Dear Editor:
If you have a family member, friend, or fellow worker who is dependent on alcohol, you may have noticed what an all-encompassing disease alcoholism can be. Not only does it trap the alcoholic, it absorbs that persons family, workplace, and society, as well. Because of their strong emotional ties, family members of alcoholics are especially affected, and often become as trapped by the bottle as the alcoholic is. But there is a way out for the family and for the alcoholic.
Family members cannot control the alcoholic’s drinking any more than the alcoholic can. What they can control is how it affects their own lives. That’s why recovery from alcoholism doesn’t begin by trying to get the alcoholic to stay sober, it begins by freeing the rest of the family from the control this disease has over them.
The way alcoholics think and act is not only harmful to themselves, it is also harmful to family members individually, as well as to the family as a whole. The emotional upset caused by the alcoholic’s drinking behavior makes everybody miserable and creates an unhealthy climate that strains the relationships which hold the family together.
When alcoholism rules a family, family members unconsciously adapt by adjusting their own behavior. To minimize their bad feelings, or out of love for the alcoholic, family members often take on various kinds of abnormal roles. Ironically, by playing these roles family members may actually help the alcoholic keep drinking. By allowing their behavior to be controlled by one person’s drinking, family members unwittingly become part of their own problem. Without knowing it, they do things that enable the drinking to continue, they diminish their own lives and they keep themselves from getting help.
Happily, the best solution for the family’s problem requires changing what the non-alcoholic members are doing, not what the alcoholic is doing. By refusing to be enablers, by focusing on their own needs, and by getting help from outside the family, they can help start their family on the road to recovery. When the family is ready to accept help with their problem, they will find that there is plenty available. Millions of people are significantly affected by somebody elses drinking, and an immense resource network has developed to deal with the problem. This network includes self-help groups, professional care facilities and practitioners and information and referral services.
Similarly, though facing a problem with alcohol can be a fearful proposition, when the alcoholic is ready to accept help, there is help available. The most common form of self-help is participation in support groups. In addition, many people require professional care on either an inpatient or outpatient basis. For help in understanding all the options, and for information and treatment referrals, the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence is an excellent resource.
Alcoholism is a disease that can bottle up an enter family and isolate its members from their friends, neighbors and each other. But there is hope and a way out, and family members can lead the way. By reaching out for help and support, they can help themselves and may lead the alcoholic onto the road to recovery and back into the world again.
Marion Fritsch, Executive Director
National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence of Hudson County, Inc.
(NCADD)