ALCOHOL ADDICTION; how to learn and understand what is going on.

The Roller Coaster of Addiction

Holidays are one of the hardest, most heart heavy times of the year for those who have lost a loved one at this time, who remember a loved one who is gone who shared the holidays the year before…and for those who are suffering the anguish of an addicted spouse, child, or friend.

Since everything spells EXCESS during the holidays, so goes the drinking, eating, and spending money…We all are guilty at times of each of these excesses.

So what happens when one is suffering the rollercoaster ride of ups and downs due to addiction in the family? How does the wife or parent of a user deal with the personal agony of loneliness, anger, guilt, shame, confusion, fear,  rage, sorrow, disappointment, and the entire range of emotions

           

A friend of mine who was a counselor on the college level, often asked this question when the family would come for counseling…The counsel session was often for a multitude of problems, relationships, issues, etc. But this counselor would ask the family (and I am certain it shocked them) “WHO is the addict in your family?”

 Can you imagine? What kind of question is THAT?

But you see. Addiction is a common problem. No one is totally exempt. So forget that shame or embarrassment you might feel. You can openly deal with this problem. Get your head out of the shell. Go ahead. No one will judge you for being totally transparent and speaking truthfully and honestly about this problem that your son, daughter, spouse, grandma, father, or sister…might be experiencing.

Let’s address you. Do you feel helpless?

First let’s talk about open honesty. If he/she walks like a duck; quacks like a duck…he/she is probably a duck. Face the situation. Truth is freeing. It is liberating!

Thank God then for His mercy and begin to pray for that person. But pray right! Read the tips in this column about addiction. Pray for the user to come to the end of himself. Pray for God to spare his/her life. Pray for God to put others as well in his/her path to address the situation . Stop covering for him. Stop enabling. Take the test. It will open your eyes.

Take care of yourself.

Pray. God hears you. Eventually, you will feel the peace to get your hands off the situation and be able to let that loved one go. Connect with a counselor to ask how to stage an intervention. In fact, go to a meeting. Find someone to hear you. Ask what he/she thinks and pour out your observations to someone who knows/has been there/ is a counselor/ an AA meeting. Do something!

An intervention can be many things, but it is basically a gathering of friends and family of the user staged to confront the user with love and honesty.  His/her best chance is for you to offer Treatment (it will register in the recesses of the sloshed up brain, and will come back to him/her later), and tell him/her that the “Freebies and Perks” are over.

That is the hardest part, and the parents especially have a very hard time with this…even if they KNOW that they are doing harm. But letting go is necessary. The user has to WANT desperately to get help.

The trouble is…when there is addiction in a family, everyone is sick. Each member has a role in the problem. And there has to come a time when you decide that every loved one does not and should not pay the price of having holidays, get togethers, weddings, anniversaries, etc. sabotaged by one person.

Stop suffering his consequences! ( We tend to carry and haul around the consequences of the user’s experiences) Stop protecting the user from the consequences of his/her own actions. (financial bailing, being a big fault)

Finally, I want to recommend a book. Amazon carries it. It is called “Sober Mercies” How Love Caught up with a Christian Drunk..by Heather Kopp. It will fill in a lot of your questions.