OUR ATTITUDE MATTERS

The face we show to our drinker is noticed by them, though it may not seem so at times.

If we are critical, nasty, sarcastic, abusive or downright rude to our drinker, how are they going to feel?

If you were in their place - what would YOU feel like doing?

Have another drink so that I don't feel the anger from you, or to bury the guilt I feel for a while.

This is really a natural response for our drinker - "If I'm being hit on, I will escape by having another drink!"

It needs to change - Why ? To take away another excuse for our drinker to keep drinking.

So what SHOULD our attitude be? 

This helps:  Try to take your focus away from the drinker and onto yourself.  Easy?  Not at all.
BUT - if you can do this - focus on yourself, how you are feeling, what you are doing - then you are not hitting on your drinker.  You stop giving him or her a reason to drink.

You will reduce the tension in your environment and its surprising what a difference it can make to the drinker.

Try it.  See what I mean.  I had to learn to do this too.

To learn more, have a look at the HELP pages over to the right.

You are not alone!

MY DRINKER CAN'T BE AN ALCOHOLIC!

Those of us living with an active alcohol abuser - drinking most of the time, unable to easily stop drinking, maybe drunk more often than not - seem to have trouble realising that we do have a problem drinker.  Maybe we cannot face the reality that the drinking is out of control.

What we are doing is DENYING that there is a problem in our family.  After all, we feel the SHAME,  maybe we feel that we CAUSED the drinking, and we try to COVER UP all of the nasty stuff that happens.

One of the hardest things is to accept that we have a problem drinker on our hands.  Once we seek help, we begin to realise that probably, we have an ALCOHOLIC on our hands.

This is something we all go through - first DENIAL, then ANGER and FRUSTRATION and maybe then we begin to look for help.

Does this sound like you?  It's what I went through.  How I got help is detailed over in the HELP PAGES so if you want to start thinking about some help, I suggest you read through those pages.

God Bless.

HE/SHE DRINKS, SO I GIVE THEM A HARD TIME

When we live with an alcohol abuser sometimes we cannot help "taking it out" on them - letting them know we are angry, hurt and thoroughly disgusted by their actions.  I was the same - its "natural" to do this.

But I had to learn that all I was doing was giving the drinker MORE reasons to drink.  I did not know that the drinker already was feeling bad by what the were doing, and here I was just making it worse.  So naturally the thing to do was - have another drink to blot it all out.

Learning that they were in the grip of a terribly strong  mental disease, I could begin to have some compassion for the plight of  my drinker. 

I had to learn to back off, "keep my mouth shut, my mind off the drinker, and my mitts off too".  I had to learn to let the drinker find their own way along their journey, free of my haranging.

By taking our pressure off the drinker, they are left with their own actions to suffer from - not ours.

To see how my journey led me to these findings, read the "Help Pages" to the right,
and God Bless you. 

We have been there too.

OH MY GOD! THEY'RE DRINKING AGAIN!!

What a horrible feeling it is after some time, finding out that your loved one has started drinking again.    Stomach feels like its been kicked - we ask why? What started it off again?  What did I do?  What is WRONG with him/her? Why is he/she wrecking our lives again?  I really thought the drinking was ended this time!
This all too familiar scenario happens to us all who live with a drinker, or someone who is trying to give it up, but just cannot do it yet.  The thing is, the drinker is battling a most powerful mental disease, and yet is only human - sometimes the disease wins, and for little reason, he/she will reach for a drink. One drink and they cannot stop.
What can we do?
Nothing to stop the drinking. We have to learn - each time this happens - to ACCEPT it - take our MIND  OFF it - and focus on OURSELVES. 
How do we learn to do this, when it hurts so  much?
You can read what I did over in the "Help Pages" - how I managed to keep on going, with HOPE - while the drinker went up and down, time after time.