Let's talk about...... sex
The Dilemma of the Alcoholic Marriage
Al Anon Family Group Headquarters © 1971
(although the text refers to alcoholics and alcoholism, I believe that we can use addict and addictions interchangeably)
The Nature of the Dilemma
While the drinking is active, and day-to-day problems absorb the attention and energies of the spouse of an alcoholic, the matter of sexual maladjustment often falls into the background. There may be difficulties, of course. Some alcoholics, sexually stimulated by liquor, may make brutally aggressive and sometimes violent assaults, to which their spouses react with fear or disgust. Others become totally incompetent sexually, depriving their partners of this vital element of marriage.
The interaction and attitudes established in such ways are often too deep to be changed simply by the alcoholic becoming sober. Years of compulsive drinking may have brought about radical emotional changes in both partners to the marriage: the alcoholic may be inhibited by guilt over his behavior while he was drinking, the spouse by remembered violence, deprivations, infidelities and other humiliations. These reactions may persist even long after the drinker has become sober. Help is needed to re-establish a healthier relationship.
Troubled wives and husbands often take it for granted that their marital discords are due entirely to alcoholism, whether the alcoholic is sober or is still drinking. Yet alcoholism itself rarely creates all these problems, and sobriety itself usually does not cure them.
Many professionals in the fields of human relations believe that alcoholism and sexual maladjustment have a common psychological basis.
When a woman marries a man who drinks alcoholically, she may be accepting a sex problem along with the alcoholism. Many a person enters blithely into such a marriage with the romantic notion that love will overcome all – that the magic of togetherness will transform the devoted but alcoholic lover into a sober, responsible husband. This risk is often doomed to failure. She soon learns that even love is no match for the compelling desire for alcohol. And to make matters worse, she may find herself confronted with a sexual inadequacy or indifference that in itself may stand in the way of his achieving sobriety.
On the other hand, a woman who is maladjusted herself, due to influences in her background, may find a convenient excuse for her problem by blaming it on the alcoholic.
A man who marries an alcoholic may find he has a wonderful sex partner as long as she is drinking, but that she becomes unresponsive when sober. Or if he is unable to respond to her sexual demands because he finds her unattractive, even repulsive when she is drunk, she may humiliate and ridicule him. Such scenes are not easily forgotten and can cause difficulties which carry over into sobriety.
Yet one dependable fact emerges: the re-establishment of a satisfactory sex relationship may be brought about if both partners are willing to contribute to the partnership the patience, loyalty, respect and honest which are built into the Al-Anon program.
With this in mind, we have ventured to deal with this broad and tangled subject because we believe that the principles by which Al-Anon members try to live can help to solve this problem, as it does so many others.
An earnest and concentrated study of the Al-Anon program, in depth, will help us to become more tolerant, confident and loving, teaching us to accept the faults of others as we seek to correct shortcomings in ourselves