The Casualties of Alcoholism
Al Ritter
To the uninitiated meeting an alcoholic for the first time,
you may be taken in by the outgoing fun nature, and you may even be in awe of
their capacity to consume liquor with no visible outside effects. As time goes
on and love enters into the picture the rationalizations begin. You figure if
you are buying the alcohol you can regulate how much they drink, when in fact
all you are doing is enabling the behavior. Because you are around them more,
you are seeing more drunken episodes, but you tell yourself “because of our
growing love, we can get through this.”
Through the ensuing years things don’t improve, you lovingly
ask the alcoholic to enter into rehab programs or AA, and they agree. The
program is over and they seem better, in fact they go back to the fully
functioning life they had before. But as time creeps on they go back to “just
one glass of wine before dinner.” They try to calm your fears telling you that
they have cut way back and not to be concerned. A month goes by and now the
alcoholic is up to 3 glasses of wine before and after dinner. Soon after, the
drunkenness returns and the alcoholic is right back to the state they were
before the rehab. Now abusive words are being spoken during the blackout
episodes that the alcoholic doesn’t remember the next day but the damage has
already been done. The loved ones are suffering but the alcoholic still
promises that they will cut back the drinking. You stop buying the alcohol and
tell them they can no longer drink around you. They rationalize their behavior
by telling you that everyone is human and they all make mistakes and even
question you by saying “are you perfect?”
The loved ones start to question themselves asking “am I
asking too much of this relationship?” “Am I really this unflawed myself?” The
relationship continues and within a few years you ask them to seek professional
help again and they agree this time on an inpatient program. They progress
fairly well and are released to an outpatient continuation program. The loved
ones cautiously go about life again with the alcoholic once again. But they
also notice that the word sobriety or sobriety date never creep into a
conversation. Because of the alcoholic’s past and their secretive nature you
become leery of broken promises. When things change and you view the person you
love return to drinking the cycle begins again.
Once again you ask they seek help and they agree this time,
but now you have the uneasy feeling they are only agreeing to appease you. Once
again, no talk about sobriety or sobriety date as so many recovered alcoholics
proudly know as well as their own birth date. The signs of alcoholism clearly
show in their face and their health but mirrors either don’t work for
alcoholics or the denial is so strong they can’t see it themselves.
They make up reasons that they don’t stop drinking…….”I can
stop whenever I want”……”I can cut back”…..”you have problems too, and when you
seek help for your problem I will stop drinking.” The excuses never stop and
the loved ones begin to actually believe the root cause of the drinking is
caused by their problems…..and they believe that for a while, but then they
remember the ability of the alcoholic to consume massive quantities of liquor
when they first met them, and that idea and the rationale falls apart.
Eventually everyone around an alcoholic becomes a casualty;
love alone is not enough of a reason for the alcoholic to quit. The alcoholic
is only looking for a reason TO drink, but never looking for a reason to quit. The
trust has been broken, when is enough enough?
