Ileana

I learned in an Al-Anon meeting about the 5 g's. Get off their back, Get out of their way, Give them to God, Get to a meeting, Get on with your life.

I have a real hard time understanding how if you follow all 5 of these that you could possibly maintain a relationship with your alcoholic. Specifically # 1 and #2.
1. Get off their back- Doesn't that mean I condone the behavior?
2. Get out of their way- So I sit and watch as the person ruins us financially and possibly kills someone in the process?

Maybe I am missing the point. Can anyone help me with this?

LexieCat

"Get off their back" means that nagging, "reminding," confronting are all useless at best, and counterproductive at worst. Do you feel the need to tell your overweight coworker that she really doesn't need that mid-morning muffin? If you did, would she suddenly smack her forehead and say, "THANK YOU! Now why didn't *I* think of that? I'm throwing this right in the trash!" Or would you get a dirty look and maybe a complaint to your boss, along with an in-your-face muffin fest every morning? Does your failure to say anything mean you "condone" it?

"Get out of their way" has more relevance, I think, to an alcoholic in recovery. Don't be jumping in and giving suggestions, reminders ("Did you call your sponsor today?" "Don't you have a meeting this evening?"), or other kinds of "help"--his program is his own.

Of course you should take action to protect YOURSELF from the alcoholic's harmful action. This is where boundaries come in. If the alcoholic is ruining you financially, maybe you get separate accounts and credit cards. Maybe you eventually have to separate or divorce if you can't stop it any other way. If the alcoholic drives drunk, you can call the police to pull him over before he hurts someone. That's more effective than hiding the keys or wrestling them away from him.

maybear

I'm pretty new to this myself but I don't think that means you need to sit back and take all that. I think it's about creating boundaries for yourself and protecting yourself - creating your own bank account, removing yourself out of the house, protecting your children. Doing whatever you need to do to protect and look after yourself in the midst of the drinking.
For me, I can't live with my husband when he drinks (I know others do learn to survive whilst in the same house) so I asked him to leave when he recently relapsed.
I guess that means we won't really have a relationship if he is gone all the time and for me personally I don't think I can live with that so we will probably divorce if he doesn't get well.
But from what I am learning, people do stay with their alcoholic partners and learn to live with it by detaching and creating boundaries... But I ask myself, is that really a fulfilling relationship? Purely learning how to survive in a bad relationship so you don't have to leave.
I'm not sure, still trying to get my head around all this.

happybeingme

Right now if your spouse is still an active alcoholic you don't have a relationship. They are incapable of truly engaging in a meaningful way.

Allowing your spouse to live their life as they see fit and suffer the consequences for their decisions are the best thing to do.

Take from me. I have over three years of sobriety. Had my husband nagged, yelled, cried, threatened of anything else I would have drank more out of spite.

Saying nothing is not condoning you are just letting him be a grown up.

Look Al-Anon isn't all there is. If you really don't like it you may want to look into CRAFT. There is a discussion about this program in the secular connections for friends and family forum here.

honeypig

In my humble opinion:

"Get off their back" doesn't mean condoning the behavior, no. It means accepting that you cannot control their behavior by any means--nagging, pleading, bribing, appeals to reason. To me, it goes along w/the First Step--"Accepted that I was powerless over alcohol."

"Get out of their way" means letting the A find his/her own path, whether that be to recovery or to eventual ruin. Again, it does NOT mean that you are to stand by helplessly and allow the A to sink you in debt or to kill someone thru driving drunk--as another poster mentioned, action can be taken to prevent these consequences, but action cannot be taken to prevent the drinking, as it's futile.

Does that help at all?

I found that these ideas took a long while to sink in for me, and in the early days, I felt much as you did, especially about "condoning" the behavior. It took some time to understand that, as another poster said, I didn't really have much of a relationship w/my active A anyway. It wasn't like there was "good A" and "bad A", where one was activated by drinking. The mind set and attitudes were there whether he happened to be drunk at the time or not.

cookiesncream

Guilty as charged. I drank out of spite a LOT due to this behavior. I suppose I could have been "gasp" a grown up and perhaps told him I didn't appreciate his behavior but well, that would have involved ME being a grownup rather than effectively a petulant child which effectively what I was behaving like. Playing petulant child repeatedly didn't improve our relationship and landed me in rehab so not something I would advise. Treat him like a grownup, even though its hard, and let him suffer the consequences of his bad behavior. It'll save you a lot of pain and agony in the long run.

redatlanta

Get off their back - Stop with the nagging, screaming, fact checking, booze dumping etc. For me this helped because it did nothing anyway (except make ME crazy), and bitching someone out, fact checking, nagging makes me feel exhausted and bad.

Get out of their way - They are going to do what they are going to do. Let them. It doesn't mean lie down and be a door mat. If you sit and watch this person ruin you financially then that's another issue, you shouldn't. Separate finances. Kills someone? Like drunk driving I assume? Get the car out of your name if is. If they leave drunk then call the police. That's all you can do. Let them be accountable for their actions (and no I am not scoffing that someone may end up killed that would be horrific. However, you cannot control the drunk).

You cannot have a mutually beneficially relationship with an active alcoholic.

Mango212

This thread seems like it could be especially useful for new members. (((hugs)))

http://www.al-anon.org/

Alcoholism is a chronic, progressive illness that has very counterintuitive approaches to finding solutions.