WHY DO I NEED HELP?

Sometimes we think: 'Why in Hell do I need help? I am not the one drinking!! Shouldn't my alcohol abuser get help instead of me?'

This is often where we start when we fully realise the extent that our lives are being affected by our loved one's drinking.  It's only natural to think: ' I am not the one with the problem!'

Of course our alcoholic needs help! But, most often they are in denial that they have a problem at all. At early stages they think they don't need help at all.

If both parties go on this way, no improvement happens; in fact things will get worse and worse.

Mostly we find that it is US, the sufferer of someone else's drinking, who has to do something.  We need to make our lives at least bearable, to cope with the continual situations that arise caused by the drinker.

Our lives become so unmanageable that often it is US that starts to look for help.  It may be ages before the alcoholic realises that they are in deep trouble. We can't always wait for them to do something - we have to act to look after ourselves.

It may upset us at first to think that we have to take some action, but you can be assured that thousands of people affected by someone else's drinking found that they had to take the first step.

My journey, which may help you to get a better life, is summarised in the Help Pages to the right. I suggest you start there and see if anything makes sense to you.

And remember: you are not alone nor unique: just another person suffering because someone has lost control of their drinking. There is help available.

FORGIVENESS

Forgiveness.  That mat seem a strange topic to be talking about in relation to our loved one's alcohol abuse.

But if we feel angry and resentful toward our alcoholic person, or maybe even the rest of the world, the first person we are harming is ourselves.

Being angry is one of the things that happens to us when we live with an alcohol abuser - happens to all of us.
So we should not feel bad about feeling angry or resentful.

But it is well recognised now that anger against some situation or person increases our inner tensions and that harms our physiology - WE suffer because of our inner anger or resentment.

What can we do?

We can take time to FORGIVE our abuser: they are suffering from a disease of the mind and there is no cure: it's a permanent condition for them.  We would not be angry with them if they had cancer, would we?

Forgiveness is the antidote for anger, bitterness and resentment.  We need to release all the pent up feelings for our own health - our health, not anyone else's.  Every now and then we see in the news that some wise parents have forgiven the killer of their child: NOT for the benefit of the criminal; but for their own peace of mind, so that they can get on with their grief and their lives. Very wise people.

Forgiving our loved one is an important part of our recovery; it's not easy but it has many benefits.

It's the start of getting some measure of goodness out of our lives, despite the conditions brought upon us by our alcoholic.

I hope you will think about this, maybe read about anger and it's long term effects on the body.  God Bless.

HOW CAN I FORGIVE THE DRINKER?

In the early days when we become fully aware that our loved one puts the next drink ahead of us and any love for us, it hurts. 

We may even become angry, sometimes even hating whom our loved one has become: a total stranger.

But when we seek help, one of the first things we learn is that our loved one is in the grip of a powerful disease: alcoholism.    It could have been MS, or emphysema, or a heart serious condition.  But it's not: it's alcoholism.

Alcoholism is that bad - in fact it is incurable. Think of that: it never leaves you once you have the disease: there is no cure - except total abstinence.

When we look at our loved one's drunkenness as the effects of a disease, gradually we can begin to feel some compassion: as we would for one of the other diseases mentioned above.

Our drinker has to learn to overcome the disease of alcoholism all by him/ her self: we cannot help one iota.

Think about that the next time you feel anger or resentment building up (as it does!) and it may help you avoid some nasty behaviour toward your loved one.   I hope so, for losing our cool only makes the drinker feel worse.  The antidote to which is: have another drink!

Try this sometime.  Don't give your loved one a reason to reach for a drink!   God Bless.

WHY CAN'T THEY JUST STOP DRINKING?

Before I learned about the power of alcohol over some people, I used to think that surely, someone affected by alcohol could just stop drinking and resume a normal life.

Later when my wife was inebriated for long periods our friends wondered why she couldn't just stop. I wondered too: surely she loved me enough to stop hurting me?

Later still, when I sought help, I learned about alcohol affecting the brain and that in fact it is recognised as a disease of the brain. Alcohol abuse steadily enables the disease take control of the drinker's brain so that ultimately nothing is more important than getting the next drink.

No way can such an affected person 'just stop' !

What followed was that I had absolutely no power over the drinker's brain - the alcohol was far stronger than was any love for me.  I was powerless against alcohol.

I had to learn a different way to live with the drinker, my dear wife, and more information about getting help is included in the 'Help Pages' which I hope you can peruse.

You are not alone in living with the effects of alcohol on your loved one. But you may need to seek help.

COVERING UP THE MESS

One of the things we all do when we struggle to live with an alcohol abuser is to hide all the awful things that happen when our loved one is drunk.

This is only natural: we are so ashamed that we try to cover things up from the view of others. Vomit on the floors; urine where it should not be; our loved on lying on the floor or out in the yard; our loved one going out badly dressed or even naked; crashing the car; falling over in public; yelling abuse at friends: I have seen or heard about all of these things.

We may phone up with an excuse when our loved one is too drunk to go to work; we may have to break dinner engagements due to our loved one's drunkenness; there seems to be endless situations that we may have to cope with.

But as we learn more about the disease of alcoholism, we learn that sometime or other, we have to let our drinker suffer the consequences of their drinking.  This may mean they lose their job, their friends, their children.

But as long as we cover up the nasty stuff, the drinker has no reason to think about stopping. After all, if they can drink and the world does not stop, then what's the problem?

But we have to learn this 'letting the consequences happen' or to ' detach with love' slowly, and this is one of the things I had to learn.  My journey is outlined in the 'Help Pages' - I hope you find some help too.

HOW CAN I STOP MY LOVED ONE DRINKING?

This is what we ALL want to know: if he or she cannot stop drinking themselves, then how can I get them to stop?

Most of try to stop the drinking by finding the hidden stash of booze then pouring it down the sink.
Result: the booze still comes into the house but is hidden in increasingly more cunning ways.

We may try asking the drinker to stop drinking for our sake - after all, they love us, don't they?
Result: the drinker may agree to stop, but then we find they have resumed drinking again, maybe worse.

We may try telling them that the drinking is ruining our lives, that we can't stand it anymore.
Result: this can  make the drinker feel guilty, the antidote to which is to have more to drink.

So, does that mean that we can do virtually NOTHING to get the drinker to stop?
Unfortunately, that is just about the case. The only way a drinker can stop reaching for the next drink, or the first drink, is to want to.

And from bitter experience we have learned that we have no control over what the drinker thinks or will do.

So what can we do?
We can get help to first: learn to live with the drinking and leave the drinker alone.

This is not easy to do, but can be learned - it is the first step to getting our sanity back and some measure of contentment back into our lives.  The life of the drinker is, we have to learn, solely the drinker's concern.

I encourage you to read through the 'Help Pages' over on the right to learn more: we can get a better life and maybe even help the drinker begin to want to stop drinking.

Please read on. And know that you are NOT alone.