Dec 1, 2003

Holiday talk aside, I’d like to say a few words about alcoholism and families. In a phrase: It’s devastating! I’m an avid fan of Alcoholics Anonymous. The Anonymous programs have been around since 1935 – 68 years!! – but I meet children and spouses of addicted people through counseling who either don’t know about the help that is around the corner or they are so stuck in their survival mode that they just can’t pick up the phone to find an address. Those afflicted go on binges, wreak havoc with the emotions of those they love, sober up a tad, feel remorse, apologize, vow to stop that hour, and sometime in the future forget that vow when the compulsion sweeps them into the fog of grandiose deception…again. The families walk on eggshells, try not to say the wrong things, internalize their pain, focus on how nice the parent or spouse is on the good days (or hours), and forget the rest. Yet, their sober, weary beings bear the brunt of years of pain that could be alleviated if one of them found the courage to break the spell. One of them needs to dare to break the abominable code of silence and own in his or her heart that the family needs help or they will all die together. After thirty years of working with families of alcoholism, I tend to think that the ‘word is out there’ among the public, that AA is so well known that all those in need find their way, albeit secretly sometimes, to safe doors, but that’s simply not true. When I meet a new family, even in 2003, co-dependently enduring for umpteen years the ups and downs of the alcoholic and the ‘ism’ of the disease among them all, I am at first shocked. Then, I am sad. Then, I realize that the power of the addiction hits everyone and they swirl in a cloud of lies and fear. In my humble opinion…particularly during this time when in the name of ‘the holidays’ we drink more, drive and drink more, and celebrate ‘drink’ more, we can do a good deed by observing those whose behaviors lead us to suspect the disease. We may or may not get the attention of the abuser, but with God’s grace, if we speak with love, we might get the attention of the family. Use your skills to talk with one of them and help at least one person see the need to get help. Go to an AA meeting yourself, gather some literature at home, if only the list of meeting dates and times, and with love in your heart, help someone take a step out of the muck and mire. Sometimes, that’s all it takes. Sometimes, we lose a friend because we dare to love this way. But over the years, I’ve found that these lost friends come back at a later date and tell us we were helpful to them. They tell us that what we said haunted, angered, and saddened them. They tell us that they finally saw that they needed to protect their children. It may have taken them another six months or a year to do so, but they found the safe doors of AA, broke from the lies and eggshells, and that has made all the difference. Merry Christmas…and…a much happier new year to those in need! Mary Ann Massey