GOOD TIMES - IN BETWEEN DRINKS.....

It's hard living with someone who drinks MOST of the time.  We get ANGRY and RESENTFUL.

So what happens when our loved one stops drinking for a while?

We sometimes REACT and GET REVENGE!  We often tell them, now that they are sober and will hear us, how badly they have treated us and all the trouble they have caused and what the neighbours said and all those bills haven't been paid and the list goes on .... WE GET ALL OUR FRUSTRATION OFF OUR CHEST!

And, maybe give the drinker a REASON TO START DRINKING AGAIN !!!

GOT THAT?  By haranguing our sober drinker we may actually make them want to blot the world out by escaping into the comfortable world of being drunk - there's no pain there.

So instead of beating on your temporarily sober drinker - try this:

• PUSH YOUR ANGER AWAY FOR A WHILE - read previous POSTS about ANGER
• BE NICE TO THEM -even if it goes against your grain
• DO THINGS THAT YOU BOTH USED TO ENJOY
• TRY TO MAKE SOBER TIMES GOOD TIMES
  
• TRY TO MAKE SOBER TIMES GOOD TIMES.

GIVE THEM A REASON TO BE SOBER !!!!

Try to do this every time they stop drinking, even if only for a little while.

Remember, very often for your drinker  IT HURTS TO BE SOBER - THE WORLD IS A HURTFUL PLACE - IT'S NICER TO BE DRUNK.

To undo that, you can try the above.

I did and it helped my wife along the road to finding sobriety. Not the main thing, just something positive.

AA helped her make the break.

Al-Anon helped me stay in the marriage with HOPE that one day she would stop drinking.

And one day, she did.  But of course, some people just cannot stop drinking. But that is another story .......

LET THE CONSEQUENCES HAPPEN

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?

Or to  put it another way: by covering up the mess our drinker makes, how are they going to see the mess that they are making of everyone's lives around them? Including their own!

Drinkers often need a reason to think about stopping the alcohol abuse.  We need to help them see a reason.

We have to learn this 'letting the consequences happen' , 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.