Alcoholism, has and is currently destroying more families in this country than anyone would ever want to believe!
And
just by reading the above sentence, we’re not talking about homeless
individuals living under bridges, we're talking about mainly “high
functioning alcoholics“, I actually hate that term, who are individuals
able to hold down a job, have a home even a family, and I will say that
an alcoholic having a family is one of the most unfortunate things in
the world.
Does that sound highly judgmental? It’s not. It’s simply a fact.
And
even though there are thousands of articles and studies from all walks
of life showing the damage that an alcoholic does to their partner and
or their children, we still have this ridiculous dysfunctional pattern
happening more and more over the last several years.
As
a Counselor in the addiction recovery world, over the past 43 years
I’ve never seen as many people contacting us for help with alcoholism
and the family as we have since the beginning of Covid.
It has risen dramatically.
And what are some of the damages, just a few of the deep damages that an alcoholic can do to a family? Let’s take a look:
Number One. Destroy
family finances. Now if you’re an alcoholic who has a family and you’re
making a ton of money, this may not affect you at all, this point may
not have anything to do with you.
But you will find other points that will be highly related to your situation.
And
for people, especially now with inflation, struggling financially, the
struggle that comes from putting the extra burden of purchasing alcohol
on a regular basis can destroy our families budget and even their
financial future.
Number Two. Children
are ignored. In a family where either one or both parents are
alcoholics, one of the most damaging affects that happens to children,
is they are missing out on the deep emotional bond that they need to
become healthy, happy adults.
Children
often develop incredibly low levels of self-confidence and self-esteem,
which limits the amount of happiness that they can find in their young
lives.
Number Three. Alcoholism
in a family can create codependent children and partners, who are
afraid to rock the boat, so they put up with the alcoholics antics for
years upon years upon years.
We
have seen this happen so many times and it’s one of the saddest things
in the world of counseling, to see children completely neglected
emotionally, it doesn’t matter how many gifts the parents or the
alcoholic parent buys, the emotional connection is what’s most important
and all alcoholics are missing their own emotional connection!
So
they’re in no position to emotionally connect with their partner or
their children either. And what about the negative affects that
alcoholism has on the marriage? Let’s take a look:
Number
One: One of the main reasons that couples seek counseling, from someone
like myself, is because of alcohol and other addictions! Alcoholism is
probably the number one reason that we’ve seen such a huge increase in
couples coming to our private practice, but there’s also addiction to
drugs and food and social media and everything else... But alcohol leads
the way.
Number
Two: For the partner, their alcoholic husband or wife or boyfriend or
girlfriend can start to create a deep level of shame and guilt in the
“non-alcoholic”, as they make up stories to cover for their partners
behavior, or their partners absence from work, or their partners absence
from their children’s games or birthday parties.
The
codependent partner can start to live a life of hell, also beginning to
suffer from low self- confidence and low self-esteem because of their
fear of rocking the boat.
Number
Three: Alcoholism can be one of the major causes of ongoing arguments
and a lack of trust in a marriage or relationship. Love is not the most
important thing in regards to a relationship, but trust is the most
important thing in regards to a healthy relationship!
Without
trusting, without being able to trust your partner, it doesn’t matter
how much love you have , all we’re doing is becoming codependent with
the addicted partner.
One
of the saddest things that I’ve seen, and I stated above, is what
happens to children of alcoholics. We see them quite frequently
developing early stages of anxiety even at the age of four or five or
six, many times they will go into a depressed state, they may isolate
themselves from family members and friends.
As
they grow up, because they’ve seen such dysfunction in the family,
their relationships can be filled with struggle as well, because that’s
all they’ve seen as a child growing up in an alcoholic family.
And
of course, there is an increased chance that growing up with a parent
Who is an alcoholic, can also open the door for a young child to start
experimenting earlier and to become an alcoholic themselves as well.
Here
are two different stories of families I’ve worked with recently in the
world of alcoholism that I think paints a picture very clearly.
Family Number One.
The wife contacted me first
telling me that her and her husband had married for about 30 years, and
they had battled for 20 years over his deep addiction to alcohol.
As we spoke on the phone during our session my first question was, “how are your children doing?.“
She was shocked, and asked me why I asked that question so early in our first session.
And
I told her the fact was that most time young children , I think her
children were like the ages of maybe six and 12, will start showing
signs, unhealthy signs in their emotional reaction to mom and dad or
their friends etc.
And
that’s when she landed the bomb on me: the oldest child would get up at
4 AM every day and pace the hallways until it was time to go to school
after hearing dad up all night drinking, his anxiety was so high he
couldn’t handle it and mom would find him early in the morning simply
pacing back and forth and back and forth.
The younger child, became belligerent, and pushed back on everything mom or dad would ask him to do.
He
was modeling his fathers behavior! Every time the wife would ask her
husband to do something simple like go to the store for milk he would
blow up, and turned it into a huge argument!
The youngest child, was already becoming the worst side of this child’s father.
When
she ended up coming into counseling, she admitted 100% that she had
been codependent for 20 years, but she was so petrified to leave the
relationship even though it was the most toxic thing in the world she
had ever been involved with, and even though she saw the damage to her
children.
She
was a great client, she did all of the work that I gave her, but she
couldn’t come to that final decision that it would be better for her and
her children to be on their own then to be stuck in this insanely drama
filled alcoholic household.
I pray today, that she will make that decision for her own sanity and her children.
Family Number Two.
This has a little bit of a different twist. After 20 years of admitting
that he was a serious alcoholic, I got a call one day from a gentleman
who said his wife wanted me to work with him because she felt that his
alcoholism had gotten out of control.
The
first session we had he was in denial, the second session we had he was
in denial, the third session we had he woke up and instantly began to
realize the millions of mistakes he had made with alcohol over the past
20+ years.
The
difference here is huge. His wife told him that he needed help and that
she would even attend sessions with him so he didn’t feel alone, and it
worked!
After
a year of working together he was completely sober, and his 16-year-old
daughter wrote me the most beautiful letter telling me “I finally have a
father I’ve always wanted!“
This
family had a happy ending. An incredibly happy ending. They have gone
on now to create the most incredible bond between all the children and
mom and dad, that was vacant for years.
Never give up.
Posts
