The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
to exchange
information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
level.
On different days there are different tasks at work for me.(I work as a secretary at an out-patient treatment center)..funny how when just when I need it, a counselor will bring me something they need re-typed or prepared for group sessions....two months I received this. Hope it will help some of you see what I seen, I understand just a little more about my A and what role I had been playing for so very long.
(right now I am working on a whole unit of self-esteem! LOL I need this right now!)
Hugs Mary
DENIAL AND THE SIGNIFICANT OTHER
Gerrie Keane, CAC
NOTE: Even though this is written as if the alcoholic is male, the pronouns HE/SHE are interchangeable.
Often the first indication of a drinking problem is signaled by an episode on inappropriate drinking in a social setting. The occasion causes embarrassment but after being reassured, the partner believes it was an isolated incident and her concern lessens.
As the occasions of inappropriate drinking become more frequent the idea that a “problem” may exist is entertained but the spouse’s natural survival instincts cause her to try to adjust to the unadjustable. Society tells her she should be a good partner, yet as she attempts to bring her nurturing response into play, to fix the problem, eventual failure is certain.
The partner will spend an inordinate amount of time looking for reasons, past and present for the other’s drinking. She will become preoccupied with events, circumstances, people, places and things in her partner’s life. Her denial makes her believe it is forces in the outside world that are somehow causing it all and she will sadly often assign herself first place among these causes.
She becomes the peacemaker, an egg walker. She believes that if she does the right thing it will all work out. As her attempts to stop her loved one’s drinking are ineffective she begins to see herself as a failure. This feeling of inadequacy causes her to further withdraw from social contact.
Soon her partner is the only contact she has left and she is increasingly influenced by his drinking. Isolation increases her dependence and she becomes even more eager to grant his requests and respond to his threats. “Then maybe he’ll stop.” She willingly, even desperately, makes calls, apologies, and reparations, hoping everyone, especially the boss, will forgive, not notice, or offer another chance.
A spouse will even hide her partner’s own behavior from him if she can. She reasons that the consequences of his drinking may be upsetting to him and he would then have further justifications to drink. As he drowns his pains in alcohol, she surrounds him with a blanket of comfortable unreality. Her denial makes his drinking increasingly easy for him. While for her, the denial allows her to continue to adapt to the insane behavior of her alcoholic partner.
Thank you so much for taking the time and writing this post you came upon at work. It not only helped you, as you wrote to "understand more" It did help me immensly to read this, as I am sure many others here too.
