Following below are two chapters excerpted from the book, "Getting Them Sober", volume 1, AND the Table of Contents for the book, "Getting Them Sober", volume 4, AND two excerpted chapters from "Getting Them Sober", volume 4. Please feel free to print this out, make copies, and give to anyone who needs it (therapists; people in recovery; family and church members; libraries; etc.). The only restriction is that it cannot be sold, or used commercially, without permission from Toby Rice Drews, email: tdrews3879@aol.com

Getting Them Sober, Volume One - You Can Help! Table of Contents

Stop Asking Permission!

It's your way of trying to please an alcoholic and keep him pleased so he won't be nasty or drink anymore - but it doesn't work.

It's not as scary as you think to start to learn to stand on your feet - not his - for emotional security.

Many women marry men in order to be taken care of emotionally. A woman may want her husband to be a "daddy." And that might work, in "regular" families - where husbands and wives know how to be adults, children, mommies and daddies to each other, at different times.

But that doesn't work in alcoholic families.

It gets all twisted. Wives take care of husbands who drink - most of the time. Then, they get accused of "controlling." But the wife thinks it keeps her husband halfway grateful.

They both know how very dependent he really is. And she is afraid of his "taking his dependence elsewhere" if she doesn't meet his bottomless needs.

Ironically, one of his greatest needs is to feel like he is the one who is taking care of her. So she thinks she needs to fill that need too, or he will find someone else to make him "feel like a man."

But a real problem arises here, because it's all an illusion. And they both know it. If he were really being strong and responsible, he would be able to carry his share of the load. But he can't. His sickness prevents him from doing so. And the wife gets mad, frustrated, depressed, and she begins to despair. How can she keep on pretending he's so terrific, so strong - and still keep the lid on her anger about the lie she's preserving because she's scared of losing him? And she feels more angry at herself for feeling scared of losing him and for feeling so mixed-up about it all.

It is really tough for her when she's in therapy or a recovery program and she is told to refuse to carry his share any more. And that means she's got to stop pretending he's doing more than he is. And she is scared, because she believes he might not want to really get well. And then he will find another woman who will build up his ego, pick up his pieces, and clean up his life. So, this becomes another problem to the wife. She is threatened enough by the sickness. Now she's being asked to take more risks, as she sees it, to help him get well. Isn't there any letup?

What can help?

1. Think it through the next time you get the urge to ask your husband for permission to do anything - something small, even, "Is it okay to go to the store now?" (This implies he will get lonely while you're gone and then get mad at you for going.) Think it through. What will the result be if you don't go? He will do exactly what he was going to do, maybe five minutes later. If he were going to drink or be mentally cruel, he will simply do it five minutes later. So you might as well go to the store and get what you need. That way, he will still do "his thing," but you'll be halfway pleased - by your efforts to please yourself. And that will give you more self-respect than if you didn't go (in order to please him) and he was rotten anyway. Then you would really have resentment!

2. If you ask him for permission, several things may happen: (a) he will make you feel guilty for doing what you need to do; (b) That will make you mad; or (c) You will also be mad at yourself for asking permission, since you really do understand that you have a perfect ethical right to go the store without asking permission! And you could kick yourself for being so dependent.

3. Try starting out with making changes in this area in very small ways. A very competent counselee, Sarah, even told her husband when she was going to the bathroom! They thought it was a joke between them. But it began to irk her, especially when he started referring to it in public. When she examined the other areas of her life with him, she saw the depth of her dependence. So Sarah started her "change" by not discussing with him any more whether or not she was going to the toilet. Not so funny when you think about it.

4. Try to remember that you're trying to fill a need in your husband that's so deep, so insatiable, that it's like a bottomless pit. Keeping him reassured is an impossible task. You cannot do it - not if you spend twenty-four hours a day trying. That kind of reassurance - that he's desirable and lovable - can only come from something deep inside him. And it will only come when he is willing and ready to get well.

5. If you are not exhausted already from running yourself ragged trying to please him, you soon will be. Constantly asking him permission is only a symptom that you're probably almost always thinking about how to please your husband - not in a healthy, balanced way - but in a frenzied, fearful, wife-of-an-alcoholic way. You'll be able to stop this trying-to-please someone who cannot be pleased by at least starting to cut down on the permission-asking. (Once you've started, and gotten some success, you will feel so good about yourself!)

6. If your alcoholic is one of those who regularly proclaims his "independence" by announcing he is going to do what he wants to do, no matter who likes it, don't confuse this attitude with what I am talking about in this chapter. I am not advocating defiance. All alcoholics have it as a major symptom of their disease. They will do what they want to, no matter who they hurt. This chapter promotes, instead, the concept of the wife living ethically. It does not advocate that she use her new-found assertiveness to smash her husband - but to stop asking permission to go about her life, doing what is good for her and her family. This chapter simply suggests that she act like a responsible, ethical adult.

Help me to be completely honest with myself.

Don't Be Scared That The Alcoholic Will Leave If He (Or She) Gets Well

There's a big difference between "dry" and "sober."

If he threatens this, he's still very sick.

The ultimate threat in an alcoholic family is abandonment, combined with humiliation. Very often the threat comes in many ways. Everyone in the family labors under the illusion that the alcoholic is very powerful, very important, a little tin god. You'd better do what he wants - or you'll lose him. And - if you're this scared of losing him when he's still a drinking alcoholic - what a prize you'd lose if he decided to get sober!

See how distorted everything gets in the alcoholic home? What things can you try to remember when you're starting to panic again - when you're afraid of losing him if he gets sober?

1. An addict who does not want to give up his habit does an interesting trick: he scares you into thinking he will be so sexy, so irresistible to the opposite sex, when and if he decides to get un-anesthetized, that you might lose him. So he gets you to help him stay drunk! It's like the woman who says she wants to lose weight, but really doesn't, so she makes subtle hints about how incredibly desirable she will be when she's thin, over and over. Her husband runs to the store and buys her a gallon of chocolate ice cream! Then she blames him. "How can I lose weight when he's always buying me ice cream?" she wails.

Don't join with the alcoholic in this old self-sabotage game.

2. Remember: if he doesn't get sober, he will either die or go irretrievably insane from a wet brain, spending the rest of his days in the back wards of a mental hospital. I do understand when you feel you'd sometimes rather he be dead than "soberly" leave you and humiliate you - after all the years you have stood by him. Your feelings are normal; there's nothing to feel guilty about. I'm just saying you'll feel much less scared when you start to see him in perspective, when you start to see him as being very unpowerful, when you start to see yourself as a nice, deserving, intelligent person who does not need to put up with anything a sick man hands out in order to keep him with you.

3. This threat of abandonment is used by almost all alcoholics.

4. You can't please an alcoholic. What you do is never enough. He's probably got you convinced that you're a lousy lover, a lousy mother, a rotten cook, a terrible partner in some way, a very undesirable woman, too pushy, a wet blanket, too loud, too timid, too religious, or a screaming fishwife. You've probably already started to believe him and this means you're trying harder to please him. This makes him even more arrogant. He's really cracking the whip - and convincing you that you're the one doing all the controlling! Your problem is only that you believe him!

His expectations of you continue to build. And you also expect more of yourself. Both of you wind up expecting you to always be strong, to always be able to put up with anything - to be superwoman. But he is always allowed to fail you. This whole mess sets you up for failure, for feeling like a failure, for believing that you deserve to be abandoned, if you can't deal with him and his disease.

5. You may even start to feel terrified when he decides to get sober. You can't tell anybody because you believe they'll think you're rotten, maybe, for not wanting him to get sober - because it's hard to put into words, his subtle threats that he might leave you because he will "be too well" for you.

6. If he threatens by saying that you'd better "shape up" and accept his behavior just because he's not drinking any more, then he's not sober: he's just dry. All he's done is remove the booze. True sobriety does not behave like that. Sober people are sane people. They don't threaten their families with abandonment just because they have stopped drinking. As a matter of fact, they do just the opposite; they are so grateful to their families for sticking with them that they try very hard to make amends to them for all the grief of past years.

7. Why do you believe these threats are anything but sick? Because you have lived with his sickness, his distortions of reality for so long, that you have come to believe them as truth.

8. How should you act if he gets sober? Certainly you should not become scared of losing him! Remember: if he chooses to treat only one-third of his disease - the physical addiction - instead of his whole disease - the mental and spiritual parts as well, the problems that make him selfish and rotten to his loved ones - then he is the one who will suffer. He is the one who is playing Russian roulette with his life. A person can't go on for long, treating only one-third of the disease of alcoholism, and stay sober. He can be dry for a time, yes, But sober for life? He must learn to change his whole way of treating his family; that's part of his sobriety program.

9. You have nothing to lose. If he not only gets rid of the booze, but of that rotten behavior - you've got a nice, regular husband! But if he chooses to just get rid of the booze and continues to threaten you with abandonment - it's his loss - not only of you, but maybe of his life.

God, thank you for helping me live more fully. I feel you are opening a new life for me.

Getting Them Sober Volume 4, Chapter 2
"Don't Try to Make Sense Out Of Their Nonsense"

Getting Them Sober Volume 4, Chapter 4
"The Irregular Behavior Of The Alcoholic Keeps Us Attached"