An addict's autonomy
 

I've thought of a question I wanted to pose to you guys, and decided to put it here since I post in this forum so often.

We often talk about the three C's (didn't cause it, can't control it, can't cure it) on here, and how we -the loved ones- are not the reason our addict uses (alcohol in this case). We say how an alcoholic can only stop drinking when they are ready and choose to do so. Conversely, I also read about addiction being a brain disease that overtakes the addict's ability to resist their drug of choice. As a family member, we're told about creating supportive environments for recovery, and controlling your enabling. What I'm posing to you guys, is where do you draw the line for an addict's autonomy? If the addict is only able to stop drinking when they choose to stop, but your actions also constitute enabling, who takes responsibility for what?

I'll try to give a few scenarios to make my ideas a little more clear. I'll use myself as the loved one, and my AH as the addict, though I'm not going to base these on any real occurrences.

Setup: My AH and I both want to attend a party. We both know he is trying to abstain from drinking. We decide to attend anyways, since we want to see the people there.

Scenario 1: When we arrive, I decide to have a beer when one is offered. My AH sees this, and sees the others drinking around him.
-If he accepts a drink, would you say at this point he is responsible for that choice? Does my deciding to drink in front of him have any bearing on your answer?
-What if he didn't want to go because he knew there would be drinking, but I pressured him to join and see these friends? How much responsibility would I hold in that case?

Scenario 2: We split up upon arrival. I seek out a beer on my own and am socializing while drinking it. I think this particular flavor of beer is one my AH would have enjoyed before sobriety.
-If I offered him a drink of it, who holds more responsibility if he accepts it? Does my inability to control his drinking only count towards my attempts to stop it? By offering the drink, has the dynamic changed enough that I would be responsible, or does he still take full responsibility, since he could still say no to this offer?
-Would your answer to that question change if someone offered him a drink at the party didn't know he was trying to abstain? If so, what makes those situations different?
-How much control over his choices does he have to be held responsible for, vs it being a result of his disease? How much of a conscious choice is it to cave to a craving and drink?


I've been thinking about this sort of thing a lot, particularly when reading through the shift in my thinking and responses from when I first joined compared to now. I have switched back and forth a lot on my stance regarding an alcoholic's autonomy as the situation between my AH and I has progressed and changed. All of our experiences, advice, sayings and interactions have many levels to them, and I realize these scenarios are arbitrary, slightly extreme choices. I wanted to push it a bit though because we talk so much about the balance between our choices, our addict's choices, and how they influence one another. I realize fault and blame and responsibility and such can all become a bit tangled with examples like these, but I hope it'll be an interesting thought experiment.

What are your thoughts?

This is my view. In all scenarios it is the alcoholic's choice to drink or not. The partner of the alcoholic offering him a drink (in your scenario) is either sabotage or not understanding alcoholism. A stranger offering him a drink, not knowing his circumstances is neutral.

If he didn't want to go and you pressured him, it is still his choice to go or not or drink or not.

I think when we start to think we have control, we should go back and look at the 3 c's again. These scenarios all depend on the other person (partner or stranger) having some control over the person's drinking. The partner may carry some weight on whether to attend the party.

I don't see any blame to be placed. I mean someone can enable someone not knowing, just trying to be kind for instance. They love them and don't want to see them sleeping on the street so let them live rent free, for instance. Now is that a good thing for the alcoholic? Probably not in most cases.

I was actually thinking about why people who are codependent can be so hard on themselves and in some cases blame themselves quite severely and I looked to Melody Beattie for answers and found this post:

There’s No Shame in Being CoDependent
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Unless you enabling someone maliciously, I can't see beating yourself up about it. Once you know, I think it's important to start correcting it for yourself.

Many are taught to love their family, support family, stick together, be "nice", be "kind" when that plays out in an alcoholic family, it can be a recipe for enabling, doesn't mean anyone purposefully meant to do that.

I think this is impossible to answer as there are so many variables.

Another line from Melody's post:

"Feeling embarrassed about different stages of life we experience on the way to becoming who we are now is no different from cringing when we see pictures of how we wore our hair 25 years ago. We can feel that way; but it isn’t necessary. We were doing what we thought best – at that time".

Or - why the heck should you, me or anyone waste our time even thinking about this let alone actually do it.

Surely better to focus on ourselves and our wellbeing and let the drinker be to do what they are going to do anyway.

To trailmix: Yes, I agree that ultimately the final choice falls to the alcoholic. Of course offering a drink, or pressuring to drink while knotting someone is trying to stop is sabotage, how best options would be to cut me out were that the case.

When my support group was talking about more drugs being legalized lately, and if that was giving a green light to addicts to use or not, it got me thinking more about the question. I do realize the scenarios I posed don't really cover the scope of the question though.

I liked the small article you posted, it is really common to beat ourselves up for past enabling. I still do it sometimes. I appreciate your answer. Like I said, I wasn't basing this on real occurrences, but wanted to see what you thought.

To PeacefulWater: I definitely wasn't posing this as a scenario to act out, but I thought it was an interesting thought experiment. Many of us, myself included, felt really overwhelmed by guilt and confusion over our past actions and enabling when we first start learning about alcoholism. I was posing these as more extreme examples of finding where the limits are for your influence over someone else's actions. Maybe my execution fell a bit flat, but that was the idea.

THIS

In all scenarios, it is the alcoholic's choice to drink or not. ALWAYS.

Don't get too caught up in trying to decipher what is and is not enabling because that path can encourage the fallacy (and the guilt) that we have influence over whether someone else drinks or not. "If I were just not such an enabler, he would not drink as much," etc. In every single example, every single day, the choice to drink or not is always the alcoholic's. Nobody else can ever make an alcoholic drink nor stop an alcoholic from drinking. Rather than worrying about someone else's life, wondering whether I am or am not enabling, it's much more productive for me to focus on what enriches my life.

Great thread! I have also pondered these things. I appreciate the discussion as this has been a topic I have mulled over in my brain for years related to a variety of situations. Thank you for posting.

I remember a birthday party I went to years ago. "Joe" had been clean and sober for years, and still someone brought a bottle of wine for a present, at which point someone said, "Oh I guess he can use it for cooking," (which I understand isn't a good idea, either) But it was curious that at least one person close enough to be invited to the party didn't know Joe's history.

I brought wine to a get-together of three work-mates, not realizing that one was in AA. I wouldn't have, if I'd known. I guess if someone was honest and open enough to say, "Hey, temptation is an issue for me" we could discuss whether it was important to go to a particular party, or for only one of us to go and the other offer an excuse. In the end the addict will have to function in the real world. Does that mean never going to a party where alcohol is served? Gee, I don't know. My husband was hesitant to go anywhere where alcohol *wouldn't* be available.

If someone close to me was seriously attempting recovery *and I knew about it* I'd abstain around him or her. Offering someone a drink when you know he's abstaining is something I'd consider unkind.

I have almost 7-1/2 years sober. I keep a bottle of both red and white wine in the fridge. I use the white for a braised Brussel Sprouts recipe and the red for pasta sauce. I regard the wine exactly the same as the vinegars in my cabinet.
Hard to believe I used to drink at least a bottle of that stuff every day.....

Yes, I understood these were hypothetical, I really like the questions posed. I hate to think of anyone beating themselves up over trying to help. Generally, a codependent in full force is hurting themselves more than anyone else, when you add that to a relationship with an alcoholic the tables turn a bit (for some unknown reason). People are just doing what they have always done, not being nefarious. I also hope that anyone doing this seeks help to change themselves - to look out for themselves because it's such a hard life trying to please all the people all the time.

As for more drugs being legalized, weed has been legal where I live for 3.5 years now. I also wondered this and quickly dismissed it because if you are going to smoke weed it was already everywhere anyway.

To Eauchiche: Great, now you're gonna have to post a recipe 😋

As a general reply, yes, like I said earlier ultimately the choice falls to the individual making the choice to drink or not. I think one of the things that brings this subject to mind so often is how common it is for our addicts to blame us for their choices to drink.

Another part is I remember starting in a weekly support group around February this year of other family members of addicts who have gone through the detox center my AH first went through. We talked a lot about creating a supportive environment for our loved ones, what the difference is between discussing things that have bothered us vs throwing the past in their faces, giving them trust, the nature of alcoholism as a disease, etc. I remember finding some of these discussions very confusing at first. How could I simultaneously not be the cause of my AH choosing to drink, but also not creating the supportive, trusting environment could increase his chances of relapse? Which was it? Either I had no causal relationship over his choices, or I did right? If it's a disease that affects his ability to make good choices, how can he also be responsible for what he chooses? If it's not my fault he drinks, why do I always have to take the high road?

Those sorts of questions drove me rather crazy for a long time. I would try so hard to be supportive, but not enabling; honest about what hurt my feelings, but not rubbing his nose in it, etc. All of my best efforts were in vain, he drank anyways.

I think one of the things these scenarios help me with is driving home the point that short of removing an addict's ability to choose (I mean in the literal way of giving them something by force or when they don't realize, removing the ability to say no), we as loved ones are not responsible for their choice to use. I find these helpful because even if our actions might have made it easier for our addicts to use (enabling, cushioning falls, absorbing consequences, etc), at the end of the day, they show our addicts are the only ones who are truly responsible for choosing to use or not.

Yes, enabling is mostly cushioning. A supportive environment, in my estimation, means not sabotaging. I think the things pointed out are confusing. If you tell someone their behaviour on such and such a day was so scary/hurtful for you and they take huge offense and feel put upon, well again, you have no control over the person, you really have zero control over how they will perceive what you say or what they take from it, no matter how aware you are, no matter how kindly you say it.

To be honest stuff like that kind of bugs me. It puts the onus on the partner to somehow help control the addicts success. Do A. B. and C. and behave like this. Well, when A, B and C don't work at all, then what? Does anyone ever discuss that? Or is the partner just left holding the bag feeling like they are not kind enough or gentle enough or supportive enough etc etc. It's like codependency class lol

Yes, unless they are in the right place in their mind, they will drink anyway.

I think the only real help is not sabotaging someone's effort. You wouldn't badger your friend who is dieting to go with you to the bake show. Like in your scenario above with the party, "no is a full sentence" works both ways.

Heh, codependency class is a good way to put it. I think some of the ambiguity comes from how muddy things get between trying to give perspective from the addict's side, vs going so far that the loved one is left feeling like they're at fault for not doing enough.

I think another key difference comes from the difference in perspective between loved ones who feel like there's still a track for recovery compared to the ones at their breaking point. I don't think I truly surrendered my thoughts that I had any modicum of control over the situation until my AH broke my trust so many times that I couldn't put it back together again. Before that point, he would drink and my response would be along that "supportive environment" side. Telling him it's not a failure, everyone makes mistakes, this is just another opportunity to learn a new trigger, etc. Creating boundaries about not influencing his treatment made him so happy he cried with relief, he even talked about finding different doctors, psychiatrists, etc. Only after did I learn my stepping back just made it easier to lie to me. All that time I stuck to trying to give my trust, work on open communication, giving thoughts but not commands, etc. All of it irrelevant. He drank as much as he wanted.

After that revelation, I saw the switch in myself. Reading the tone of my messages after compared to earlier, my suggestions, everything. Short of pinning him down and pouring the booze down his throat myself, nothing I did could cause him to drink, just as nothing I did stopped it.

Cookie.....you are certainly not alone to be driven Krazy by attempting to wrap your mind around these concepts---especially. in the beginning. And, so many of them feel so counter-intuitive to what we have been taught about how relationships are supposed to work. Very few people are taught that relationships that are infested by abuse or addiction are in a totally different league of relationships. These kinds of relationships turn the usual rules (which work pretty well for HEALTHY relationships) all topsy turvey. Who knew!?

I do agree that the "supportive environment" can be a very dicey one. I prefer to think of it as basically, not being obstructive to the alcohholic's recovery path. and, otherwise, leaving the work of recovery to the alcoholic /him/herself. There are some good reasons for this.
1. The alcoholic who is a ways along in their condition will have inner guilt and shame---whether they show it or not. When they are in the recovery program, like AA---they feel more accepted there---as there in unconditional acceptance and no Judgement for having their disease. This is, in my opinion, one of the most powerful dynamics in the AA groups. This is one reason why nobody can "reach" an alcoholic like another recovering alcoholic. In reality, the other members and their sponsor can give the alcoholic all they need to know and the kind of 24/7 support that is so needed.
2. As long as the loved one is trying to "help" the alcoholic in the actual work of recovery---it sets the loved one up as a big target for Blame. We know that alcoholics are famous for the blame game. When the alcoholic relapses---it is the perfect opportunity for the alcoholic to blame the loved on for it.
3, It is almost universal that the alcoholic sees the loved one as the Enemy---because they are trying to take away the thing that the alcoholic trusts and relies on the very most---their ability to drink as they wish to. Even if they love the wife/partner...the alcohol is still the most powerful in their lives.
4. No loved one has the objectivity to play therapist or alcohol counselor to the alcoholic---Not even Sigmund Freud could do it. The loved one's own needs are too entangled in it. Another alcoholic in recovery can look straight into the eyes of an alcoholic in denial and tell the the Unadulterated Truth when they present their BS. No problem. If a wife or girlfriend or boyfriend tried that---there would be a huge conflict or fight, most of the time. The loved one would suffer a lot of emotional turmoil, most likely.
5. *****A word of caution---Do not attempt to play "cheerleader" to the recovering alcoholic. That can backfire on you. While it may seem logical that that would make the alcoholic feel good---it can do the opposite. ***Remember that you may secretly be considered the "enemy" in the alcoholic's secret heart of hearts-----so, when you are loudly praising his/her efforts to give up their best friend and coping mechanism---they will resent the *ell out of you. A simple "congratulatiolons" or "you must feel proud of your efforts" would be enough to recognize such things as a 30 or 90 day chip....or, their first year anniversary of sobriety. They need to feel the rewards of their own accomplishments for themselves---not anyone else. It is their journey to sobriety and they must shoulder All of it---the good and/or the not so good>
Some may come to the point that they can give you genuine "thanks" for your support (lack of obstructiveness)....but, that is for your wise behaviors and recognized sacrifices.....but, their inner progress belongs to them. I know that this may be a difficult thing for the loved one who may have suffered so much along the relationship...and, that is why the loved one needs a program of their own and lots of education. This may be one of the hardest pieces of the pie for the recovering co-dependent to swallow.

Cookie....none of this stuff is easy.

Hmm I think suggesting a discussion topic about being "the enemy" would do well with my group. You're right that being blamed is a major part of being the spouse to an addict. I think the idea of acceptance and no judgements is the intention behind discussions about creating a supportive environment. We talked a lot about how our loved ones don't trust themselves, and are plagued by guilt and shame. When you're new to recovering from codependency, it's hard, perhaps even impossible to separate being supportive from being a cheerleader or counselor. Just as the addict has never learned coping skills without using, we never learned new supporting skills.

cookie.....yes, this is a tricky road for the co-dependent loved one to walk---even for a not so much co-dependent to walk..lol....
I will say that it is much easier for fellow AA members to show unconditional acceptance and non-judgemental attitudes----than the poor spouse/partner who has been worn to a frazzle by the alcoholic's treatment!
I feel that this is one reason that the alcoholic's partner needs to learn a degree of detachment---even a large amount of detachment---from the alcoholic and their condition.
Oh my, this Detachment can be, for the partner, like tearing flesh from bone. Very scary and threatening---since the modus operandi for the partner is often one of control--control over outcomes. This will usually go deep into the childhood development of the co-dependent partner as a way of coping with their own childhood environment.
This one reason why so many marriages bite the dust, even, after the alcoholic tries to enter genuine recovery, if they don't have an intensive program for themselves.
The aocholic's recovery can be as hard or harder on the co-dependent partner than the actual periods of actual drinking. Who knew!

As spouse to at least a problem drinker, I do have some behavior to account for myself; I brought the conflict and drama; she just drank and mixed with ambien/xanax and passed out.. sometimes the combo would make her a zombie other times she would get aggressive and for a while I never knew what I'd come home to and a few times it was pretty ugly. My reactions to all that are on me, and I was definitely the enemy. It took a bunch of program work to detach from her behavior even after she quit drinking, and its still challenging now years later. When she gets angry at me expressing an opinion, I still have difficulty exiting the exchange.

You mentioned relinquishing control gave him room to lie. I don't think doing that gave my wife room to lie but it did give her room to detach from me, our daughter... for quite a few years and to a fair degree now I was doing almost all the child-care, homework, lunches, a good bit of the hauling around- my wife mostly just hung out on facebook; no exercise, no recovery- and to this day a lot of her conversation with us is interrogation over what the two of us want to do.

So relinquishing control there is to let my wife opt out- its not great, I don't care for it much. Our daughter notices it also and finds it difficult to relate to. About the best I can do is have appropriate conversation with her about her mother- the two of us have decided to push my wife to see a doctor about her chronic coughing (more fear based avoidance of doctors)- otherwise there are no checkups, no preventative dentistry, little exercise, no shrink to get at the core of the fear. My concern is an entirely avoidable dramatic health event. So far no-go- the most she did was a single telehealth session at an urgent-care to get a course of antibiotics to help the possible bronchitis.

But hadn't she already opted out really? Her choice. And will she be pushed to make appointments she doesn't want to go to? These are really kind of out of your control?

I think she had already, and in recovery I do better at recognizing her choice and not nagging and pushing. That means on occasion when the coughing gets bad my daughter and I, sometimes together have sat down and directly asked her to please get with a doctor because we worry about it. That amounts to maybe a half-dozen times over the last couple years (this chronic cough has been going on for years now, sometimes more sometimes less). There is no nagging or followup questions because you're right, it is out of our control.

I hope I didn't misrepresent with the "allowing her to opt out" language; its not in the sense of granting her permission to be some way or another, it was meant as me accepting that I don't have control over her choices and behavior, and so no longer trying. I wholly agree that her health is her choice.

As far as other opting out behavior, its kind of the same; let her be the mother she is rather than trying to make her be the one I would prefer, and use the program to avoid getting entangled in irritation and resentment over it.

I recently saw an interview with a young man who suffered from severe OCD as a teenager. His Dad was a Mormon bishop, and the kid felt compelled to confess his sins to his own father multiple times during the day. As a pubescent teenager, one can only imagine.

His parents were very affirming to the kid, trying their best to comfort him. His obsessions only got worse.

His Mother decided to become a therapist. It was there she learned that affirmation and encouragement were only increasing the kid's anxiety and guilt.

Weird how the human mind works.