This week we talked about Intimacy Poisons, specifically: Alcohol. It could be any drug, though. Remember the PSA from some years ago? About the Elephant in the Room? The whole family was trying to go about their lives and there was this elephant walking around and no one wanted to mention it. But it was there, and creating huge chaos, destroying everything, trumpeting about and killing people in the process.
Ok, so maybe all that didn’t happen in the PSA. It just sort of walked around, but I’m right on the reality of what alcohol or drugs do to a family.
It’s hard for family members to talk about. When you’re a child, you don’t get it. When your a partner of someone going through this it’s uncomfortable, and painful. You can’t much maintain emotional distance. You want to say things like: Why are you doing this to me? Or Can’t you just stop?
Our lecture talked about 2/3 of adults drinking alcohol, and 1/3 reported drinking causing family problems, and also that 10% of adults meet the criteria for alcohol dependence. It didn’t mention that those 10% buy 90% of all alcohol sold in the US. But it’s true.
I think one of the biggest problems for families dealing with this is that really seriously weird things become normal. The fact that your partner is drinking all the time, or that you need to manage them when you go out because they’ll be too drunk to function, or you have to start deciding when as a couple you’re going to drink. It becomes kind of an Addiction Dance, with one person generally becoming over functioning.
For kids I think it’s that the parent leaves. I don’t mean physically, but emotionally, they aren’t there anymore. And they react in ways that you don’t understand. You get in trouble for things that are either minor, or you don’t understand. Kids pull back emotionally after a while.
Alcohol dependence, or alcoholism as it used to be called is the only disease people get mad at a person for having. Think about that. I’m looking a lot at myself in this class, and my own fear of intimacy with people. All things that started in childhood. BUT, I am also a big proponent of I’m an adult now, and responsible for my own feelings and emotions and can change.
On the Adult Children of Alcoholics World Service Organization site there’s a handy Laundry List of 14 traits Adult Children have in common, generally. It’s pretty interesting, but there’s also a Flip Side of the Laundry List, which as a person in recovery from both family alcohol use AND my own, I really liked. In fact, I wanted to stand up and cheer.
The Flip Side goes like this:
We move out of isolation, and are not unrealistically afraid of people, even authority figures.
We do not depend of others to tell us who we are.
We are not automatically frightened by angry people, and no longer regard personal criticism as a threat.
We do not have a compulsive need to recreate abandonment.
We stop living life as victims.
We do not use enabling as a way to avoid looking at our own shortcomings.
We do not feel guilty when we stand up for ourselves.
We avoid emotional intoxication and choose workable relationships instead of constant upset.
We are able to distinguish love form pity.
We come out of denial about our traumatic childhoods, and regain the ability to feel and express emotions.
We stop judging ourselves and discover a sense of self worth.
We grow independent and are not terrified of abandonment.
We are dealing with out own alcoholic (or para-alcoholic) selves.
We are actors, not reactors.
As I said, this was a flip side Laundry List for ACOA’s, but I think that we can apply this to anyone who is in a relationship with an addicted person. I see it so many times, perhaps especially in women involved with alcoholic men. Men, with alcoholic wives too though, thinking on it. That walking on eggshells, trying to manage the drinking, the wet and dry periods. Also the anger. Also the helplessness.
What do you think? What’s it like being in a relationship with someone on drugs, or who is drinking? Did you grow up that way? Are you now? And remember, you can comment anonymously, please. I know it’s hard. I want to know your experience, sharing mine helps me, and hearing yours helps me more.
Tell me your story.
