Alcoholism: Touching a Million Lives
Heather lay silently on her bed, phone pushed up against her ear, as fresh tears slid down her face, creating a puddle of heartbreak and confusion. “Travis got caught drinking again, he’s going back to jail,” she heard her mom say on the other side of the phone.
Heather thought her brother had been doing so much better, especially after becoming a soon-to-be-father to twin girls with his wife, Melanie. “He seemed so determined to stay on track for his little girls,” Heather said.
The sad truth, though, is that between 30 and 70 percent of alcoholics will relapse within the first year of recovery, according to Stephen Gilman, MD, an addiction specialist in New York City. According to the Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, alcoholism is a chronic disease in which a person’s body becomes dependent on alcohol. Alcoholics no longer have control over their drinking and continue to drink even though they know it is causing problems with their relationships, health, work, or finances.
Heather’s family has always accepted alcohol in their household and would consider themselves social drinkers. Her mom and dad would have a glass of wine or another alcoholic drink at dinner, and they also allowed Heather and her brothers to start drinking in front of them when they became seniors in high school. That is why it was a little difficult for them to notice when Travis started showing symptoms of alcoholism.
According to the Mayo Foundation, symptoms of alcoholism may include drinking alone or in secret, being unable to limit the amount of alcohol one drinks, blacking out, losing interest in activities or hobbies that one used to enjoy, feeling the need to drink, hiding alcohol in secret places, having legal problems, building a high tolerance for alcohol, experiencing physical withdrawal symptoms such as nausea, sweating and shaking if one does not drink, and denying that one has difficulty controlling drinking.
My mom has battled with alcoholism since I was in kindergarten (probably even before) but to this day, she denies that she has a problem. My dad first recognized that my mom might be an alcoholic when he started coming home from work everyday and she was already almost drunk. “Her demeanor, actions, and smell of her breath were always a dead give-away, but she would never admit” that she had been drinking, my dad explained. She started missing work a lot and would lie in bed all day, even when my little sister, Calyn, and I would get home from school.
Up until I was seven years old, my family always made a yearly trip to Omaha, Nebraska to visit my mom’s parents. My grandparent’s house had a basement (something that Calyn and I were not used to because of living in Texas), and was decorated with antiques. The house gave off an eerie presence that made us kids want to explore. Hide-and-go-seek was Calyn’s, my cousins Taylor and Morgan, and my favorite game to play. One day while we were playing, I ran upstairs frantically while Taylor was counting and dashed into the bedroom my mom was staying in and slid underneath the bed to hide. While I was anxiously waiting, hoping Taylor wouldn’t find me, I found a brown paper sack stashed under the bed that had a bottle of vodka inside it. Later I asked my mom why it was under the bed but she got aggravated and denied that it was hers. I saw many more brown paper sacks placed in random places and in the trashcan growing up, but never questioned my mom about them again.
There are different stages of alcoholism. Early-Stage Alcoholism is when the person begins to rely on alcohol to enhance their mood and escape their problems. In this stage, it may not be obvious that the person has a problem. Middle-Stage Alcoholism is the increasing need and desire for alcohol. People begin to drink heavily and more often, and relationships with close friends, families, and co-workers begin to dissolve. End-Stage Alcoholism is when drinking is more important than anything else. Hangovers, blackouts and health problems become a huge problem.
“We just thought he was partying a lot, not that he had a serious problem,” Heather said. It was not until the second time Travis went to jail for a DWI that Heather and her family finally realized his ‘bad luck’ was not just bad luck and that Travis’ social drinking had started taking a turn for the worse, she explained. “Now, looking back I can see that he had a problem all along but I was completely blind to it when it was all happening,” Heather said. In most families with an alcoholic, this is very common, especially when the alcoholic is in Early-Stage Alcoholism.
Erin knows the effects of alcoholism on a family all too well. She is a twenty-one year old who supports herself by working at Planet Tan full-time.
“My only memories of my dad are of him drinking or being in jail,” she said, adding that he has spent a total of 14 years in and out of prison during her lifetime.
“Every time he gets out, I think to myself this time he will finally be better, but then he goes to a bar or picks up a six-pack on his way home and the self-destruction starts all over—until he’s in jail again,” Erin’s big blue eyes went distant and her pale skin turned a soft pink as she held back tears.
Al-Anon, a version of Alcoholics Anonymous, provides support and understanding for families and friends of alcoholics. Al-Anon uses family group meetings to allow families and friends to share their personal experiences and learn that they are not alone in the problems they face. Al-Anon also suggests that even if the alcoholic continues to drink or not, families and friends can make their own choices regarding how their lives are affected. Al-Anon states that boundaries are extremely important when it comes to sharing any part of your life with an alcoholic. Although boundaries can be difficult to set, Al-Anon advises people to not put up with the emotional rollercoaster that an alcoholic will try to craft, including lying.
Erin recalled reading letters from her dad when she was in junior high. “All of them were full of details about this ranch he was staying at and how much fun he was having fishing, going on boat rides, cooking dinner over a homemade fire pit and roasting s’mores,” she said. But then one day before her mom had a chance to sift through the mail, Erin saw an envelope from him marked ‘Tarrant County Jail.’ He had made the whole fairytale vacation up. “That was the last time I let him lie to me,” Erin said with a strong sense of false confidence that made it seem like she was not only trying to fool me, but herself too.
My parents divorced when I was in second grade and my mom moved into apartments down the road from my dad’s house. My dad got full custody of Calyn and me, but we still tried to see my mom as often as we could, which ended up turning into hardly ever.
I remember being propped up on the couch, curtains pushed back, staring out the window waiting for her gold Lexus to turn into the circle drive for our lunch or movie date that she had promised. She never came. As my nine-year-old heart began to slowly break, I would hold my breath each time a car would pass, and sigh each time it was not her. We would go a few days without hearing from her but then she would call again. I had the flu, work has been really busy, I went on a surprise vacation. She always had an excuse, a more detailed lie than the last, and I always believed her.
An alcoholic affects the lives of at least four other people according to The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. More than one-half of adults in the U.S. have a close family member who has abused alcohol or is addicted to the drug.
Children in an alcoholic family are known to suffer from low self-esteem, loneliness and fear of abandonment, depression and anxiety. Blame is also a huge effect of an alcoholic on a family; no one wants to blame the drinker, so guilt, shame, and embarrassment are thrust upon the family members for allowing it to happen, not being able to “fix” the problem, or having no control over the outcome.
Before my parents divorced, I remember coming home from school, doing my homework, eating a granola bar or apple with peanut butter and playing outside in my own imaginary world. My mom, still in pajamas, was almost always passed out in her room with bottles of booze sticking out from under the bed. I never had to ask if I was allowed to go play somewhere because I knew that if mom was ‘sleeping,’ she could not be woken up.
I grew up with the assumption that alcohol was more important to her than being my mother, than me. I desperately wanted a relationship with her and wanted to be the reason that finally made her quit drinking and become the mother I always needed.
Karen Carnabucci, a psychotherapist at Lake House Health & Learning Center in Wisconsin says that one of the most common questions she hears is “How do I make someone stop drinking?” Her biggest advice is to support, not try to ‘fix’ the alcoholic.
The line between supporting and enabling an alcoholic is thin and dangerous. Claude Steiner, a clinical psychologist, transactional analyst and author, says that if one is doing more than 50 percent of the work or investing more than half the effort while “supporting” the alcoholic, one is actually enabling. He also says that alcoholics are experts at making their loved ones believe they need to be “rescued,” but explains that unless the alcoholic is willing to commit to getting help and admitting they have a problem, there is nothing family or friends can do.
Dr. Charles Holland of 7Institute Counseling says that the effects of alcoholism on families and friends are unique and complex and that each person handles the situation differently. “Some people become angry, others sad,” he said, but Al-Anon continuously tries to persuade families to face the hurt, let go of the resentment, and stick together as a family.
There are many resources to help families’ function in a positive way: group therapy sessions, peer support groups and family activities, with or without the problem drinker. The most difficult challenge a family can accomplish is not allowing the problem drinker to drag the family down. Cutting off ties with the alcoholic or continuing to support them is at the discretion of the affected people.
Travis was in jail for seven long months. After he was released, he was welcomed with divorce papers from Melanie and all of his parental rights had been stripped.
“She resents my brother for his drinking problems and turned her back on him at the worst time,” Heather said of her ex-sister-in-law.
The rest of Travis’ family has provided a good support system for Travis. “We attend family therapy with him once a month and he goes to AA meetings every day. We are proud of him,” Heather said, but started crying when thinking about the hardships her brother has faced because of the poor actions he has taken due to alcoholism.
