December, 2001, Recovery Tip of the Month
from Toby Rice Drews, author, "Getting Them Sober" books

After a verbal-abuser's attack, even after one has responded very appropriately, i.e., with dignity -- it is so difficult to not get into uncalled-for guilt after one's anger and feelings of self-righteousness die down.

It's a total knee-jerk reaction to have it go round and round in one's mind, and to think: "Maybe I should have been even kinder" (even when one was kind) ----- or "I feel so sorry for him; he's really such a baby" ------ or other such thoughts that make one want to "make nice" and make that person feel better. (Habitual verbal abusers often still feel bad, days later, after you didn't "take it" when they were abusive... even though both of you really know you should not have taken it).

All this nonsense in one's head that you at least intellectually know is just abysmal codependent fear of the abuser -- in addition to feeling an awful need to be absolutely perfect around being decent to people -- (or you'll be punished by God, you worry.)

What can help?

1.) Tell yourself that all this constant questioning of self is like gnawing on an old bone, and it is totally uncalled-for.

2. Let yourself realize that even the scrupulous Catholic Church says this is "over-scrupulousness" and disapproves of it. (Even if one is not Catholic, it can help to know that there is even an entire religion that gives you permission to stop it!)

3.) Remind oneself that this is probably a long-time habit, and habits can be reversed, with practice.

4.) Once you've looked at it again, and been very realistic in your self-evaluation, and seen that you did behave pretty well ...... then letting yourself know that further self-examination after self-examination leads nowhere except to self-centeredness, can really help one stop doing it, one day at a time.

Lots of us usually think of "self-centeredness" as something done by narcissists or other unsavory persons, but this ruminating can be just as self-damaging to the souls of people who have been victimized, too. But I think that some caution is called for here ------ because the timetable of when we each need to stop "talking about it" and let it rest, can only be determined by our own inner selves.

Sometimes others try to tell us when and how we need to "get on with life and stop talking about it" ------ so that they can be in charge of our recovery. But we can give ourselves permission to stick with what we know is our own intuitively-determined inner timetable. Only we can really know, for ourselves, when is the good-for-us time to "stop talking about it and go on and leave it behind now".

This learning to put into practice that promise in the A.A. Big Book ("We will intuitively know how to handle things that used to baffle us"), is good for all of us, whether alcoholic and/or codependent.

And what a wonderful other path this is, in learning to set boundaries!

November, 2001, Recovery Tip of the Month
from Toby Rice Drews, author, "Getting Them Sober" books

I think that one of the most important things that families of alcoholics need to do for recovery is to learn about the physical disease of alcoholism, and how alcohol affects the brain/central-nervous system --- and translates into horrible thoughts/actions by the alcoholic. Learning this process is one of the quickest ways to internalize the truth about alcoholism ---- and once we internalize the truth about this disease, we can so much better understand WHY 'they act like they do'. And it will therefore lessen the emotional pain inflicted on us, despite what the alcoholic does ----- because so much of that emotional pain is based on our thinking that "they don't love us if they act that way". We learn to really see that "it's not personal". Now, that does NOT mean at all that we don't hurt from their behavior! It means that we get much LESS pulled-down emotionally by all the junk that comes out of their mouths ---- much less, because we begin to really know that it's coming from a drugged-out crazy place that has nothing to do with us. And then, we can make our plans about what we want to do with our lives, because all our energy isn't being wasted all the time, wondering "why they act like that" ----- because we will know.

And -- very important -- it does NOT "let them off the hook" for responsibility for their actions..... in fact, if they do feel that anything they did is no big deal "because they have a disease", then they won't fully recover, because recovery has 12 steps and two of them are about making amends for their behavior.... and without true amends, recovery can be tentative.

Here are some ways to begin to get knowledge of how this very physical disease affects the body/brain/central-nervous system (and therefore, directly determines how alcoholics behave toward their families): a.) read James Milam's book, "Under the Influence".... it is all about the disease process. This wonderful book has also sent many drinking alcoholics directly to A.A.

b.) go to the library and spend a part of a day there, scanning/reading all the medical books available there on alcoholism. There's something about seeing a half-dozen or more books filled with information about this disease---- in actual medical books--- that helps us to understand that this really is a disease.

c.) read "Getting Them Sober, volume 3" --- I wrote half this book about the 350 secondary diseases/disorders to alcoholism, because people don't usually know that alcoholism's deadliness usually comes from organ and system shutdown, and I think it is important for all of us to know the many ways this can happen. Plus there are several introductions to that part of the book, dealing with various insidious forms of denial, and how to spot them and get rid of them.

d.) on this www.GettingThemSober.com website, print out two of the articles ---- "what happens if alcoholics stop going to A.A." ------ and "how to know if the alcoholic is serious about sobriety". These two articles are on this website because I have been asked about them more than any others. Families ask how they will know if "he is serious" about recovery, this time. And newly-sober alcoholics ask me "when they can stop going to A.A." It is so important, for families' peace of mind, to understand that alcoholics are going to say they are going to get help when they are not going to, because the alcohol working on the brain is making them do that. The one article will help you differentiate between when they mean it and when they don't. And the other article will help you understand that this physical disease is so insidious and works on the brain, even after recovery begins..... and keeps telling alcoholics to leave your help, to leave A.A. And what often happens if you do. This article will help you to spot the signs of unconsciously getting ready to leave A.A. and hopefully help you to make a sane decision to stay there. Please feel free to print these articles out and make as many copies as you want ----- for your friends in recovery, for your therapists, ministers, classmates, students, and colleagues. (And of course, print out anything else on this website, too, and make as many copies as you like.) ------ best to all in total recovery, Toby

October, 2001, Recovery Tip of the Month
from Toby Rice Drews, author, "Getting Them Sober" books

It is so difficult for persons from alcoholics families to "live in the middle of life", to be in the "gray areas".... not in the extremes of only "black or white".

Sometimes, of course, it is necessary to be at one end or the other..... but most of the time, life is about the little things, the 'mundane' things, the routines.

And in these times of national upheaval, of uncertainty about life and death issues, it is difficult for everyone -- but especially for families of alcoholics, who for the most part, are untreated for their "ism" that includes living in chronic emotional-excited-misery.

Thank God for recovery rooms that help us to differentiate between a true crisis and thinking everything is a crisis.

And for those of us who not only live with the national events, but who live with the chronic upheavals in our homes from addiction -- it is even more imperative to learn to be good to our bodies/our souls..... by learning to de-stress and therefore be able to better meet whatever comes our way as well as enjoying the life we've been given.

The concept of "detachment" is so imperative in these times. Learning that in the rooms of recovery can literally save our sanity.

This learning to reach out to others, help them when we can -- and yet keep enough of an emotional distance to continue to really live, is an art. It is so hard to not feel guilty, for most of us from alcoholic families, when we "go on with life" when others cannot. The rooms of recovery teach us to do just that. We learn that it does not help others when we are immobilized by depression and fear. That kind of "going down with them", emotionally, only brings on burn-out.

I think that is probably one of the main reasons why so many helping professionals from alcoholic families experience so much more burnout than those from more functional families -- we have not learned, as well as they have, to detach and go on while others suffer..... therefore, we often don't last as long as they do, in truly being able to help.

We burn strong, but we burn-out quicker.

We help so much, so intensely------ but we need to re-charge, and pull back emotionally, to get to that middle ground.... or we're no good to anyone. Most of us know this.... but I think it might be good to say it. I, for one, need to write this, to read it..... to drive it "more home" to myself .... I've been one of those taught to 'give all' and 'never stop giving' and 'feel guilty' if I enjoy life when others suffer.

That middle ground where I help and have compassion and yet still live is sometimes still very foreign territory. ----- best to all in recovery, Toby

September, 2001, Recovery Tip of the Month
from Toby Rice Drews, author, "Getting Them Sober" books

There is a persistent trend in mental-health treatment that can mis-direct people from receiving proper treatment for the fatal and progressive disease of alcoholism.

It is the idea that mental-health problems are the root cause of alcoholism. (You can see a detailed partial answer to that problem in the September, 2000, Recovery Tip of the Month. Just keep scrolling down this section, to get to that particular tip of the month.)

In the "Getting Them Sober, volume 3" book, there is a section chronicling the 350 secondary diseases to alcoholism. I included a sub-section on psychiatric problems that arise from, or are triggered by, alcoholism. What that means is that many mental-health problems that would otherwise be of minor consequence or just lie dormant, come to the fore and run rampant when triggered by alcoholism. (In the section of the book with the secondary diseases, there are also interviews with leading experts, including James Milam, author of the classic book, "Under the Influence", on why this triggering of secondary diseases happens.)

The good news is that for most persons, when they do get treatment, and attend A.A. on a regular basis-- those problems usually subside greatly or go away entirely. (This of course, is not true of alcoholics with major psychiatric illness in addition to their addiction. Then, they still need A.A., of course, but also usually need additional counseling/possible medications for their dual diagnosis).

But I want to emphasize that most alcoholics do not also have major mental illness! If they get and stay sober, their therapists and family members are delighted to see "a different person!". (This does not apply to people who are 'dry drunks'.... i.e., people who don't drink, but who do not go to A.A. Many of them don't drink, but keep the personality problems that wreak havoc on others and themselves.)

The real problem lies with the diagnosis and treatment of drinking alcoholics. There are literally millions of alcoholics who have died because their alcoholism was bypassed, and their secondary psychiatric illness was treated as their only primary illness. Their alcoholism was not seen as as a primary disease. Most of those drinking alcoholics did -- and continue to -- go to therapy to deal with their personality problems, which are looked upon as the root cause of their drinking. And many of them die (or go insane) because of it.

About 20 years ago, there was a line-drawing cartoon in the A.A. monthly magazine, the Grapevine, of three guys lowering their buddy into a grave, and the caption was something like, "It's too bad; he was doing so well in therapy. He just couldn't stop drinking."

This does NOT mean that personality problems should not be addressed. Certainly Al-Anon teaches family members how to deal with the junk that comes from the drinking. But, again, one must "get sober first" if deep and lasting personality changes can occur for most drinking alcoholics. And with A.A., most alcoholics DO have deep and lasting personality changes! Of course, many people need counseling after getting sober, in addition to A.A., but that doesn't keep one sober. Sobriety is the cornerstone. Without it, most other changes are not possible.

But all this raises a serious other question: Why are some family members so easily sidetracked into actually wanting to think that alcoholism is not the central core issue-- into wanting to agree, sometimes, with therapists who do not understand alcoholism-- that the drinking is not the main problem? I think that it is entirely understandable. We get so sick and tired of it all and we get to feeling that 'they'll never get sober' ... we want to believe that the problems that arise from the alcoholism are the main problems, and that if they can be taken care of, the drinking will wither away by itself. Unfortunately, lots of time and money and energy is often spent in therapy, pursuing this often-futile goal.

What is good to remember is that almost every family member who has a spouse or someone in A.A., has thought to themselves--- even the day before that person started A.A.--- that "they'll never make it." And there are over 3 million people in A.A. in the U.S. that belie that thought, thank goodness! Hazelden used to publish (it is out of print, the last I heard), a wonderful pamphlet about a drinking woman alcoholic who tells her husband that she'll go to therapy. So, she goes, and she continues the junk behavior and the drinking. And her husband complains. And she says, in essence, "what do you want?! I'm getting help!"

August, 2001, Recovery Tip of the Month
from Toby Rice Drews, author, "Getting Them Sober" books

After re-reading the July tip of the month, I realized that I did not address the fact that many non-addicted spouses of alcoholics go through periods of time when they are glad that their oldest child is so angry at the alcoholic. This is very normal and only human.... after all, it finally feels like someone is "on your side."

However, with family recovery, we learn that that kind of static anger-bonding seems to boomerang, and come back and hurt us. Because it can eat us up. And that kind of frozen-in-time anger .. even if more than justified..... is hardened resentment, and seems to hurt us more than "them". (And another issue that often compounds it, is if we then reconcile with the alcoholic when he or she gets sober..... and we begin to lose much of our previous anger.... we can then find ourselves facing the adult child who still feels that anger, and who feels that we are "compromising" ourselves by having anything to do with the alcoholic. We often then get "punished" by that oldest child for NOT having that intense anger toward the alcoholic anymore!)

And even though anger can get us moving out of bad situations, it often doesn't last long enough to help us stick to what is good for us. That's why many of us leave a drinking/violent alcoholic, and then go back, again and again ...... it happens because the anger cools, and the loneliness sets in. Thank God for recovery where we learn to stop the old patterns ....... it doesn't mean that we don't ever get angry..... but we no longer have to be held hostage by that anger.

July, 2001, Recovery Tip of the Month
from Toby Rice Drews, author, "Getting Them Sober" books

How to deal with/ live with/ one's child(ren) who are adult children of alcoholics, and who cannot / will not / let go of the anger toward the alcoholic, even if that parent is sober for quite a while------ A lot of good literature is out there about adult children of alcoholics and what has been done to them. But in the recovery part of it -- in the advice given to the acoa's themselves -- this question is hardly touched at all. In my counseling, I have had so many clients who have this problem with their adult children. And it usually manifests in the oldest child.

From what I've experienced, generally, it goes like this: the oldest child is the "hero", of course, as it states in the acoa literature...... but the oldest is often, also, the angriest of all the children. And it is often manifest in held-in, simmering, controlled .. and controlling.. anger. The youngest child, (in the literature, the one who makes everyone laugh.. the clown), often is the one who feels the most attached to the alcoholic, who loves him or her the most, who forgives easily, who is most afraid of abandonment.

The middle child is often withdrawn, acting out, gets away...... but not always..... but is often very hurt by it all, without talking about it much. Remember these are generalizations, based on observation...... observation mostly of the oldest and youngest, because they are ones that are presented to me by clients as the ones who they are the most concerned about their behaviors.

The non-addicted parent is often quite understanding about the youngest child's attachment to the alcoholic parent.... it is often a poignant attachment and easier to understand than the anger that eminates from the oldest child.

This anger is often manifest about 50% of the time----- with very attaching nurturing behavior manifesting the other 50% of the time...... so, it is easy for the non-addicted parent to very much love and be very attached to this child who shows unflagging energy around caretaking everyone..... and yet, when that child is displeased, watch out!

This oldest child often becomes a helping professional. A few years ago, the N.I.A.A.A. (National Institute of Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse) conducted a study at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, which said that 60% of first-year med students self-reported to be first-born children of alcoholics....... and those were the ones who self-reported, who SAW the alcoholism....... that is not the med students who themselves were alcoholics, and who therefore probably did not see the alcoholism in the parent. (The latest stats on this is that 25% of physicians are actively addicted to alcohol/other drugs.)

So------ what to do about it if your oldest child has this kind of anger? Well, even though one's first thought is probably to try to fix it, to try to get this child to understand their addicted parent..... it is probably mostly a futile effort because many of these adult children not only have trouble letting go of anger, but somewhat enjoy the self-righteous feelings that come about when comparing their own good behavior to that of the alcoholic. (It is understandable that they feel that way, but it is so very hurtful for them to go through life with this kind of baggage.)

It would probably be more useful to try to get that child to Al-Anon, saying something like, "Al-Anon helps one to detach and not even think about the alcoholic..... it helps take away all the sting from them, so you can really 'get away from it'." (Of course, if the youngest adult child is wanting to help the alcoholic, I'd say to that child, that Al-Anon helps one learn how to truly help the alcoholic. Both statements are true...... it helps one 'get away from it' if you really want to...... and it also helps you learn how to really help, in the highest sense of the word 'help'..... the program meets all people at the level of their needs. It softens the too-tough, and toughens the too-soft.)

Also, I would read (and offer it to your adult children to read) a book called, "Adult Children of Alcoholics" by Janet Woititz. It gives a good general overall picture of the roles played by the adult children. Once you've learned more about how your children are literally programmed to behave around this disease, it will make it much easier to deal with, because then you can begin to let go of a lot of the unnecessary guilt..... guilt around the fact that you may think you set this child up to be angry, and set that child up to protect the alcoholic, etc. It does not mean that you did not act out all this yourself, too...... but that is only human! As Al-Anon says in the prologue to every meeting, "living with an alcoholic is too much for most of us!" I would not take that admonition lightly! No one can be expected, without knowledge and lots and lots of recovery, to NOT react ----- going back and forth from anger to worry, to fear, to guilt, to rage, to pity........ and on and on and on. (In "Getting Them Sober, Volume 3" I have an entire chapter on all the "pity to punish" stuff we do, and how to get off that treadmill that just eats us up much more than it hurts the alcoholic.)

And very important..... there is a lot of "birth order" stuff we're talking about here; i.e., the oldest child in any family, and the middle and youngest in any family -- even in healthy, non-addicted families -- have personality traits that seem to be very much like what I've described. But, in alcoholic families, those traits are multiplied hundreds of times...... the anger, the judgment, the self-righteousness, the fear, the worry --- they are rampant. That is, without recovery, they are rampant. With recovery, they really go way down.

And lastly, your oldest child who acts out this way may very well find herself/himself in a situation where later on, in marriage, they are faced with the very thing they expected the least ----- a spouse and/or child that they really love who has this disease. And they often then have to start the self-looking that they avoided... and start to look at what you've been talking about all this time. ------- best in recovery, Toby Rice Drews

June, 2001, recovery tip of the month
from Toby Rice Drews, author, "Getting Them Sober" books

Even though it is good for our health to get rid of resentments, it is TOTALLY understandable when families of drinking alcoholics have resentments! The problem is, is trying to let go of those resentments (as much as we can) while we're still in the situation, living with the active alcoholism .... and even if we leave, when there are children, there is usually ongoing contact of some kind.

Families often feel that if they get rid of resentments, and if they then stop letting the alcoholic know how angry they are about it all, all the time --- then the alcoholic will then think he/she is "getting away with it". What could the alcoholic be getting away with?! Alcoholism is a fatal disease....... and continuing the drinking and the junk behavior is killing them. (Isn't it amazing how often we all forget this, when dealing with the abuse coming out of their mouths?!)

And we usually have another reason for wanting to keep telling them that they are doing what they are doing...... we think that maybe, some day, if we say it enough, then they'll really hear us, and get help. If that were true..... if alcoholics got help because their families pleaded, cajoled, yelled, reminded, scolded, begged, and cried long and hard enough ------ then, there wouldn't be any alcoholics around. It just doesn't work. They know when they lie, when they evade, when they are abusive ------ we don't have to "let them know".

AND..... when we really let go...... when we really stop the commenting, the cajoling, the begging, the useless yelling ...... We are then giving the problem back to the alcoholic...... and he (or she) stands alone with it. And that can be very scary to the alcoholic. And that is often the time when the alcoholic asks for help. (P.S. And another reason to not be always yelling.... they don't hear us, after awhile. It loses its effect. So, if you do have to do an intervention at some point, and if you've stopped talking about the alcoholism months before -- your input at the intervention has a much greater effect.)

May, 2001, "Recovery Tip of the Month"
from Toby Rice Drews, author, "Getting Them Sober" books

In thinking about the A.A. adage, "Resentments kill", I am taken back about 20 years ago, when I read a wonderfully healing book called "Getting Well Again", for cancer patients and their therapists. (Written by a couple..... one of whom is a radiology oncologist and the other is a psychotherapist.) In that book, the authors described how they designed a revolutionary program for terminally-ill patients that produced a more than 40% full-recovery or at least very good remission. (This statistic evolved from their treating terminally-ill patients sent to them by hospitals from around the country). These days, their book and methodology is considered to be by many, mainstream treatment..... but most people only know about one of their two essential main parts of the program. Most people know about the visualization part, where patients visualize themselves well, three times a day. The second part of the recovery program involves getting rid of resentments.

In the book, they described a patient with breast cancer who lived with a verbally-abusive mother. This patient could not find the strength, the money, or whatever, to leave and live elsewhere. So, the therapy group helped her find a way (detachment) to get emotional distance from her mother's tirades. She was successful and her cancer shrunk down to nothing.

I think, now, about that book and about the healing power of getting rid of resentments...... and it tells me, once again, about the prophetic power of the content in the A.A. Big Book written over 60 years ago. How blessed we are, in all the 12-Step programs.

April, 2001, Recovery Tip of the Month

When trying to end the rescuing of the alcoholic/addict from the consequences of their behaviors -- for many of us, instead of continually beating ourselves up about "Why am I continuing this rescuing?? Why can't I stop?!" -- it is much more effective to deal with the situation by focusing on, instead, the reason we rescue in the first place.

Much of the reason that we continue to rescue is due to the irrational guilt we feel if we, deep inside, believe that we're not nice if we don't rescue. How to effectively deal with this?

If we tell our guilt to take a back-seat for now -- not that it has to stop or go away, but just go to the back row -- and take the action -- do what we know is right -- we can often get past this stuck point. We often have the erroneous idea that we have to erase guilt before we can act.

When I am counseling parents of addicted children, I find that they often feel totally submerged in guilt... like it's quicksand and they're caught in it. But it doesn't have to be that way. When they really learn about this disease and learn how it is such a fatal and progressive disease, they are often then able to see the logic of putting their irrational guilt on the back burner, so that they can stop the rescuing and hopefully, the disease process in their child.

Let me give an example: Brad (not his real name) and his wife have a 22-year-old son who smashed up the car. Their son works three miles from home, and would have to walk 8 blocks to catch a bus to get to work if he couldn't get another car. Even though they knew it was not good to buy a car for a drinking alcoholic, they still felt very guilty about him having to walk in all kinds of weather. They could finally get beyond that painful and deep guilt when they saw that there was a higher parent-love issue here: the issue of letting the alcoholic face the consequences of his own behavior so that he could feel the pain enough to maybe ask for help. So, they visualized the guilt actually walking to the back of an auditorium and sitting in the back row while they did what they had to do to stop the rescuing. It doesn't mean that we don't deal with the feelings. It's just that we don't have to wait to take action until all our feelings are calming down. (Of course, like anything on or from this website, only do or not do any suggestions if they are good and safe for you and your family-- and it is good to get professional help to make those decisions.)------ best in recovery, Toby

March, 2001, Recovery Tip of the Month

It still amazes me how extraordinary and lifelong-lasting is the alcoholic's deep unconscious need to protect the alcoholism. And it does not necessarily look like it is doing that ----- but that is exactly the main purpose of the alcoholic's unconscious. (And people wonder why they need meetings all their lives!)

It is so very baffling when an alcoholic/addict can piddle away the family's money for 20 years..... can have 7 drunk-driving arrests..... can verbally threaten the life of his or her family...... and if the spouse gets angry and doesn't give a Valentine's Day card..... she/he is accused of being mean! Now, an "outside" person (one who has never lived with alcoholism) just bypasses the alcoholic's bluster and goes right to "why ARE you staying with him/her?!" (this outsider is assuming correctly that the alcoholic/addict is just nuts and doesn't even listen to their nonsense).

Our problem is that we cannot really hear the underpinnings of the alcoholic's behavior/words -- nor the underpinnings of the outsider's words -- because we are so caught up in our very-irrational and deep-seated guilt about our anger with the alcoholic's behavior and their justifications. What are these underpinnings? The outsider's words are based on an immediate and profound knowledge of the unacceptability of the alcoholic's behaviors. Outsiders know " no WAY this is at all acceptable..... one strike of this horrible stuff and you're out." We, on the other hand, start out with "one hundred strikes and maybe I should still put up with it because you partly convince me so easily that I am a bad, crazy, overreactive person for calling a spade a spade and saying your behavior is absolutely terrible."

Why are we so easily so convinced that maybe we're wrong for getting angry when we do? And why are we so easily convinced that when we do get angry, we shouldn't get THAT angry.... after all, aren't we making a big deal out of those 20 years of abuse? (And there we go: bringing it up again!) (Recovering alcoholics who are really recovering do not get angry or defensive when they hear family members speak of their pain. But often, there are recovering alcoholics who are generally doing well...... but who, off and on, get really ticked off when they hear the family pain. When I encounter that in a counseling client who usually is understanding of the old pain caused to his/her family, I know that the deep-to-the-bone-marrow unconscious alcoholism in that client, is kicking up its heels again....) And when the family gets hooked into that very-irrational guilt when expressing so terribly little anger (like when we don't get a birthday card for someone who just came back after disappearing for two weeks!)........ and we 'bite' into it when the alcoholic says that our not-buying-the-card is ROTTEN!......... what can often get us back on the family-recovery track the fastest is remembering one of the main the facts about this DISEASE: that one of the functions of alcoholism is to PROTECT ITSELF. And one of the ways it does so, is to baffle and attack the family, so that they back-off and feel guilty when they see/state the truth about alcoholic behavior and call it the way it is. AND UNTIL FAMILY MEMBERS GET ENTIRELY RID OF THAT TO-THE-MARROW IRRATIONAL GUILT ABOUT SEEING THE TRUTH ABOUT EMOTIONAL ABUSE AND CRAZYMAKING -- AND NOT MINIMIZE IT -- WE ARE SITTING DUCKS FOR ALCOHOLISM..... AND SITTING DUCKS TO WIND UP WITH YET ANOTHER ALCOHOLIC OR ABUSIVE PERSON, IF WE ARE 'OUT THERE' DATING AGAIN. (And if we cannot get entirely rid of it --- then we must at least vigilantly remind ourselves of this particular kind of denial that we carry, so that we can effectively deal with it when it comes up. Because it will.) I think that this is probably the most awful symptom of family alcoholism that there is. But we can get healed.

February, 2001, Recovery Tip of the Month

Many longterm-sober (over 10 years each) people in recovery have related to me that they were ready and able to finally "right" their relationships with their adult children when they did this one thing: They sat with them, or called them on the phone, long-distance, and for many, many, many nights.... over many, many, many months, they listened...... without defensiveness and without off-putting tones in their voices ....... to the outpourings of the pain that their children had suffered. And even when the children were sounding "petty" and "trivial".... like when they cried that you paid more attention to a sister and you think that this is silly to complain about (compared to all the "big stuff" that adults remember) ...... they realized that their children had been fighting for your full affectionate attention -- which was probably often scarce and it hurt so much to want it so much and not get it so often ..... The truly-recovering alcoholics wanted to completely validate their children and they wanted their children to know that they wanted that for them ..... so they did not grow weary and indignant and angry toward their children. They finally really began to understand the constant emotional pain that their children had lived under -- day after day -- month after month -- year after year-- often in the form of stomaches, bad grades in school, headaches, wrenching crying, begging parents to be with them every minute, offering saved-up allowances to help pay bills, being "funny" all the time to make this family laugh..... crying by themselves quietly so no one hears. The truly-recovering alcoholics began to realize that this listening took but a little bit of time, compared to the suffering of their own children.

January, 2001, recovery tip of the month

When the holidays are over, what we constantly hear is: what are your New Year's resolutions? And those of us with drinking alcoholics in our lives know what we WANT to do...... and what we "SHOULD" do....... but that is often leap years away from what we CAN do.

And that often brings on shame. And guilt. And shame. And beating ourselves up about having the guilt and shame on top of being able to "do nothing" or "next to nothing." etc.etc.etc. (And then we know that "we shouldn't have shame about it" and "we shouldn't have guilt about it"....... and then we have regrets and upsets about having the shame and guilt about having the shame and guilt!!!!!........)

I hope you are smiling with me........ and thank God for recovery rooms and for the blessing of humor ..... and for patience with OURSELVES for all our ups and downs and circular thinking and all our etcetera's and etcetera's.... ......... Happy New Year, and as a friend of mine who passed away named Dudley always said, "Keep it simple, make it fun" ........ best to all, Toby