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Would you believe feeling too sympathetic to an alcoholic is actually sentancing them to death?
You know, when my daughter died in a car accident and I was in early recovery EVERYBODY felt sorry for me. All the sympathy in the world wasn't helping! After about 20 days of mollycoddling me I was finally alone and stareing across the road at a bar. I told god why would you save me just so I could see my daughter die! I said I tried, but I can't take it anymore. I got up to go to that bar. All of a sudden a person pulled infront of me with her car and got out yelling at me...
"I've seen that look before", "you've given up!"
"You and your daughter were getting along lately, weren't you? Why was that Pat?"
"She was happy I quit drinking.",
"That's right, but you're not just going to drink are you?"
"you're going to kill yourself, just like my husband did after our son died!"
"Do you know what he did to our living son? He wakes up screaming daddy, no!"
"You think this is going to make her happy, that you kill yourself because she died?"
"What about the one whose still alive?" "Don't you think she needs you?"
"Are you thinking at all about the many people you're about to hurt, or just your loss?"
"What you do is get up and call your daughter and tell her you love her and does she need anything, does she need your shoulder?"
"You have to think about others"
"You have to make your daughter up in heaven proud"
and then she said...
"god didn't save you without a purpose, you don't give up."
She cared ENOUGH to verbally smack me out of my funk.
And she did this seconds after I said the same two things to god.
This is a program of spirituality that has been ENDORSED by Doctors for 70+ years. This new age guy is the ANTI CHRIST of alcoholics! Just from what you typed up there convinces me of that! He's got you thinking he SUDDENLY has a cure, there has been a successful treatment for 70 years! People being too sympathetic, too enabling, is getting us ....KILLED! We are self centered, low moral people. We don't see our part in any of our troubles. In this day and age where EVERYBODY feels more and more entitled, not responcible for their actions, this attitude is killing alcoholics. The worse thing you can do for us, is feel sorry for us! We have to learn to do something most people "norms" we call you, do naturally. Care about others and not just about ourselves. WE LEARN THIS BY HELPING EACH OTHER.
[quote=malamute;16312320]That is how powerful an addiction is. It doesn't just grab and hold onto the addict but all who are close to the addict. It really is a devil in that bottle, and it will wreck havoc on all, not just the addict himself.
In a way the loved ones are just in the same boat as the addict. The addict is the only one who can really control the drinking, certainly no one else can but the addict cannot control it. Everyone ends up trying to gain some kind of control, and everyone pretends things are normal.
That's why one of the principle beliefs of AA and Al-anon is to accept that you are powerless over alcohol and that the lives have become unmanageable.
I don't think anyone who is not an alcoholic can save an alcoholic. AA works because other alcoholics can provide insight, no non-alcoholic really can. It's something they alone understand and they alone can help one another. But the enablers which end up being almost all the loved ones don't see their own illness or condition and like the alcoholic, it's really they themselves that are the problem, it's not the alcoholic. It's their denial, their pretending normalcy, their co-dependency and they have to stop blaming too.[/quote]
I think my AHA! moment came when my therapist said, "<Husband's name> provided you with the crises you need and are always looking for."
Once I knew he couldn't have treated me so badly without my permission, it was easier to let go. The deepest part of the anger was knowing that he lied when he said he loved me, but it helped to understand that he was never capable of loving in the first place. He just knew what to say to get what he needed from me.
I avoid alkies and addicts like the plague now. I've jettisoned a long-time friend who was sober for 7 years and then decided a few years back she could have an occasional drink. She's wet-brained now and damaged from all the seizures, and I cannot even bear listening to her jumbled speech and nonsensical thoughts. The AA people have even backed off from her to protect themselves, and it's rare that they will do that.
The few people I know who have remained sober and made structural change to their lives are the ones who attend meetings every day or nearly every day, even if it's been 25 years since they first got sober. I agree with you--only they can help one another.
... In this day and age where EVERYBODY feels more and more entitled, not responcible for their actions, this attitude is killing alcoholics. The worse thing you can do for us, is feel sorry for us! We have to learn to do something most people "norms" we call you, do naturally. Care about others and not just about ourselves. WE LEARN THIS BY HELPING EACH OTHER.
You have made several good posts optiflex.
I agree with you about being suspicious of the latest "miracle worker". For one of the problems with a affliction such as alcoholism is it has many different faces. Indeed some people labeled and treated for alcoholism are not alcoholics. Some are just problem drinkers. Once the problem goes away so does their need for alcohol. Others are over-indulgers and need to learn control (which may mean quitting). The true alcoholic is an alcoholic whether they drink or not. There is no medicine that will change them. There is just staying sober.
Now if an alcoholic can remain sober by practicing Voodoo or drinking tea, practicing intense athletics, communing with fellow alcoholics or joining a Monastery, well if it works for them s/he should do so.
He has a line in his late night ads, which are on at the same time as Jack Jupiter, and the shamwell guy BTW, that just utterly makes my skin crawl...
"Beat alcoholism in the privacy of your own home"
Yeah, he knows us alright, he knows our weakness! We are ashamed! We are arrogant. We don't think people know, and it's a secret we drink too much. That line is very attractive to an alcoholic trying to sneak out of trouble without too much work. I wouldn't be too surprised to find out this guy invented the jolt your belly away while you sleep thing from the early 2000-2001 era!
Our greatest weakness is isolation, Lonerism, Loneliness! We try to do EVERYTHING by ourselves.
Trying to make a relationship work with an alcoholic.
Short answer: You can't. A healthy relationship is 50/50, and when you're in a relationship with an addict, you give 95% and they give 5%. Unless you're happy with just that 5%, then you can't "make" it work anymore than you can "make" someone else love you.
It's hard though because I see him as two different people. Someone that drinks alcohol to excess and thinks of me as a sex object, and another that doesn't judge me, or tells me how to live my life and treats me like a little princess. Because he's a non-verbal type like me, it's hard for me to tell how those two integrate.
Oh, that's easy. The "sober" him is desperately trying to be the person he thinks SOCIETY WANTS him to be, and the drunk person is who he really is, but magnified. Faking and pretending to be something he's not wears him down, and he drinks to escape from it.
Just thought I would mention that I went and read Dr. Milams position paper regarding Biogenic vs Psychogenic basis of Alcoholism at his Treatment centers webpage. This was suggested by Allabouteve.
Got to hand it to Dr, Milam for being a skilled and effective writer. He cleverly weaves much that is truthful and supported by studies into alcoholism with subtle attacks at the System (present day knowledge). It is a classic con person stance that you can not trust what the authorities tell you, trust me instead (buy my book come to my clinic not ever stated but is inherent in the argument). Very subtle strawman attacks and back handed support of AA, not because of that it works, but that it moves people closer to the truth that he has promulgated. Mostly it is an attack on using psychology as a treatment for alcoholism.
After reading his paper I find myself reluctant to join his new cult of Biogenic treatment plan. Good call optiflex.
I'm not hurt by truth. Maybe he's overlooking the fact that I'm a financially unstable, anxiety-ridden waitress who still lives in her ex's house and has nearly nothing of her own, because he finds me young and attractive, the fact is we all have major flaws and we want to find a person at least willing, if not to overlook them, to search for other redeeming qualities about our person. I don't think I'm 'settling' for him in the least, I initially felt very excited I found a man who didn't turn me off majorly in any single respect, but I found out like any other person that he's human and imperfect. But I'm still very enamored with him.
And I'm still 24.
Honestly, it doesn't sound like you're in a position to be in a serious relationship/partnership with anyone. You're 24. You still have time to work on yourself. Instead of trying to get him to work on his issues, maybe you should dump him and work on yours.
Al Anon. Therapy. Church. Lots of reading on co-depenency issues. Working on getting a better paying job/skill set. Those are the types of things you'd be doing--ideally. If you start doing this kind of stuff, you won't ever attract a man like him again. And you'll look back and be shocked that you ever considered being with someone like him.
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