has the entire family in her courner and me and my daugher will be singled out and banned from the family...or we will be allowed to participate in the family events but the alcoholic sister will make sure we walk into an uncomfortable situation.
This has been going on for 30 years. It was not until this last go round that me, my other sister and my daugther finally nailed the problem, that being, she is an alcoholic and she will protect her addiction no matter who she has to sacrifice to keep all eyes off of her and her drinking.
The really sad part is how she has hurt this family so much and even with this last episode, almost a year later, she has not slowed down. One by one, she has "worked" on each family member, friends, etc. until she "feels like she has turned them against the "bad guy" and she doesn't stop until she she is satisifed that everyone believes her. and like I said, as unrealistic as it seems that she can turn a family member, friends, relatives against a person that they already know to be anything but "a monster" they seem to start believing her and reacting over time. And once she has everyone where she wants them, she will then go after the "person who dared call her an alcohoic" and she will stop at nothing to make thier lives miserable.
I have searched the net for help and support and I have found endless information on the alcoholic behavior, etc. but I have found nothing in the content of this kind of behavior and more importanly how to STOP it and keep it out of our lives.
My older sister and I broke the alcohic sister's usual behavior this last go round in that we did not allow her to turn my older sister and me against each other. My older sister and I do understand her behavior is coming from her alcoholism (for the first time in 30 years) and so this last episode was different than all the other episodes in that the alcoholic sister had a much harder time getting everyone to do what she wanted them to do, which was, everyone to turn against one family member and believe only what she tells them.
My mother just recently had a car accident which was not life threatening, but she needed some assistance while healing. We had decided to take turns flying to my mother's to help her, but then, the alcholic decided she was not going to do that and she went down the same time as my older sister was there. It was not to help mom, but rather for her to continue to "work" on our older sister to 'come to her side"....my older sister has struggled being in the presence of the alcholic sister, but decided the best way to handle this for our mother's sake was to keep peace. the alcholic sister took this as a victory and one more person to "hate her enemy who dared call her an alcholic"

I could go on for days, this is very complicated. The bottom line is "how do you stop a family member who is a classic alcohoic, but in total denial, as well as her immediate family" from her determination to destroy the person who she thinks needs to "die" for calling her an alcoholic. It sounds unreal I know, but she won't stop until she has destoyed that person, and she has aimed her destruction at me and my grown daugher (both of us are in the medical profession BTW, I am a nurse and my daugher is a councelor in  a battered womans shelter) so at this point and time in our lives when the alcholic pulled her latest episiode, we were able to call it what it is, rather than wonder why the family gets into such horrible fights...we called it out for waht it was and this is the frist time the alcohic sister has had to fight so hard to destroy the person responsible for calling her behavior out.
We are at a loss of how to stop her. We ignore her, tell her we have made the choice to keep her addiction out of our lives, we have changed our phone numbers, made it clear that we will support any rehab, but all the alcohoic wants to do is destroy us. she won't rest until she has turned every person she can against us and the energy she puts into this is not human.
I need to know how tos stop her destruction before she really does "kill off 2 innocent people" (not literally).
I can't find anything at work or on the net that addresses what I have described. any insight will be greatly appreciated.
And this is only a tiny bit of the whole picture, but I do hope it gives you enough information to help me stop her behavior so innocent people will stop suffering under her relendless quest to destroy anyone who calls her an alcholic.

Answer
Good afternoon Linda:

Thank you for your question.

Based on what you have written in your question it was immediately obvious to me that your sister (the alcoholic one) directs all of the hate that she has for herself onto others. It should come as no surprise those who deal with alcoholics to recognize the classic symptom of alcoholism. Your sister is trying to protect her right to drink!

What troubles me more is the attitude of you and your family in all this. As an example; what would you think of me if every day before I went to work I paid a visit to a mental institution…tapped one of the insane patients on the shoulder and asked him or her…How should I act today or… I have an important decision to make today and what do you think it should be? I would bet that under those circumstances you would think that I was crazy to expect that I was allowing an insane person to run my life. Well… that’s exactly what you and your family are doing…you are allowing the sick one to make decisions for you as to how you will feel or will act during the day!

Not-with-standing that fact you and your family are the classic definition of “enablers” since your sister is not being made to pay the price of her bad behavior. In fact every time she gets away with not paying the price for her bad behavior the family is really saying to her, “it’s OK for her to drink”!

I think that your problem is that you are trying to control a situation that you have ABSOLUTELY NO CONTROL OVER. Until you understand that you are powerless over your sister’s drinking and that your life has become unmanageable…you are destined to be miserable. You may not think that you could use Al-Anon, but you can! Alcoholism is a family disease and whether or not you want to remain close to your family then you and your daughter (and husband if you are married) should attend Al-Anon meetings.

Once again based upon what you have described in your question, I would removed myself from any contact with your alcoholic sister, her daughters, her husband and any other member of your family or friends of the family that want to drag you back into the insanity of your sister’s alcoholism. If any one were to call you and bring up the subject of you alcoholic sister, I would, in no uncertain terms tell them that you choose to not talk about your sister any more. AND MAKE IT STICK. I also include your mother. You write that the situation is very complicated…it’s complicated because you are making it complicated! Your sister is a very sick lady, and alcoholism is very contagious. Its not that you will catch her drinking, but you will be infected with the insanity of her alcoholism. If you don’t care of what its doing to you just think of what this is doing to your own daughter. Are you that thin skinned that you really care about what lies a drunk tells about you? You must have a very low self esteem. You know the old saying…”sticks and stones may break my bone, but names will never harm me”.

I hope that I have helped you with my answer, and I hope that you are not offended by my directness. You have to face the truth and sometimes it’s hard to do. If you have any further comments or questions please feel free to contact me again. Thank you, Rebos