If there is an alcoholic in your house today
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Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: new moon road
Posts: 1,545
If there is an alcoholic in your house today
If there is an alcoholic in your house today, lower your expectations.
He (or she) is likely to get drunk. If he does not get drunk today, he is white-knuckling until everybody is out of the way and he will get very drunk tonight or tomorrow.
You will feel a knife in your heart when this happens, because you had such hopes that the alcoholic could hold it together at least on Christmas. But alcoholism by definition is the inability to control the compulsion to drink. Alcoholics drink because they are alcoholics and it is useless to expect otherwise, without recovery.
If the alcoholic drinks today--he probably will--you will likely feel gut emotional pain and surging rage. But because it is Christmas and others are around, you will repress it, waiting to unload all the emotion on the alcoholic when you have him to yourself.
Holding in this repressed pain and anger, you will try to control everything and everyone today, trying to keep the children from seeing that their parent is drunk again, trying to keep the alcoholic from destroying the house or the dinner, trying to keep the visitors from the truth about what your life really is, trying to keep an artificial level of good cheer in the home until you get to the end of this terrible day with a drunk.
And if the drunk is not drunk today, it is just borrowed time, and you know it.
You have no power over alcohol. You have no power over the alcoholic. To try to control the uncontrollable will make you very sick.
There is help for you. Find an Al-Anon meeting. You do not have to like a single person you see in that room. But if you sit there and listen, you will finally be doing something positive, rather than the negative and destructive and futile actions you have been taking to try to control an alcoholic in your home. If you continue going to meetings, then next Christmas will be different.
You have the right to leave the house today, children and toys in the car, and spend the day away from the drunk. You have the right to tell people your spouse is a drunk and ask them to be there for you. You have the right to stay away from the house for as long as you need to. You have the right not to return until the drunk is out of the house for good.
If the children say that their parent is drunk, don't tell them they are wrong, that it isn't true. Acknowledge the reality and tell them it is not because of them or because of anyone else. It is because their parent has a severe drinking problem. And it is no one's fault. Make sure they understand that. Tell them their job is to be children and to play and to blossom. Grown-ups have to solve their own problems.
There are people in your life today who love you and who will support you if you need their help. Find them. Break any isolation. Make a decision to get healthy in meetings and/or counseling. You can recover from someone the effects of someone's alcoholism. You can find peace.
He (or she) is likely to get drunk. If he does not get drunk today, he is white-knuckling until everybody is out of the way and he will get very drunk tonight or tomorrow.
You will feel a knife in your heart when this happens, because you had such hopes that the alcoholic could hold it together at least on Christmas. But alcoholism by definition is the inability to control the compulsion to drink. Alcoholics drink because they are alcoholics and it is useless to expect otherwise, without recovery.
If the alcoholic drinks today--he probably will--you will likely feel gut emotional pain and surging rage. But because it is Christmas and others are around, you will repress it, waiting to unload all the emotion on the alcoholic when you have him to yourself.
Holding in this repressed pain and anger, you will try to control everything and everyone today, trying to keep the children from seeing that their parent is drunk again, trying to keep the alcoholic from destroying the house or the dinner, trying to keep the visitors from the truth about what your life really is, trying to keep an artificial level of good cheer in the home until you get to the end of this terrible day with a drunk.
And if the drunk is not drunk today, it is just borrowed time, and you know it.
You have no power over alcohol. You have no power over the alcoholic. To try to control the uncontrollable will make you very sick.
There is help for you. Find an Al-Anon meeting. You do not have to like a single person you see in that room. But if you sit there and listen, you will finally be doing something positive, rather than the negative and destructive and futile actions you have been taking to try to control an alcoholic in your home. If you continue going to meetings, then next Christmas will be different.
You have the right to leave the house today, children and toys in the car, and spend the day away from the drunk. You have the right to tell people your spouse is a drunk and ask them to be there for you. You have the right to stay away from the house for as long as you need to. You have the right not to return until the drunk is out of the house for good.
If the children say that their parent is drunk, don't tell them they are wrong, that it isn't true. Acknowledge the reality and tell them it is not because of them or because of anyone else. It is because their parent has a severe drinking problem. And it is no one's fault. Make sure they understand that. Tell them their job is to be children and to play and to blossom. Grown-ups have to solve their own problems.
There are people in your life today who love you and who will support you if you need their help. Find them. Break any isolation. Make a decision to get healthy in meetings and/or counseling. You can recover from someone the effects of someone's alcoholism. You can find peace.
Member
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: Canada
Posts: 40
Though for sure that AH wouldn't get drunk this Christmas. Very glad it wasn't last night at least, or this morning. He's been making it through the week and only drinking on weekends since he finally got a job about a month ago, but that lasted until Monday night. The Serenity Prayer is my lifeline today.
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