Rotten Apples
I was raised in an alcoholic household. My dad drank and my mother was on antidepressants. I am currently seeking a divorce from my husband of 20 years. Why? Because he is an alcoholic. I decided to leave him in an effort to save my children first and then myself. I understand that I cannot save him.
Two years ago I began an affair with a married man. I should mention he is also an alcoholic. Our affair ended last February when he decided he needed to clean up his life and get his drinking under control for his children. However, he still drinks as much now as he did then.
I am just beginning to come to terms with being an adult child of an alcoholic, so I understand this is a pattern from my upbringing. Please tell me how to make it stop? I would like to eventually remarry, if I can find a man who isn’t an alcoholic, but I’m not sure I can.
Shannon
Shannon, in 1971 psychologist Phil Zimbardo conducted a famous experiment. He recruited a group of college students, who wanted to make a few extra dollars in the summertime, to become inmates and guards in a mock prison. Zimbardo screened his volunteers to make sure they were normal and stable, then randomly assigned them as either an inmate or a guard.
Though the experiment began realistically—would-be inmates were arrested by actual police officers—prisoners and guards alike took it as a lark on the first day. By the sixth day, however, the experiment was terminated because the guards were turning sadistic and the prisoners were beginning to break down emotionally.
Zimbardo hoped to inquire into the psychology of prison life, but the experiment led him to consider a deeper question. Do people misbehave because they are bad people, or because they are good people caught in a situation which brings out bad behavior. In other words, is it a matter of bad apples or bad barrels?
No one is surprised when the child of a lawyer becomes a lawyer, or the child of an actor becomes an actor, or the child of a fisherman becomes a fisherman. Nor should anyone be surprised by the pattern of your life. You were raised in a bad barrel. For you it was the norm. Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas, predicts the old saying.
The term “adult child of an alcoholic” is a sanitary term which obscures reality and obscures principles. Kids growing up with an alcoholic learn helplessness and hopelessness. Usually the only thing they can do about their situation is feel blue.
Where do you park your mind while living in the midst of door slamming, angry arguments, or rambling conversations which make no sense? Growing up with an alcoholic is like having an endless conversation with the Mad Hatter. In time your mind will go somewhere unhealthy.
There are three things we can do when we find ourselves in a bad barrel. First, get out of the barrel, and get out of the orbit of the people in the barrel. Until you are out of the barrel, you cannot see what to do next. Two years ago, for example, you began an affair with a married alcoholic. That’s the perfect example of a choice which had no capacity to improve your life.
Second, once out of the barrel, realize we need others. You will want positive interactions, but those take time to develop. Since they won’t develop immediately, you’ll be tempted to climb back into the barrel. Negative attention feels better than no attention at all. It takes courage and faith to resist that impulse.
Finally, seek the right barrel for your children and yourself. For you there’s a simple test. Is this new situation, are these new people, anything like the mold I was poured into as a child?
Wayne & Tamara
(From the column for the week of May 21, 2007)
Self-determination
I am 25, and my father was an alcoholic all my life until two years ago. My older brother is an alcoholic in denial. He's a sweet guy but, even when sober, can be snappy. I'm worried because I don't want to go through what my mum has gone through. Her brother is an alcoholic, and she is responsible for him even now.
My younger brother seems okay, but I'm scared something will happen to him as well. I love my family and have taken a lot of their baggage and put it upon myself. I remember my mother saying to me when I was 13, "Stop thinking like a 43-year-old." (Her age at the time.)
To heighten the unpredictability of living with an alcoholic father, my dad is a diplomat, and our family hasn't lived under the same roof for 14 years. We all have been affected by him, in the broadest sense, as his diplomacy gave us opportunities otherwise unavailable. However, that was paired with hurt and disappointment.
I was bulimic from 17 to 22. I had counseling and now understand why I was the way I was. I would like to go to counseling with my brother. A colleague of mine said I need to let go and start my own life, but he's my brother.
My boyfriend is also the child of an alcoholic, but that comforts me as I think "I'll look after you." I want so desperately to feel settled. My mum is superwoman. Only God knows what she's had to put up with. We are where we are today because of her perseverance.
Emma
Emma, in C.S. Lewis' book That Hideous Strength a character must choose sides. One side promises him power, but they have framed him for a murder. That group feeds his negative wants. The other group contains people he wishes he was like, but they don't make him promises for the future or feed his negative energy.
The man begs for time to decide. He wants something from both groups. He seeks a middle ground. During his hour of indecision he is arrested for murder and thrown in a tiny cell. Alone, he realizes what he's allowed the negative things in life to do to him.
You also seek a middle ground. You admit to the devastating impact of alcohol on your life, yet you cling to the ideal of the perfect family, one untouched by alcohol. That is not your reality. You credit your mother with strength, yet at 13 you acted like 43. Why? Because you were trying to parent the people around you. The adults did not possess the strength you needed.
Your will is to make the people around you different because you want them different, but you don't have that right. You don't have the power to change who your father is, who your brothers are, or who anyone is but yourself. You proved that. You worked on your bulimia, understood its roots, and overcame it.
Even though things are not working the way you want them to work, there is an underlying rightness in this situation. We each have free will. Even though your intentions are good, you cannot run over someone else's will.
We are born as individuals on this planet for a reason. Our first duty is to ourselves. Our first job is to keep ourselves alive and whole. If we don't, we are of no use to anyone else. To have a purpose which cannot succeed, because it is not in our power to make it succeed, is to waste what we have.
Do what is right for you--what you can succeed in doing so your energies are not wasted. Take your colleague's advice. Let go of their lives, and begin your own. That's the only life you get to rule, the only life you get to run, and the only life you can actually ruin.
Wayne & Tamara
(From the column for the week of January 10, 2005)
Inoculation
My mother is an alcoholic. I was the daughter who pampered her through it all and took the abuse. She is a very mean drunk. Last year I experienced a breakdown as I was still allowing her to control my life. This wasn't good for me or my family.
I am married with two children under the age of four. I am thankful for the breakdown as I sought help in dealing with my alcoholic mother. I tried many years to help her and begged her to get help, to no avail, while enduring hours and hours of drunken abuse.
Recently, after realizing I had to control my life, we tried a family intervention and it didn't work. We may try again with a professional interventionist, but for now I have placed boundaries. I told my mother we--my husband, children, and I--couldn't see her until she gets help.
My question is this. My 3-year-old daughter asks almost daily about going to see grandma. She saw her frequently before we issued the ultimatum. She loves my mother, and my mom treats the children well while maintaining a "happy drunk" when they are around. At least, most of the time.
So what do we tell our daughter? She is a smart little girl, very verbal and very thoughtful. Is it okay to explain grandma is an alcoholic? It breaks my heart every time she asks, "Can grandma come to dinner with us?" I don't want to tell her grandma is sick, as she has dealt with family members and surgery and knows we visit and support people when they are ill.
Megan
Megan, congratulations. Isolating yourself and your family from the craziness and abuse of your alcoholic mother is something which took a great deal of courage, and it is something which will pay dividends in the future.
Alcoholic parents inflict a huge injustice on their children. They reverse roles. These parents act like children, and their children are forced to parent their parent. No child should have to endure that. The result is children of alcoholics go through each day with a sense of dread, never sure when chaos will erupt. They double-think themselves even as adults.
The hard fact about chemical dependency is that it ruptures families. Blood may be thicker than water, but it isn't thicker than booze. Or drugs. That's just the way it is. We may not like it, but that's the way it is. Keeping a chemically dependent person in our life may be the ruin of our life.
In our experience interventions usually fail. If you are thinking about a professional intervention and it involves a large financial outlay, don't think about your mother. Think about your family. Unless money is of no concern, the money is better spent on your own family and things under your control.
You suffered for years under an abusive drunk. Enough is enough. You must protect yourself and your children. Aside from the obvious, there is another simple reason to keep your mother away from the children. We go to the familiar. The fisherman's son becomes a fisherman. If your children grow up around an inebriate, it will be familiar. They may accept a potential mate with the same problem.
You have a deep relationship with your daughter. You have a natural conversational style with her. She's a smart little girl. Explain to her what the problem is. Explain what life as a little girl was like for you. Distinguish between the kinds of illness your daughter is used to and the problem your mother has.
Let your daughter know this is not only hard for her, but hard for you as well. However, even though this is hard, it is something which must be done. It's like getting a vaccination for polio. It's going to hurt, but it absolutely must be done.
Wayne & Tamara
(From the column for the week of August 7, 2006)
Alcohol’s Child
I am 40 and the daughter of an alcoholic. My parents have been married 43 years and have stayed together for lack of money and because of their health. They are really great people, but it is the typical story.
The short version is when things were going fine for me, Dad would lose his temper and be drunk. Mom, my sister, and I would end up in a neighbor’s apartment. When things were going horrible, Dad would be nice. Just when I was used to walking on eggshells, he would be nice.
So while I was young I dated plenty of men, just to have company, and did not sleep with them. I got into a pattern of being alone and not letting a man close to me. At least one man from church wanted to date me, but I couldn’t do it. I have trouble making time for men.
I help out my elderly parents on a regular basis in addition to working. How do I break this pattern? It seems like I am going to have to rethink this.
Edith
Edith, in his autobiography My Life, Bill Clinton talks about the enjoyable train trip he took with his alcoholic stepfather to see a baseball game in St. Louis. It was the only trip they took together. Clinton also mentions the only time he and his stepfather went fishing together, and the only time they went into the woods to cut down a Christmas tree.
The former president concludes, “There were so many things that meant a lot to me but were never to occur again.” That’s what living with a drunk is like. You hold on to the few good memories to blot out the present and give yourself hope for the future. That hoped-for future never materializes, but it enables you to ignore the bad and cling to the 10 percent which is good.
It seems odd that our minds work this way. You might think that rewards randomly given at rare intervals would lead to hopelessness, but the opposite is true. Intermittent rewards rarely given bind us tighter than regular rewards regularly given. That’s why you think your parents are “great people.”
You say you need to rethink things, and that is the first idea you need to rethink. Living in a bottle was more important to your father than his living children. Unexpected niceness in the midst of terror creates the hardest pattern to break.
If you want to know what happened to your chances for a successful marriage and happy children, look no farther than your drunken father and enabling mother. The one thing they had to do to deserve your care in their old age, they did not do. Coming to terms with that reality is the first step in understanding your pattern with men.
Wayne & Tamara
(From the column for the week of October 9, 2006)
For Son's Sake
I have been with my husband 20 years, and he is an alcoholic. His father and brother are alcoholics as well. My husband witnessed violence in his home growing up, and still to this day it goes on. I recently made him leave my house because he is abusive while drinking and doesn't remember it.
This is affecting my 16-year-old son as well. He is the sweetest kid, and I know this hurts him a lot. I do not want to leave my husband because he is the best person when he isn't drinking. I want him to get help, but I do not know how to get it. As long as his mother is enabling him, I know he won't get help.
I want him to get help so we could be a family. My son asked me if we were the only family going through this. I've tried to tell him we aren't. I know it will be hard on him if his father leaves because we will also lose a big family.
Elsa
Elsa, army ants marching in a column sometimes become confused. The lead ants stumble across the tail of the column and start to follow the stragglers. All the ants then march in a circle, going nowhere, until they die from exhaustion. That is what living in a multigenerational alcoholic family is like.
You are concerned for your son, and you should be. Children of alcoholics endure thousands of days during which they have no control over the turmoil around them. To survive they bury their feelings. They become people pleasers who cannot trust themselves. Not surprisingly, they fail to learn workable solutions to problems. How could they? The central problem of their life is a problem over which they have no control.
The first step in recovery for an alcoholic is to admit the problem. The second step is to admit they haven't done the first step. The third step is to actually do something. What is true of the drunk is true of the enabler of the drunk. If you have been with your husband 20 years, you are his enabler.
What is an enabler? An enabler is a person who has the power to change a situation but refuses to do it. When you made your husband leave the house, you took the first step toward not being his enabler. You cannot control his alcoholism, but you can stop enabling it.
It sounds noble to say you don't want to lose a big family, but the family you're talking about is one where screams and punches and children cowering in closets are commonplace. That is a pattern which must be broken.
Unlike the army ants, if you break this pattern of circular behavior, the only one who is likely to follow you is your son. Breaking the pattern will be hard, but it will be the making of you as a person.
Wayne & Tamara
(From the column for the week of January 23, 2006)
Have Heart
I am the mother of a 6-year-old child. My husband is an alcoholic and refuses to realize it because he can skip a few days, once in awhile, before drinking again. A few years ago he went to a counselor with me and was told those few days in between are considered a "dry drunk." I totally agree as his verbal abuse is worst when he's dry occasionally.
I have a little bit of college, but no vehicle or means of getting out on my own. Everyone refuses to help. They tell me to stay with him and raise my son. I feel I am the only parent as my husband spends most of the time drinking, cursing, or sleeping. Why am I the only person who feels this is no life for a child?
My son and I have nowhere to turn. My dad passed away when I was a child. My mother takes as much as she can from us and only looks out for herself. What can I do?
Sondra
Sondra, a few years ago a friend of ours went on vacation, and we agreed to feed his dog, a Great Pyrenees, while he was gone. Wayne was carrying a 50 pound sack of dry dog food through our friend's kitchen, when the bag split. The height and momentum of the moving bag caused dry food to ricochet everywhere.
Dog food covered the entire kitchen floor. Some of it landed in our friend's sun porch, home office, living room, and breakfast nook. It was a mess to clean up, but the hardest part may have been deciding where to start and having the heart to begin.
You are right. This is no life for a child. Your son is growing up in a world totally beyond his control. He can't stop his father's drinking, he can't stop his father's abuse, and his father is not showing him how to be an adult male.
A home like yours is a factory for producing children who will struggle as adults, seeking to please others in preference to seeking workable solutions to problems. In addition, children of alcoholics usually feel isolated and question themselves, while pretending to outsiders that everything is normal.
Your mother won't help. She wants to keep you in this situation for her own benefit. Your friends won't help. The simple aid of close friends and family is unavailable to you, so your first step will have to be a bigger one.
Contact everyone you think could help you. That includes government services, career counselors, women's centers, churches, and an attorney. Look into every possible type of assistance. Your goal is to get yourself and your son out of the control of an abusive drunk. Keep your eye on the goal. If you go to an organization or individual, and their goal is not the same as yours, move on to the next possibility.
You don't have the ability to make your husband stop drinking, and we are not going to tell you to handcuff yourself to this situation. Some people may tell you that you can help your husband not to drink, but they won't say, as is often the case, you may never change his behavior. He may be five years from sobriety or 35 years from sobriety. He may spend his entire life inside a bottle.
You cannot cure someone of something they deny they have. But you have been cured. You no longer want to be the wife of an alcoholic or have your son raised by one. Don't let anyone uncure you of that.
If you and your son leave, then you control your fate, not a bottle of liquor. Often in life we are handed 50 pounds of dog food to clean up. The hardest part is deciding where to start and having the heart to begin.
Wayne & Tamara
(From the column for the week of May 24, 2004)
