The Most Dangerous Thing to Tell an Alcoholic
I feel that up to this point in my writing on alcoholism, addiction and my own personal struggles I have stayed more or less uncontroversial. I haven’t really written or said anything that would cause discomfort or other feelings of unease to those consuming the content. Today I might deviate from that safe and non-controversial road. I feel the primary reason for any potential discomfort or disagreement that the reader may experience will largely be due to the fact that this disease, this battle, with alcoholism is one that manifests behaviors and thought patterns that are just so difficult to understand for those who aren’t afflicted. It makes what I am about to get into seem potential irrational.
In my opinion, based on what I have both experienced myself and what I have understood in my last year of genuinely trying to learn from hundreds of alcoholics and their stories is this: there is one statement that a loved one of an alcoholic can make that is nearly guaranteed to send an alcoholic into a tailspin of despair. I get the difficulty of the situation, I had loved ones say it to me, but now after being in active recovery, after going through my own struggles and after figuring out the solution, only now am I starting to see why this is such a dangerous statement to make to a loved one who struggles with alcoholism. Here it is:
If you really loved me, you would stop drinking.
As a loved one of an alcoholic, I imagine you come to a point where you feel at your wits’ end. You are confused, at a loss and furious at the fact that your loved one continues to find themselves at lower and lower points. Their behavior brings destruction and chaos into your life, and you must hit a point where you realize that a decision has to be made where the alcoholic in your life must change their ways or you will have to walk away. Or maybe you don’t feel like you can walk away and this statement gets made as a final plea as the hope of a meaningful life together void of unnecessary suffering starts to fade in your mind.
Regardless of what brought you to the moment, how long the struggle has been, how deep your relationship goes with the alcoholic, this plea will almost inevitably bring more chaos and destruction into your life. There are small probabilities that this statement will manifest the change that you desire in your situation, and maybe you feel at such a loss and the end of the road that this is your only chance to scream these words out.
It is a difficult fact of alcoholism that often times we genuinely do not know why we do what we do. Our behavior and thought patterns are confounding, even to us. I described it as this incredible ability not to learn, and not to be able to take previous consequences seriously. Every time I went back to drinking, whether it was hours, days or weeks after my last drink, in my mind I always convinced myself, “this time it will be different”.
And it never was.
I would agonize over the fact that despite how much self-knowledge that I had about alcohol and its effect, how much desire I had to be someone deserving of the people in my life and knowing how detrimental my actions were towards my life on earth that I still could not change my thoughts and behaviors. It ate at me. So when people approached me with some version of the statement above, it just caused whatever poorly built structure that I had at the moment to entirely crumble. I know that your love, that you being in my life, should be motivation to me. But I just can’t explain it… it isn’t working. I could always convince myself that this next time will be different and so I go back to drinking. Every. Single. Time.
No one who has an alcoholic or addict in their life should feel faulted for wanting to scream this in their face as the alcoholic in their life tears the world down around them. I cannot imagine the pain. I subjected my loved ones to it. I only know it now from the perspective of watching my own friends continue to struggle and relapse after I have found myself on the path of active recovery. I feel that longing for someone you deeply care about to better their lives and to have it stick. I see their glimmers of joy and health in those moments of finding themselves in recovery, but then I also watch the despair and confusion come flooding back when a relapse hits. I want to provide motivation, a way to jump start their stick-to-it-ness to recovery. But that choice is not mine.
I cannot just leave this topic without recommendations and alternatives for how to approach the alcoholic in your life. While each scenario is incredibly unique, one underlying aspect of every alcoholic’s journey is this - the alcoholic must accept, on their own, the fact that they are an alcoholic and that their life has become unmanageable because of this fact. No other person can do this for them. As much as you beg and plead, you cannot force them into believing and accepting their alcoholism, they must get there themselves.
What you can do is provide a nudge. Say the word “alcoholism” and “alcoholic” in conversations. Use it, introduce it to their lives and vocabulary. It was a question that floated around in the back of my mind for years because one therapist one time said I presented signs of being an alcoholic. I fired her for it, but the word and the question stuck in the back of my mind until I finally accepted it as a fact.
Introduce them to other alcoholics and addicts who have figured out a solution. There are a small number of motivations that I have to write this newsletter and publish the podcast. One of the primary reasons is to provide an alcoholic a low stakes method of hearing someone else’s story, hearing their struggles and possibly finding themselves reflected back to themselves within my story. 30 minutes is all I needed with a fellow addict for the scales to fall from my eyes and for me to see so clearly that I was an alcoholic but that there was a way to live joyously with that fact. The power in finding a fellow alcoholic, and further a community of them, is immense.
In my story, when I heard that version of what I feel is the most dangerous thing to say to an alcoholic, I would get motivated for a while. I would be committed to “figuring out alcohol” by myself, which meant not drinking for an extended period of time. I would go months, starting to feel a little better physically, but always searching for the time and place to bring alcohol back into my life. After a few months dry, I would exclaim, “see I can go without it, I’m not an alcoholic!” I would feel that my relationship with alcohol was reset, and that no more benders or heavy indulgences would occur. Only mature and socially acceptable relationships with alcohol from this point forward for me!
But eventually I would find myself back in despair, discovering that my low point in life that had driven me to all of the months in sobriety actually got lower. And I would wonder why. I would grow furious that I couldn’t figure things out and I would deepen the hatred of myself. I had people in my life who loved me, who cared for me, and I couldn’t control this for them. What a pathetic person I was. How weak. How uncaring. How incapable.
An alcoholic can never use the motivation of anyone else to maintain a life in recovery and to keep alcohol from destroying their life. In my case, I needed connection with others who struggled, I needed to find love for myself and I needed to develop a personal relationship with God. My solution to alcohol started the moment I decided that I needed to learn how to love myself, which led me to realize that I wanted to find a solution to my alcoholism for me. I don’t pursue a life in active recovery for anyone else, not my wife, not my children not anyone else close to me. I do recovery for me, and me alone.
Being an addict, I’m selfish, so this approach works for me. But it’s also a radical shift in the foundational ‘why’ from the one the statement I started this post with provides to the alcoholic. I imagine the rage, anger and confusion that wells up inside you watching the life of a loved one deteriorate, and likely yours with it.
It is an impossible position to ask to take, but you need to find your loved one in a moment of utter despair and confusion. Those moments of vulnerability where they’re asking themselves, “why does this keep happening?” or “why has my life hit such a rock bottom?” Those moments present your opportunity to ask these questions:
Do you want to be rid of the unnecessary suffering in your life? Will you go to any lengths to get it?
If they answer yes to both questions, there’s an opportunity that they’re willing. Present them with the Alcoholic’s Anonymous book. Ask if they want to go to a meeting. Check to see if rehab is something to consider, or at the very least counseling for alcoholism. Or send them my story.
Alcoholism creates destruction and chaos that becomes nearly impossible to manage and descends like a tornado from hell onto undeserving bystanders and lives. Rage, anger and confusion are understandable. But know there’s a solution, and one that does not require you to wager your relationship in exchange for the alcoholic’s ability to realize the solution and find themselves on the road of living a life in active recovery.
That’s all I’ve got.
Kyle