Learning About Alcoholism
No More Mrs. Nice Guy
Thread Starter
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: Iowa
Posts: 724
Learning About Alcoholism
This is taken from the Al Anon book entitled How Al Anon Works, for Famiies & Friends of Alcoholics:
LEARNING ABOUT ALCOHOLISM
Al Anon’s pamphlet, Understanding Ourselves and Alcoholism, explains it this way: Alcoholism is a ‘family’ disease. Compulsive drinking affects the drinker and it affects the drinkers’ relationships; friendships, employment, childhood, parenthood, love affairs, marriages all suffer from the affects of alcoholism. Those special relationships in which a person is really close to an alcoholic are affected most, and we who care are the most caught up in the behavior of another person. We react to an alcoholic’s behavior. We see that the drinking is out of hand and try to control it. We are ashamed of the public scenes but in private we try to handle it. It isn’t long before we feel we are to blame and take on the hurts, the fears, the guilt of an alcoholic.
“Even the most well-meaning people begin to count the number of drinks another person is having. We pour expensive liquor down drains, search the house for hidden bottles, listen for the sound of opening cans. All our thinking is directed at what the alcoholic is doing or not doing and how to get him or her to stop drinking. This is our obsession.
Watching other human beings slowly kill themselves with alcohol is painful. While the alcoholic doesn’t seem to be worrying about the bills, the job, the children, the condition of his or her health, people around them begin to worry. We make the mistake of covering up. We fix everything, make excuses, tell little lies to mend damaged relationships, and we worry some more. This is our anxiety.
Sooner or later the alcoholic’s behavior makes those around him or her angry. We realize that the alcoholic is not taking care of responsibilities, is telling lies, using us. We have begun to feel that the alcoholic doesn’t love us and we want to strike back, punish, make the alcoholic pay for the hurt and frustration caused by uncontrolled drinking. This is our anger.
Those who are close to the alcoholic begin to pretend. We accept promises, we believe. We want to believe the problem has gone away each time there is a sober period. When every good sense tells us there is something wrong with the alcoholic’s drinking or thinking, we still hide how we feel and what we know. This is our denial.
Perhaps the most severe damage to those who have shared some part of life with an alcoholic comes in the form of the nagging belief that we are somehow at fault; we were not up to it all, not attractive enough, not clever enough to have solved this problem for the one we love. We think it was something we did or did not do. These are our feelings of guilt.
LEARNING ABOUT ALCOHOLISM
Al Anon’s pamphlet, Understanding Ourselves and Alcoholism, explains it this way: Alcoholism is a ‘family’ disease. Compulsive drinking affects the drinker and it affects the drinkers’ relationships; friendships, employment, childhood, parenthood, love affairs, marriages all suffer from the affects of alcoholism. Those special relationships in which a person is really close to an alcoholic are affected most, and we who care are the most caught up in the behavior of another person. We react to an alcoholic’s behavior. We see that the drinking is out of hand and try to control it. We are ashamed of the public scenes but in private we try to handle it. It isn’t long before we feel we are to blame and take on the hurts, the fears, the guilt of an alcoholic.
“Even the most well-meaning people begin to count the number of drinks another person is having. We pour expensive liquor down drains, search the house for hidden bottles, listen for the sound of opening cans. All our thinking is directed at what the alcoholic is doing or not doing and how to get him or her to stop drinking. This is our obsession.
Watching other human beings slowly kill themselves with alcohol is painful. While the alcoholic doesn’t seem to be worrying about the bills, the job, the children, the condition of his or her health, people around them begin to worry. We make the mistake of covering up. We fix everything, make excuses, tell little lies to mend damaged relationships, and we worry some more. This is our anxiety.
Sooner or later the alcoholic’s behavior makes those around him or her angry. We realize that the alcoholic is not taking care of responsibilities, is telling lies, using us. We have begun to feel that the alcoholic doesn’t love us and we want to strike back, punish, make the alcoholic pay for the hurt and frustration caused by uncontrolled drinking. This is our anger.
Those who are close to the alcoholic begin to pretend. We accept promises, we believe. We want to believe the problem has gone away each time there is a sober period. When every good sense tells us there is something wrong with the alcoholic’s drinking or thinking, we still hide how we feel and what we know. This is our denial.
Perhaps the most severe damage to those who have shared some part of life with an alcoholic comes in the form of the nagging belief that we are somehow at fault; we were not up to it all, not attractive enough, not clever enough to have solved this problem for the one we love. We think it was something we did or did not do. These are our feelings of guilt.
Member
Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: Arizona
Posts: 29
Thanks Osier, this was helpful to read. I am stuck somewhere in between the anger and the denial stages. I don't enable, I don't make excuses. Out and Out he is an alcoholic. He denys it to the end. I am trying so desperately to detach and take care of me and my kids because that is what I need to do.
Member
Join Date: May 2004
Location: In Search of Finding ME!
Posts: 1,246
OMG - where the heck was this article years ago??????????? I could have used it a long time before now! I have to say that I agree wholeheartedly with that article! And I thank you for posting it for me!!!!!!!!
I even read the last couple paragraphs to my 13 year old son to help him understand how I felt for so long and why his father and I are seperated. After I had read it to him, he asked me if I had wrote it! Guess he understands more than I thought he did.
Anyways, again, thank you for this post! I tried to print it but my printer isn't working so hopefully it will work later!
Member
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: Star's Hollow
Posts: 615
Osier -
Thanks for the article. It's me in black & white. It is so much easier for me to get a handle on the obession, anxiety and denial. Those are all things that I projected on him.
The guilt is internal - something I do to myself. This one's much harder for me.
L
Thanks for the article. It's me in black & white. It is so much easier for me to get a handle on the obession, anxiety and denial. Those are all things that I projected on him.
The guilt is internal - something I do to myself. This one's much harder for me.
L
Dancing To My Own Beat
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: I don't know what kind of state I'm in
Posts: 1,326
That is one of my favorite books of Al-Anon literature. It has a great overview of many of the tools Al-Anon has to offer. I knew I belonged and that Al-Anon could help me when I read it. I highly recomend it to anyone who is starting in Al-Anon, or anyone who doesn't have it. Hugs, Magic
Currently Active Users Viewing this Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
