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Alcoholism Is a Family Disease
Alcoholism involves every member of the family; how else do you explain the fact that children who come into Alateen rooms generally report that they have more problems dealing with the non-drinking parent than they do the alcoholic.
What? But I don't have a problem! He... him... he's the alcoholic! He's the one who causes all the problems! He's the one in trouble all the time ...
Everyone who has dealt with an alcoholic knows that the alcoholic is a predictable creature. Kids can read an alcoholic like a book. Kids know when it's the right time to ask for an advance on their allowance, or if they can go out with their friends; they also know when it's time to get out of the way and make themselves scarce. Kids understand the routine as far as the alcoholic is concerned. However, they never know where the non-drinking parent is coming from next.
One minute she (or he as the case may be) is screaming at the alcoholic -- threatening him with everything from from divorce to death -- and the next minute she may be compassionately rescuing him from the consequences of his latest episode -- dutifully cleaning up his messes, making excuses for him and accepting an increasing degree of unacceptable behavior.
The truth is the disease of alcoholism has affected her life, her attitude and her thinking perhaps more dramatically than it has the drinking spouse and she may not even realize it. Why? Because it crept up on her slowly.
Frog in the Water A few years ago there was a story going around the 12-step rooms about a frog in the water. The story goes like this:
If you put a frog into a pan of boiling water, it will jump out faster than the eye can see. But if you put the frog into a pan of water that is the frog's body temperature and then slowly turn up the heat the frog will stay in the water -- even to the point of boiling alive. Why? Because the frog does not notice the gradual change in temperature.
Alcoholism works much the same way... the heat is slowly and continuously turned up but nobody notices the change. Cunning and baffling! It's a progressive disease. It typically begins with casually accepting unacceptable behavior. As time passes the behavior has slowly grown more and more intolerable, but it is still being accepted and becomes the "norm."
She ends up with chaos in her own home that a few short years ago would have been unthinkable. If she looked out the window and saw the same kind of things taking place across the street at the neighbor's house, she would probably pick up the phone and call 9-1-1 to get those people some help!
An Insidious Disease As the behavior becomes a daily routine, the last thing that occurs to those of us who live in this situation is to pick up the telephone and get help. We are inexorably drawn into the belief that the alcoholic should be protected. We learn to cover for him, lie for him and hide the truth. We learn to keep secrets, no matter how bad the chaos and insanity all around us has become.
Few realize that by "protecting" the alcoholic with little lies and deceptions to the outside world we are in fact creating a situation that makes it easier for him to continue in his downward spiral. Rather than help the alcoholic we actually enable him to get worse.
The heat increased so slowly, over such an extended period of time, nobody realized the water was beginning to boil and it was time to jump out of the pan.
The disease will continue to progress for the alcoholic until he is ready to reach out and get help for himself. Waiting for that to happen is not her only choice.
Other family members can begin to recover whether the alcoholic is still drinking or not. But it can't happen until somebody picks up the telephone and asks for help. There is hope and help out there.
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