Expert Help for Seniors with Drug or Alcohol Concerns

This site provides information and help for persons 50 or older who are concerned about their own, or someone esle's drug or alcohol use.
http://www.alcoholdrugsos.com/Services_Seniors.asp#Seniors

Al-Anon and Nar-Anon

Al-Anon and Nar-Anon meetings (the Twelve Step Programs for significant others of alcoholics and addicts) can help a person in recovery to work through issues using principles based on the Twelve Steps. What meetings and members in recovery do NOT do is to give advice or tell someone what to do. This approach would deprive the recipient of the opportunity to experience growth by his/her own application of tools of recovery, the best way to learn.

See right column for Al-Anon and Nar-Anon web sites.

An Important Recovery Principle

"The only person I can change is me!" If you have a loved one who has an addiction problem, one of the crucial facts that you have to become comfortable with is that for all practical purposes you cannot control whether or not, how little or how much, or when or where, an alcoholic or addict drinks or uses drugs. That control can only come from the decision of a the addict or alcoholic to stop use and seek help.

Powerlessness in Al-Anon and Nar-Anon Recovery

Being in charge, in control, and self-sufficient, sound like valuable traits to have, but can, in a person in a close relationship with an addict or alcoholic, result in isolation, frustration, and mental turmoil and confusion. What we can learn in recovery in Al-Anon and Nar-Anon is a balanced understanding of what we can control, and what we cannot control, that is, what we are powerless over (Step One of the Twelve Steps: "We admitted we were powerless over alcohol..."). Clearly we cannot control our significant other's behavior, including whether he/she drinks or drugs. What we learn is that we can control, with the help of others in recovery and our Higher Power, how we react to whatever it is that we cannot control. It is a great freedom to realize that we need not control anyone else, only our own thoughts, actions, and reactions.

An Al-Anon or Nar-Anon Thought

"Mind your own business" is often said to be a reasonable shorthand summary of many of the principles of the Twelve Step Programs, Al-Anon and Nar-Anon. In other words, remind yourself on a daily basis, or more often, as needed, that you have little control over the behavior of the addict or alcoholic, and that trying to keep tabs on that behavior can be a true waste of time and energy.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Example of Online family addictions counseling

Here is an example of a question from a family member and the response from Jan Williams:

Question

I will try to make this as short as possible without leaving anything out. I have been married for 34 years to an alcoholic. He has quit several times only to go back again. beer mostly. 15 years ago he was into cocaine and alcohol and was very abuse both verbally and physically to me. I have called the police on him several times. I don't know why I stayed but I did.*** Things are better but he is still a closet drinker, hiding it from me and everyone else. He no longer physically abuses me but still verbally. very jealous, accuses me of everything etc***he usually gets very aggressive and starts fights and arguments with everyone and goes after me with his harsh words. I threatened to leave him several times and he swore he would give up the booze but I know he is still drinking. He denies it and covers it with lie after lie. I am at the point I need to do something. Please Help.

Answer

It is indeed painful and frustrating watching a loved one's drinking destroy himself and emotionally damage those who love him, and you have done so for all these years. You must be very weary from this long history of living with an alcoholic. Unfortunately, the power of the disease of alcoholism is such that rarely will any alcoholic decide to seek help and abstinence without negative consequences and usually a lot of pain, to him, not just those around him. Usually, the alcoholic's denial is such that he can rationalize that the only person he is hurting is himself (never true, of course). Denial and the power of addiction can cause the alcoholic to continue to drink in the face of the circumstances you describe. I offer denial and the power of addictive disease only as an EXPLANATION of your husband's hurtful behaviors, NOT as an excuse for them.

I have several suggestions. I suggest that you think about meeting with an interventionist (see, for example, http://www.intervention.com/; http://www.intervene.com/) to discuss an intervention to get your husband to agree to treatment, perhaps including your adult children in the process. One of the goals of an intervention would be to help your husband to develop an awareness at a feeling level of how his drinking has hurt you and his children. Treatment programs often will offer intervention services for free, but, of course, will guide the alcoholic to treatment in their particular facility.

No one can control whether an alcoholic drinks or how much the alcoholic drinks. I strongly suggest that you think about attending meetings of Al-Anon, http://www.al-anon.alateen.org/, the Twelve Step Program for persons who love an alcoholic, to learn how not to enable your spouse's continuing to drink, and for support for yourself. Good luck.

Jan Edward Williams, MS, JD, LCADC.
http://www.alcoholdrugsos.com

Posted by Jan Edward Williams at 11:00 AM 3 comments
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