There is a great article titled "Blaming the family of the alcoholic for the drinking often appears subtly" on gettingthemsober.com
Part of that article reads ...
"Does your marriage counselor want to ''explore what makes him drink"?
Many mental-health// marriage counselors say they 'understand' that alcoholism is a primary disease and 'understand' its dynamics in the family... but then go on to 'explore' with that couple, "what makes him drink".... even though the counselor just said that he 'understands' alcoholism.
In the counselor's encouraging the couple to 'search for what makes his client want to drink'' .... i.e., ''what are the stressors that 'trigger' his wanting to drink''-------- the alcoholic welcomes this approach because he knows that this will lead right to blaming his spouse--- overtly and covertly.... this time, with the professional stamp of approval from the counselor.
*** Basically, a 'gang-up' between the alcoholic and the counselor to blame the non-addicted spouse. ...
If any counselor says that one must explore 'what makes him drink'----- he does NOT understand alcoholism. ...
Counseling sessions like what was just described diverts from prescribing that (as A.A. says) no one ---- no one ---- no one ---- 'makes him drink'. That he drinks because of biochemical cravings because of his genetic disease-------and that if he does not stop blaming others for his drinking, he is in grave danger of dying or going insane from his disease of alcoholism.
In one fell swoop, this type of counseling damages both the alcoholic's chances of survival--- and inhumanely continues the alcoholic's years of blaming the family. ...
d.)) Are you being encouraged to "look at both parties' roles in what might have caused him to begin to drink alcoholically"?
This kind of marital//alcoholism//couples counseling these days usually goes by the name of "family systems and/or cognitive behavioral" approach, which almost always consist of sessions where "both parties" tell what they each see as "the cause of the drinking" ........ with the therapist also saying that yes, hereditary/genetic factors are ''part of'' the cause of alcoholism---but that other issues ''factor in'' (like "marital problems'').
This approach by the therapist necessitates the sessions blaming the spouse for drinking and relapses.... even though the therapist often denies this. He will often say, instead, "both parties have a role in the family dynamics"... which means that he really sees alcoholism NOT as a primary disease that has its own dynamic regardless of outside issues, people, or situations-------- as A.A. says-------- but as the result of mental-health // communication issues.
This is just gobblygook that has been going on in the mental-health profession for decades........but this time, under the guise of promoting itself as "understanding alcoholism as a primary disease''.
They never used to agree that it was a disease..........then, because of the huge success of A.A., they started to give verbal agreement that it is a primary disease.......but nothing in the approach of the actual treatment sessions has changed from the decades-long approach of the mental health profession, i.e., treating alcoholism as a RESULT of mental-health issues--------- instead of the primary disease that it is. ...
e.)) In the A.A. Big Book, there are stories in the back section. In many of them, they repeatedly state that during the drinking, they blamed their families for the problems in the family..........but that once sober and sane again, they saw that almost all the problems in the marriage were a result of their alcoholic drinking.
F.)) THIS IS NOT JUST AN ACADEMIC ISSUE.
This difference in 'how to treat alcoholics and their families' is a daily life-and-death issue that manifests in our mental-health counseling centers, in our courts, in our divorce hearings, in our ad-litem-led custody conferences---- with hundreds of thousands of families every year.
Let's face it--- most spouses of alcoholics do not go to Al-Anon. If they go for help, they "go see a counselor".
All of these counselors (and psychologists and social workers) are trained to treat these alcoholics and their families in the professional schools of social work, psychology, psychiatry, and counseling. The major textbooks are rife with these outdated philosophies on how to do this.
Fortunately, despite all this--- there are (albeit only a minority) of therapists who do understand this, and who are not following how they've been professionally taught.
But it is so important for all family members who are confronting the court system---whether it is for 'family counseling' or for divorce mediation, or for custody hearings, etc-------- to understand what they will probably come up against---- that they will probably find that they will feel verbally attacked and often walk out of sessions not understanding why their guts are telling them that the alcoholism 'won again'. "
The full article is here ...
Getting Them Sober- Alcoholic Blame
It seems like a few people on the forum have experienced something like this so I would like to hear others' experience of that.
When my ex was abusing alcohol, she told her family of origin that alcohol was not the primary problem, and that in fact that the primary problem was "the stress that drives me to drink".
That became a quest to identify "the stress that drives her to drink", which ended up as a pitchfork wielding witch-hunt with the finger of blame pointed at me.
In reality, I had done everything I could possibly do to support my ex and to try to get her into treatment, including me getting the help of a doctor to advise me for a number of years about how to move her out of deep denial, and into treatment.
In the midst of this, her best friend contacted me and warned me that my ex was saying things about me that simply were not true and clearly were not true.
My ex's best friend told me that my ex had told the friend a bizarre story about me that made no sense - her version of one of her drunken incidents. In my ex's version of events, alcohol was not mentioned at all, and the story was portrayed as me having yelled at her for no good reason. The simple reality was that there was zero yelling during that drunken incident - I didn't even raise my voice to her. It was as if her and I had experienced two completely different incidents.
My ex's best friend kindly let my ex's family of origin know that the stuff my ex was saying about me was simply not true. This should have immediately put an end to the blaming of me, but did not ...
My ex had been seeing a therapist for a number of months, who my ex told me she had not mentioned alcohol to. Who knows what picture of me was being painted to that therapist.
As my ex's drinking reached a whole new level of dangerous behaviour, which every medical expert I spoke to confirmed was life threatening, my own doctor (who had been helping me try to address the situation for a number of years), and multiple other medical professionals who I explained the truth to about the reality of my ex's drinking, advised me that my ex's drinking had now reached the point where her life was at immediate serious risk, and that I needed to act immediately to get her into rehab.
So I contacted my ex's therapist and communicated to her therapist the reality of her alcohol abuse, and told the therapist about her multiple trips to hospital as a result of alcohol etc, as well as detailing how she was sliding into an alcohol fuelled hell.
My ex's best friend also contacted one of my ex's parents and detailed to my ex's parent the alcohol abuse and distortion of the truth that my ex's best friend had seen with her own eyes. My ex's therapist was also given that information from my ex's best friend.
So it was not just me ringing the alarm bell to my ex's therapist - my ex's best friend was backing me up and confirming that I was telling the truth.
I was very worried what my ex's reaction would be - I figured she would be angry that I had contacted her therapist, but it was a simple decision for me ... in a situation where someone's life is at risk, life MUST come first.
So I was preparing myself for a hailstorm of anger from my ex, but put my faith in the assumption that once her therapist was told the reality of her drinking (with info about that from both me and my ex's best friend), everyone would work together to get her into inpatient rehab immediately.
What happened next shook me to my core ...
Instead of my ex going to inpatient rehab, my ex told me that at the next appointment her therapist told my ex to end our relationship.
In an absolute fit of rage that I had contacted her therapist, my ex ended our relationship of a number of years, over the phone, calling me every name you can imagine.
The next day, calmed down, my ex called me and told me that she still loves me.
Her and I had a heart to heart conversation, and she told me that she wanted to get help for her problems so that we could then have a healthy relationship again and a happy life together. The first part of our relationship had been idyllic. It was only when she started abusing alcohol that things went downhill.
So things were a mess, but she finally admitted that she needed help, and she finally admitted that her problems with medication and alcohol were making it impossible for us to have a healthy relationship.
A few days later, she seemed to have been drinking again, and she abused me over the phone - yelling at me and saying all kinds of stuff. One of her parents overheard her abusing me.
Instead of seeing this as what it was - a drunk woman abusing her man over the phone, her parent decided that what they had heard was some kind of mutual abuse and her parent accused me of having abused my ex during that phone conversation.
In reality, on the other end of the phone I was doing exactly what my doctor taught me to do when on the receiving end of a drunken tirade ... do not argue back, do not raise your voice, watch your tone of voice, try to de-escalate the situation etc.
After this phone call, her parent told me that her parent demanded that she cut off contact with me. When I told her parent the reality of that phone conversation, her parent admitted that what her parent had heard was her abusing me, and not mutual abuse.
When her parent found out that she was still in contact with me, her parent told me they were "very angry" that she was still in contact with me.
Since then, I have been completely ostracised.
My ex refuses to discuss reconciliation or trying to work things out, and accuses me of "betrayal", as if me contacting her therapist to get her help before she killed herself with alcohol - me simply trying to save her life with multiple doctors telling me that I had to so immediately - was akin to me betraying my wife as if I had had an affair.
I have been "split evil".
Has anyone else ever experienced this kind of thing ?
Has anyone else been given any advice that helped you cope with the stress of being blamed for a spouse's drinking, when in reality you were giving every last bit of energy you had to get them out of denial and into treatment ?
Has anyone else ever been on the receiving end of the kind of response that I was subjected to when I contacted my ex's therapist ?
Has anyone else been subjected to emotional cutoff like this demanded by a spouse's parent ?