Anecdote #1:
I had a loved one whom I felt had betrayed us over and over again, always promising to stop drinking, to be there on time, to show up, to attend the important event, to arrive on time for the appointment, to pick up the needed supplies etc. Always missed every appointment or materials pickup, special event, always avoided discussing it at all. 1000s of times. I imagine that person ‘enjoying’ their evening and not caring about everything else in the world.
I went to Al Anon (spelling?) for those with loved ones who are alcoholics. I am not a joiner or a group kind of person but the few times I was able to force myself to go to a meeting (probably 5 times over the course of 10 years) I felt like I came away with one piece, one valuable piece, of information I had not known I wanted.
The last time I went, the group was told that the Alcoholics Anonymous group that met in the same building on the same night was having an ‘Open House’ during which Al Anons are permitted to join. I didn’t want to attend - I was grieved by my loved one’s life’s trajectory and didn’t think I wanted to hear more of the same.
But that one night, one of the Alcoholics who spoke, leaned forward with intensity and said something like, “Every time, when I decided to stop, I really believed this time would be different. When I said I would go straight home from work, I actually pictured myself doing it, and pictured myself being relieved. But then on the drive home...I couldn’t believe it...I just couldn’t go straight home....”
That comment stayed with me because I believe he was sincere. It had never occurred to me (sort of, in a way) that perhaps when they were upset about disappointing themselves, and others, and they told us they would stop - they really believed it when they said it. They didn’t at that moment add up all the times they’d failed. This time they were so exhausted by the battles and the let downs etc. that this time felt ‘different’ and now they were even more determined. Rinse and repeat?
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Anecdote #2.
I had a hard time every ‘accepting’ my friend’s 80 year old grandmother drank vodka, hidden in cups and glasses throughout the house, all day long. She looked and sounded like Yoda from Star Wars. Loved to cook. Sweet woman but ‘feisty’. When my friend visited her grandmother, she angrily threw out grandma’s vodka wherever she found it in the house (linen closet, laundry room).
Grandma’s son would get so upset and frightened, he would go to her house (doll house- this woman was maybe 5’ tall and everything in the house was small) and yell at her. She would cry and promise to change. He would go home. She would walk miles with painful arthritis in the cold morning air bright and early to get to the grocery store (we normally offered her rides to buy groceries etc.) as soon as it opened to buy vodka. Rinse and repeat.
Grandma’s daughter in law asked me, “How could she do that when she knows how much it hurts her son? After she promised?” I relayed the ‘maybe she actually believed she could stop during those moments when she was so distressed by his pain and anger’.
And then we talked about this woman and how she dealt with stress and painful episodes she’d rather not think of, for about the last 50 years of her life - she drank. She didn’t have another coping skill to turn to.
The daughter in law to whom I was speaking was always battling weight issues. I asked her how she might respond if her husband yelled at her and told her she was disgusting etc. She paused for a moment and said bewildered, “I guess I would tell him I would stop and then....and then...I would probably binge because I was upset.”
I suggested that grandma was routinely near hysterics after her son gave her the lecture, she genuinely was desperate to stop drinking, to save her health and her relationships, to never have a row like that again. But son left, and she sat alone in her doll house (she struggled with loneliness for decades) and there was just nothing to comfort her, and she had no coping skills. So maybe she cried and told herself she would stop, and believed it, slept a fitfull night and the next morning found herself getting stiffly dressed for cold weather, thinking she felt so bad right then that she couldn’t think until she had a drink.
Well - that was our theory, our possible scenario using what we knew of people who were addicted to cigarettes, caffeine, carbs etc. Intention - understanding the urgency - committing to the urgent matter - falling flat on face without installation and practice of new skills?
I dunno - maybe I should have gone to more than 5 Al Anon meetings?
I am so sorry for your pain. You did the literal best you can do. She couldn’t do it. My friend’s grandmother and my loved one never went to Alcoholics Anonymous - I think maybe there is a key there in those AA meetings where they say the quiet part out loud, and then they hang on for dear life.
When I was 25 I had another 25 year old male friend (married couple) who barely made it through Christmas without getting drunk by talking to his sponsor morning noon and night. It seems like those who go public and talk and get support from others who understand and - it’s like maybe the wounds are cleaned and dressed better in the sanitizing daylight of those Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. A person’s chances are better?
Prayers up for you and your friend, and those who love her.
And therein lies the root cause of almost all addictions.
Yes, I realize there is physical addiction involved, no doubt about that, but there is also the emotional factor. Pain from trauma that someone is trying to deal with.
SOMETIMES going back and dealing with the root cause of the pain is the biggest help. Then there isn't the need to numb the pain.
While going through my brother's stuff, we found medical reports about mental health issues we never knew he had. And I am convinced that the root of it was our dad.
Long story but the pain inflicted on a child by a parent who is too hard on them damages a person in many ways for a lifetime unless they can see it and decide to appropriately deal with it.
Alcoholics need to be detoxed.
Not stop cold
it is painful
30% of severe alcoholics who are not detoxed die without alcohol when cold turkey
That doesn’t happen in any other substance
No, we don't just "hang on". We recover, and then we go live our lives, usually lives beyond what we could have ever imagined.
AA offers a program of recovery, a design for living that works. Those who do the work, really work the steps, learn a new way of thinking and living. They become a whole new person. They become able to build a life that makes sense to them -- doesn't have to make sense to anyone else; just between them and God.
Some people do just "hang on", some for years -- that is because they refuse to do the work, refuse to change, refuse this program of action.
It only takes a few months to get through the process the first time. At some point in that process, most people realize that they have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body.
Then they show others how to recover as part of their program. And it keeps working, over and over.
If I live to Christmas, it will be 39 years sober for me. It has been a wild adventure for me, but never through those years has alcohol or drugs been a temptation for me.
Stay well, my friend.