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.
Every so often there will be something that makes me stop and think. About 6 years ago a man joined a web site for young widows. He was grieving the death of his wife. He had been a high-powered executive and he was fired just after his wife died. He could not find another job. He sold his house. He bought a bike. And he spent the next several years riding aimlessly around the country. I do not know what he had been like before her death. I know that after her death and the loss of his job he lost his sense of self, he lost his sense of self-worth, he lost his purpose, and he turned to a whiskey bottle for solace.
Yesterday he ended his suffering.
I look at my a who was once successful. For years he has had no job. He has been divorced once already. He refuses to work. He has no self-esteem. He had turned to a bottle of gin for solace. He has lost everything.
And so, I wonder. I wonder whether alcoholism is a self-esteem issue. I wonder if it is the alcohol which induces depression or whether the a is self-medicating the depression. I wonder which comes first and I wonder if the a ever realizes all the alcohol robs them of.
And I wonder in how many ways will alcohol kill a man.
I have often wondered myself whether the depression or drinking comes first. In fact I have been thinking about it a lot lately. My A daughter is so depressed and then she drinks or does she drink and then get depressed, but then she can't get out of the funk. She says she just wants to die. Because alcohol is a depressant, it certainly contributes to the depression. And if a person is depressed I am sure it makes it worse.
Before I found this program...thank God I did ... I thought and studied up on the subject quite a bit.
My opionion from what I've read is that a person may be clinically depressed and choose to self medicate. The alcoholism in that case is more a side-effect of the adictive traits they already possess and a trigger. I guess the jist of what I saw is there are people who can't control their desire for a drug. The only way to know who those people are is if they drink/drug to access ... then can't stop.
Makes all the research very muddy. Yes most A's are depressed, they feel multiple levels of guilt and a lack of self-esteem from not being able to control it. But they also have an uncanny ability to blame their condition on anything handy... depression, sure. Loss of a job, yeah maybe that's it. See what I mean.
Heck after 300 onces of Budwiser in a few hours I would be depressed too, not sure I would ever make it out of the bathroom. LOL
It's a catch-22 IMHO... The only thing for sure is the long term effects on the family. This is a progressive disease that doesn't get better unless it stops. Period.
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"Good judgement comes from experience... experience comes from bad judgement" - unknown
I do not know the answer to this. It's the proverbial 'Which came first the chicken or the egg?' My A was not generally a depressive type. He was always quite happy-go-lucky but in my opinion had low self-esteem but only in certain areas. In others he was very secure. For 10years he drank rarely, high-days and holidays and didn't seem to have any problems with it. We went through some difficult stuff (life has a habit of happening) and he turned to the bottle. I didn't, maybe this shows a pre-disposition, I don't know. He gradually lost all control over his drinking. In this instance, I think it was a combination of lacking adequate coping skills as well as the depression. I know many who turned to the bottle in times of crisis and when the crisis was over just stopped drinking. This is the difference in my humble opinion, when my A decided to stop he found he couldn't. He had triggered the obsession and the compulsion. I have heard many AA's share a lack of self-esteem. Sometimes the drink gave them confidence, sometimes it numbed their pain. The one common denominator was they all said they drank to change their feelings. I know many alcoholics who don't necessarily understand the 'mechanics' of the disease themselves they just know what it did to them. Ultimately, this disease is cunning, baffling and powerful by nature so I no longer try to work it out. I had to acknowledge its effects on me and do what I could about that. Hope this helps.
Aloha Ditto...I use to be in the wondering stage of recovery also and went to college to learn about it and honestly find a way around it. What I found out was that all that was told to me in the program was right and so I slowly started to believe and accept that alcoholism is a disease period. Alcohol is a depressant and it's base chemical structure is ether (anesthesia). These more and it's not important and I dropped it because I came to understand that I could not fix the alcoholic at all with or without my college education and desire. If you have ever been compulsed to doing something in spite of really not wanting to do it that will be some understanding.
Psycologist say that a person drinks because they have problems. Those in the treatment fields know that Alcoholics have problems because they drink the way they do and when they stop drinking that way they usually don't have any more problems than anyone else. I am a long, long time member of the Al-Anon Family Groups and a past alcohol and substance abuse counselor and a recovering alcoholic. I have suffered with a life long, life threatening depression that was very deep before coming into these rooms. I was depressed because I could not get my needs met and could not get them met because I was looking outside of myself for verification and praise and support. You will not get that in an alcoholic family to the degree that it is real. My family is not to blame. They did the best they could with what they had and because of the program of Al-Anon I got further on. They are still stuck believing that where they are is the very best they want to do. Some have tried AA and found that they are not ready to stop. It (drinking) means too much to them. They cannot identify themselves without alcohol and they have other excuses also. Yet honestly with me they can admit that they are not ready to stop. Not my responsibility.
Distilled alcohol outdates the life of Jesus Christ by 3000 years. I believe that we are an altered specie of human beings because of the thousands of year alcohol has been in our systems. I also believe that the most successful way to have a happy, joyous and free life is in the spiritual 12 step program of Al-Anon (my first entry in recovery) and AA (my entry after 9 years even without a drink). I still am a depressive with a way out of it that doesn't include any medication or alcohol. One thing I learned was the name of my depression and it's signs and texture and how to arrest it from becoming fatal. The other thing I learned was that one defination of depression is anger turned inward and that a sad mood was not always the signature body language of depression, that even people who seemed very outgoing could be acting out a depression. I can only take care of me and pass on what I have been freely given. I hope some of this has helped you even if it was only a single word. If not still keep coming back here and working the steps, traditions and concepts one day at a time. You will find help.
I have noticed in your posts that you seem very sensible (and sane) about this disease of alcoholism.You said you have read extensively.
There has been alot of discussion on the board lately about what traits are the disease and what are just the personality.One thing you said prompted me to reply to you.That the disease progresses unless it is stopped.My a husband stopped drinking 16 years ago.He is self centered,lies,is now having an online affair with another woman.I am wondering if his disease is still progressing even though he is not drinking.Or am I blaming the disease for things that are just who he is.If the lattter is the case then I never knew him because the man I thought he was is not the man he is now.He goes to meetings,has a sponsor.The woman he is cheating with(I do see this as an affair even though it is online) is also an A,drug addict,who has less than 1 year in AA.He says he helps her and she helps him.
Just wanted your thoughts on this.Thanks, glad you are here.
( I meant to pm rtexas but if anyone else has any thoughts on this please share.Thanks)
Well... LOL I guess I am glad I come off level headed, and I have done a lot of desperate reading, but if you read closely you will also see that I am barely keeping myself out of the rubber room down the road.
I feel like a dry sponge just hitting the tip of a BIG spill. I am obsessed with learning as much as I can about this.
Sounds like your H may not have had any effective treatment after he stopped drinking. When I said "until it stops", I didn't just mean put the can down. The disease is the disease and until it is treated it keeps going. People have discribed what you see as 'Dry Drunk'.
My father exhibits a lot of that. He is WAY better than when he was active, but...
Thanks for everything you all contribute here... I learn something new every day.
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"Good judgement comes from experience... experience comes from bad judgement" - unknown
Well I think that people can have more than one condition. At one point I had ptsd and a major depression. That was certainly a handful. I had no idea then that some people take more than a year to recover from a bout of major depression. And of course dealing with ptsd is difficult to say the least.
I think some of us can deal with more than one thing. I have my own idea what the A is dealing with. The issue is that I can't make him get treatment or get sober at all. All I can do is to deal with my own issues and try to be boundaried and work on my own problems. Some of them include him and some of them don't. I know because of the way I grew up in a family where alcohol was prevalent that I do not necessarily see red flags. Now I am better at seeing them.
There are some things (like work) I still have little control over. I do work on having control over me though. Like you I have read and I continue to read a great deal. For me reading about ptsd in particular is helpful. Funnily enough the A has two medical conditions and I have not read up on them at all. I would say for me that was progress. My abandonment issues in the past would mean that I would be deathly afraid of him being sick. He even had a heart attack scare recently and I do not find myself obsessing about him giving up smoking. I just try to focus on me. I am glad that I can detach because being over involved was terrible for me.
