Enabling Kills; Denial Kills. Not Only in Families with Alcohol Abuse Problems.

[Stormchild]

I was reading the Ask Amy column in my local newspaper yesterday, and almost spilled my coffee at the issue that was being described.

I'll post a link to the actual column, but this particular paper doesn't like being excerpted directly, so I have to paraphrase what was said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/16/AR2006111601807.html

The letter writer is an ACOA, and a recovering alcoholic who is alone in recovery, apparently with a large non-recovering FOO and married siblings. Alcoholism is a progressive disease, even though there may be long plateaus of seeming stability, and apparently one of the writer's siblings has a problem that is rapidly worsening.

The writer is talking about her brother's wife, in her letter to Amy. The sister in law has known about the problem, talked to the writer about it many times, yet to the writer's astonishment, the SIL is apparently sabotaging her husband's [the writer's brother's] recovery.

The writer urged her SIL to work towards an intervention, and SIL decided to tell her husband all about it. The writer also notes that, while SIL complains frequently and elicits sympathy for problems created by the drinking, at the same time, SIL drinks with her husband every night, and has even poured his drinks at family parties.

The writer concludes her letter by declaring resentment of her SIL for undermining her brother's health...

Amy concludes that SIL is an alcoholic too.

I'm not so sure.

SIL sounds like a major enabler to me, and one who is both in and out of denial at the same time, getting a 'victim payoff' as the problem continues, and unable to give up that payoff.

She calls to complain about how the drinking affects her... and at the same time, she also does everything in her power to assure that the drinking continues.

So that she can continue to complain, continue to elicit sympathy, continue to feel like the 'good one'.

The worsening problem, the harm that is being done to her husband and others around him, is not enough to get her attention and drive a change in the system.

She further reinforces the drinking - and the alienation of the recovering sister from her alcoholic brother - by agreeing to work towards an intervention, then disclosing these plans - which is a guaranteed way to enrage her husband and estrange him from his sister.

It's also a guaranteed way to raise her husband's defensiveness, shore up his own denial, and make it even more difficult for anyone to get through to him about the problem.

The prognosis isn't good. Right now, not only is this man doomed, but his own wife is doing everything in her power to see that he stays that way.

She is actively engaged in bringing about her own husband's death. She is actually willing to see her husband die, ultimately, rather than admit to his problem and to her part in exacerbating it.

Does she see it that way? Of course not, not that she will admit to anyone, certainly not to the letter writer.

Does she love her husband? I'm sure that she would say she does. Do her actions indicate love?

In the worst possible case, she will bury this man and grieve, and cry real tears, and marry another alcoholic as soon as she can manage to find one.

Enabling kills. Denial kills. They aren't adorable foibles, to be held up for the approval of a studio audience. They are not cute. They are not sweet.

They are tragic, dangerous choices, and they destroy lives.

[Added on edit: I don't know these people, at least I don't think I do. But, back in 1991, I watched a former colleague's severely alcoholic brother die of esophageal varices and cirrhosis in his mid thirties, and watched the colleague resume drinking IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE FUNERAL following about six months of hard-won sobriety, and watched his own - nondrinking but savagely codependent - little sister turn like a tiger on the two cousins and the few colleagues who were at the wake and tried to intervene. So I do know whereof I speak. The colleague ended up in detox again, about a year after that. As far as I know, he is still alive.]

[penelope]

hi stormy,

This reminds me of a fellow I know.  His girlfriend is currently serving an ~3 year sentence in prison for multiple DUIs. 

For the life of me, I couldn't figure out why he'd want to stay with her.  Apparently, he knew she was an "alcoholic" (explained to me in a whispered hush over cigars and non-alcoholic brew - neither one of us drinks - one night soon after she was imprisoned) before this happened.  He was actually "happy this happened, as it has forced her to get the help she needs."

He talks about marrying her and starting a family with her.  He has a plan already for disciplining their children.

I'm very fearful listening to him.  I finally figured out why.  He needs this woman in his life to pin all the blame on.  He's the good one, she's clearly bad.  I know more about their relationship than I ever cared to know.  I feel sorry for her, as it appears to me that when he says he "loves her," he is actually saying - he loves that she'll be the bad egg of the two.  Will he ever let her live her mistakes down?  I doubt it.

Then again, this could all be a transference of my own parents' situation onto this couple I know.  My Dad married someone he could blame everything on - since she was a rager, had uncontrollable anger, and was verbally abusive, it was easy.

What do you think?

bean

[Stormchild]

Bean, it never ceases to amaze me how much of what passes for love among human beings is actually nothing of the kind.

You might send him a few links on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome:

http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/fas/

http://www.kidshealth.org/parent/medical/brain/fas.html

http://www.adopting.org/rwfas.html

http://www.faslink.org/

http://www.well.com/user/woa/fsfas.htm

http://www2.potsdam.edu/hansondj/FAS/FAS.html   

[This site includes the reassuring comments "A recent review of research studies found that fetal alcohol syndrome only occurs among alcoholics." and "Negative effects appear to be related to relatively higher levels of consumption per occasion, and hence, to higher blood alcohol content levels. Thus, it appears to be very important never to consume more than one drink in any one day while pregnant." I'm sure, if she doesn't get into a program and make a serious commitment to recovery, she'll never be able to restrict her drinking for nine months in order to maintain appropriate precautions.]

Although this probably won't dissuade him.

Denial and enabling don't just kill, they can also maim.

[sea storm]

Thanks for bringing this subject up. My ex husband is an alcoholic and is about 61. He was  robust, active and delightfully could walk on his hands when he was forty. I haven't seen him for several years until our daughter's wedding last August. He married a woman 17 years his junior. She told me that he is a great man and she adores him. She stays at home and family is everything to her. She also has debiliatating migraines headaches twice a week.
When I saw him I was shocked. He is now small and knome-like. His hands are small and they used to be big. He was a fisherman and a worker.
He drinks like a fish and no one says a word because he is such a great man. This seems really sad to me. If she loves him, why not have an intervention? He is obviously dying. Many people sort of orbit around this guy in awe. He is very charismatic. At the wedding he was barely coherent and didn't finish his sentences. I thought this is all so crazy. Why doesn't someone have enough guts to help him.
So......... does wife no. 2 love him?   If he dies she will inherit a small empire.
Nahhhhhhh that is too macabre to think about. But on the other hand if his family loves him they need to help him.
Thanks for the post. It is good to hear a parallel situation.

[Stormchild]

Sea Storm, that is so sad. Alcoholism can actually cause men to develop osteoporosis, the same disease women have where the bones become weakened... that could be why your ex has dwindled so much.

I'm so sorry.

[sea storm]

((((((((((((((((CRIPES))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

[sea storm]

Can you say more about how alcohol could be making him shrink like this?
I felt very sorry for him. Anyone who would say such a thing in that family would be a scapegoat and a lightning rod for abuse. Somehow I want to tell my daughter these things but she is in thrall with the rest of his family.

Sea Storm

[penelope]

hi babysteps & all,

I think one thing that has helped me is not to rely on my family for objective feedback.  In my case, they were not objective.  A therapist, ideally, is, however.

hugs,
bean

[Stormchild]

babysteps - that's why I sound like such a monomaniac here, about denial and remembering and pattern recognition. a lot of the time, the only way to get through denial is to realize that something is happening over and over and over and over and over and over and over... and then to look at what that something is, which parts of it keep happening, and who or what is around when the repeats occur.

family, if they're healthy, can be priceless in helping with this process, but if they aren't healthy, then that will be where the denial techniques were learned and perfected in the first place. in that case, a good therapist is worth his or her weight in gold, just as bean has said here.

it's true, we all have blind spots. but you know what? recognizing that and being prepared to discover that you have them - gets you more than halfway to being able to deal with them!

for instance, i'll tell you one on me. .

hops put up a timely reminder just a couple of days ago, about the risk of 'acting out' family of origin [FOO] conflicts by becoming argumentative here, especially at the end of the work week.

coincidentally, i had just realized, after I had logged off that evening, that i was getting enmeshed in an argument [never mind why], and that it was the end of the work week.

the following morning i saw hops' post [which ironically, tied in to an earlier post of mine where i had noticed and commented on this exact same pattern here!] and said to myself -- yeah, she saw it too, glad i caught myself and won't let this eat the weekend.

then i went back to where the donnybrook was and made the point i thought was most important - in a detached manner  - and disengaged from further conflict.

now, if someone had confronted me directly, before I'd caught on myself, i'd like to think i would have stopped in my tracks and said, whoa nelly, yes, this is a displaced FOO fight, and responded constructively then and there.

but if i was still failing to see the pattern, or still blinded by emotion, i might just have included this new person in the FOO fight.

this sounds complicated but it isn't. the bottom line is - using your memory, looking at patterns, and trusting your feelings of discomfort when the same things keep happening to you, are the best way to check for denial - or blind spots - from your skin inward.

[I call them "blind spots" when I go "ACK" and smack my forehead as soon as I see them.]

[I call it "denial" when I go "no, wait a minute," and start bringing up a lot of farfetched justifications to excuse my behavior, as soon as I see it or someone criticises me about it.]

[I call it "assertion", when someone criticises me about it, their criticism isn't valid, and my justifications aren't farfetched. ]

[There will be times when your critics have an agenda - ask bean about her previous work group - so it's important to know that the third reaction is sometimes the correct one.]

Denial that's walking around in other skins often sends similar pattern - repeat clues, but it's easier to see the patterns, and easier to remember past incidents because we are on the outside, then, and we have less of an emotional self-protective investment in forgetting them!

I'm not being critical of anyone, here. As noted above, I had one foot in the swamp this week myself. Tired, cranky, and concerned for the welfare of a friend, and I was off and running. Nothing like being a free lab demo for everybody else...
~~~~~~~~~
sea storm - here are some links to info on men, alcohol, and osteoporosis. This is not cheerful stuff, but it is from highly reputable sources, so if you think anyone close to him might be able to take in the information, these links could be shared and will be hard to discredit. [although denial can find a way to discredit pretty much anything.]

http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/2002/502_men.html

http://www.niams.nih.gov/bone/hi/osteoporosis_alcohol.htm [do a word search on this page for the word 'testosterone']

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=3983

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/osteoporosis/DS00128/DSECTION=4 [bottom of page, do word search on 'alcoholism'].

Good luck. I'm sorry you are a helpless witness to something so sad.