Get Your Loved One Sober

by Robert J. Meyers; Brenda L. Wolfe

  Nagging

  We thought about calling this habit “instructing” or “teaching” because “nagging” has such a nasty feel to it, and your intention is anything but nasty. But let's be honest. From where the drinker sits, your well-intentioned comments are just plain old nagging.

  For instance, your drinker comes home drunk, and you remind him about the terrible impact his drinking has on your life together. You are upset, concerned, and have the right to express those feelings. However, he shrugs it off and goes to sleep. This pattern goes on for years. He comes in late. You nag.

  What actually may be happening is that you are reinforcing (rewarding) him for coming home late and drunk. A fact of human nature is that we do not waste much energy on behaviors that have no payoff. If someone does the same thing over and over, you can bet there is something rewarding about the situation.

  A trained eye may see the obvious; your lecturing must not bother him much since he continues the behavior month after month. In fact, he may enjoy the attention or enjoy the fact that he has you at his beck and call. Even though you feel you are choosing to wait up and lecture him, it is his behavior that causes you to do so. There may be a power play going on here.

  The drinker may also feel a weird sort of endorsement by you because you are there waiting for him. Think about it. There may be some comfort in knowing that no matter how much he drinks or how late he stays out, you will be there singing your usual song when he comes home. So the lesson for the drinker is that drinking doesn't take away any of the comforts of home. It's a free ride.

  Instead of Nagging

  Try using an “I feel” statement to let your drinker know she has hurt you, but without attacking. First, though, think about what you want your words to achieve. Do you just want to make sure your drinker knows he has hurt you? If so, say so and enjoy the resulting argument. If, on the other hand, you are trying to get your drinker to behave differently, keep that goal in mind and use your words to let her know what behavior is hurting you now.

  For instance, remember in chapter 5 when Mom was nagging John about coming home late from school again because he stopped to drink with the boys? Our guess is her goal was to get John home safely and in time to eat with the family, but every time she nagged John, he would either leave to drink more or become angry and mean. It's definitely time to try something different. Instead of getting into it with John, Mom could use an “I feel” statement. She might say, “I feel bad when I know you're out drinking” or “I miss you when you're not home to eat with the family” and leave it at that. Later, when John is sober and she senses he is in a good mood, Mom can approach him and tell him as positively as possible what she would like to see in the future and what she will do if it does not happen. For instance, she may say, “I worry about you when you come home late, but from now on I'm not going to sit and wait for you. I'm going to do something for myself. So if you are late and I'm not home, don't worry. It only means I've gone to visit my mother, or I've gone to an Al-Anon meeting.”

  Protecting

  Although protecting the ones you love sounds like a good idea, it may not be. Just like fixing and nagging, protecting can have both a positive and a negative effect. Sometimes by protecting people, you keep them from learning how to protect themselves.

  Consider the wife who repeatedly calls her husband's work to say he is sick. Every time she covers up for him, she supports his drinking. He gets to drink without facing any consequences. He does not have to drag himself in to work feeling lousy. He does not have to bear the discomfort of lying to his supervisor. He doesn't even have to awaken early to make the call. He does not have to suffer the repercussions of not showing up to work without having called in sick. All he has to do is continue drinking as much as he likes, comfortable that his wife will pay the piper. He gets a heck of a good deal.

  Science and experience both tell us that if the drinker is not required to take responsibility for the negative consequences of her drinking, unwanted behavior is not likely to change. Indeed, the typical course of events is for things to become progressively worse. If you want them to improve, if you really want to help your drinker, you must stop protecting him.

  People tell us so often that they buy liquor for their drinker in an effort to keep her home and safe. The rationale goes like this, “If I buy her favorite liquor, she'll come home to drink and won't be in a position to get in a car wreck or receive a DWI.” A variation on this is, “If I call in sick for him when he's hungover, he won't be as likely to get fired, and our life won't go down the tubes.” It sounds terribly reasonable, but is it?

  To begin with, buying liquor for a drinker is giving her permission to drink. If you give permission to drink at home, it is a short step to seeing that as permission to drink everywhere. Further, what happens if she comes home and drinks for an hour or two and then decides to go to a bar? Your efforts will have totally backfired. Although you feel as if you are protecting your drinker, this behavior actually fuels the problem.

  Instead of Protecting

  A more constructive way to “help” would be to make a list of nondrinking activities he enjoys, especially those that are difficult to do while drinking, and engage your loved one in one of those at the time he would normally drink. You might also consider stocking up on his favorite nonalcoholic beverages and first-choice foods to provide an alternative to liquor.

  Take the quiz below to see if you are a “protector.” Read each statement and in the space provided write down how many times you have done that action in the past six months. For instance, if you have brought liquor home three times during the past six months, place a 3 beside that action.

  Number

  of Times Protective Action

  ______ Picked up your drinker from a bar in the middle of the night

  ______ Called your drinker's boss to “explain” an absence

  ______ Paid an overdue bar bill to prevent the owner from taking action against your drinker

  ______ Made excuses to family members for your drinker's failure to show up at family get-togethers

  ______ Made excuses to friends for your drinker's failure to show up at planned get-togethers

  ______ Made excuses to family members for your drinker's behavior when he or she has gotten drunk and unpleasant

  ______ Made excuses to friends for your drinker's behavior when he or she has gotten drunk and unpleasant

  ______ Brought liquor home so your drinker would not go out to drink

  ______ Refused to make plans with family members because you did not want to risk exposing your drinker to them during a particularly bad period

  ______ Refused to make plans with friends because you did not want to risk exposing your drinker to them

  ______ Told stories about others who drink more than your drinker

  ______ Bailed your drinker out of jail

  ______ Helped your drinker look for items lost while drinking

  ______ Laundered his or her soiled clothing

  ______ Acted like a nurse when he or she was drunk

  ______ Nursed your drinker's alcohol-related injuries

  ______ Hid problems from family and children

  ______ Persuaded family members not to discuss the drinking problems

  ______ Been your drinker's alarm clock and made sure he or she got to work on time

  ______ Made specific foods to help mend a hangover

  ______ Told your drinker that his or her inappropriate behavior wasn't that bad

  ______ Consoled your drinker when he or she felt guilt or remorse

  ______ Downplayed the seriousness of your drinker's behavior

  ______ Cut back your own spending because your drinker spent too much on drinking

  Figure out your score by adding together all your answers. If you score more than zero, it is time for you to start pulling back and letting your drinker pay his or her own way. Any score more than zero tells us you are punishing yourself for your drin
ker's behavior—a losing strategy. You pay, and he or she learns it's okay. It is not okay!

  Out with the Old

  Now that you see how your old behaviors may actually have supported drinking, let's look at why past efforts to get your loved one to stop have failed. You don't want to dwell on failed attempts, but you do need to clear out the old to make room for the new. To do that, think about the strategies you have used over the years to get your drinker to quit. Stimulate your memory by looking at the examples below. Check off each strategy you have tried and add any that we have missed.

  Did you ever…

  ____ Ask him or her to stop drinking or to drink less?

  ____ Hide liquor or throw it out?

  ____ Give your drinker printed information on AA or other ways to stop drinking?

  ____ Encourage him or her to see a spiritual advisor?

  ____ Leave your drinker temporarily?

  ____ Hide his or her wallet, checkbook, or money?

  ____ Ask friends or employers to intervene?

  ____ Get drunk yourself, to show your drinker what it's like?

  ____ Threaten to get a divorce?

  ____ Threaten to take the children away?

  ____ Cover up for his or her mistakes caused by drinking and let your drinker feel guilty for it?

  ____ Avoid friends and family due to drinking problems and let your drinker feel guilty?

  ____ Have arguments over his or her drinking?

  ____ Let your drinker know he or she has lost your trust and respect?

  ____ Accuse your drinker of embarrassing you in public?

  ____ Call the police or 911 to stop his or her drinking?

  ____ Take on the job of searching the car and home for alcohol?

  ____ Reason with your drinker about the pros and cons of drinking?

  ____ Plead with your drinker to stop?

  ____ (Fill in other tactics you may have tried that we've missed here.)

  If you have repeatedly done any of these and your loved one is still drinking, it is a safe bet these strategies do not work. So review them, study them, and throw them away. Get rid of those failed strategies and replace them with something that will be more productive. What do you have to lose? If it doesn't work, you won't be any worse off than before you began, and our experience tells us that more than 75 percent of the people who use this strategy have results that satisfy them. There's no reason to think you won't too.

  In with the New

  All those unsatisfactory tactics you have used in the past are about to be replaced by powerful new techniques. The enjoyable activities you listed in chapter 6 will slowly but surely replace the negative ones, such as avoiding friends because of embarrassment and staying home to keep an eye on your drinker. The next three chapters (8, 9, and 10) give you the nuts and bolts to replace enabling behaviors with constructive ones.

  Action Summary

  Review your interactions with your drinker and look for what you might be doing that enables your drinker to continue drinking. Keep an eye out for fixing, nagging, and protecting.

  Recap

  Fixing the messes made by your loved one because of abuse only makes it that much easier for her to continue making the same mistakes over and over. Allowing her to experience the real-life consequences of her behavior is more likely to result in positive change.

  Rather than wasting your energy nagging and reminding your loved one about the negative consequences of drinking and drugging, calmly tell him how you feel about what is going on and then withdraw your attention.

  Sometimes by trying to protect someone, we actually hurt this person. Make sure that your efforts to keep your loved one safe are constructive, such as engaging her in enjoyable nondrinking activities, rather than destructive, such as keeping liquor in the house in an attempt to prevent her from driving while impaired.

  Kathy and Jim: Pay the Piper

  The concept of enabling blew Kathy out of the water when she first heard about it. “Do you mean I've been messing it up all these years?” she cried. “I was trying to help, not make it easier for him to drink!”

  Kathy soon calmed down and understood that she wasn't doing anything “bad.” She was merely doing what felt right to her, even though the results were not what she intended. But she was now committed to making effective, productive changes, and so she reviewed her typical responses to Jim's drinking and identified a number of enabling behaviors that she targeted for change.

  Although there were quite a number of things Kathy decided to change, the most important one to her was her habit of protecting Jim from disappointing the kids. In the past, whenever he would come home in one of “those” moods, Kathy would quickly find something for the children to do outside or in their rooms so they wouldn't see Daddy stumbling or slurring his words. She knew how important it was for Jim to be respected by his children and went to great lengths to keep him from looking bad in front of them. But no more.

  The next time Jim came stumbling into the house, Kathy did not hustle the kids out of sight. They saw Daddy stumble through the door and miss the closet bar when he went to hang up his coat. Jim tried to talk nice to the kids but his words came out slurred, and he saw the children pull back. They were frightened, and it showed. Jim tried again to ask them about their day, but the youngest girl started crying and ran to hide her face in Kathy's skirt. Jim just stood there for a moment. Then he said, “Shit,” and went into the bedroom. Kathy heard him shower and get into bed.

  Something changed that evening.

  chapter 8

  Problem Solving

  Richard and Louise

  Richard and Louise had been married for seven years when she started coming home from work every night and fixing herself a drink. “I need it to unwind,” she said. At first Richard didn't think much of it, but as time went on, Louise went from one to two or three drinks each evening and eventually got into the habit of skipping dinner, drinking all evening, and falling asleep in the recliner.

  Richard tried everything he knew of to make Louise cut down. He scolded her, making her feel guilty and useless. He pleaded with her, appealing to her sense of family duty. He raged at her, often threatening to leave her or throw her out on the street. Nothing worked.

  Finally, Richard decided to look at the old problem in a different light….

  Old Problems in a New Light

  As you travel the road of change, you face the challenge of figuring out new ways to handle situations you have handled a thousand times in the past—but in ways that did not work very well. The problem-solving strategy we teach is designed to help you design solutions that work. By following the steps outlined here, you will be able to generate a number of possible solutions and make the best decisions about which to use.

  Step 1: Define the Problem

  The key to problem solving is coming up with a really specific description of the problem. The more specifically and completely you can describe what needs to change, the easier it will be to change it. For example, when Richard vaguely described the problem he was having with Louise as “she drinks too much and ruins our time together,” he had a difficult time coming up with strategies for changing his situation. He tried talking to her, yelling at her, crying, ignoring the problem—but somehow he always felt like he was wearing scuba diving gear while skydiving. When he finally sat down and asked himself exactly what situations and behaviors made up her “drinking too much,” he was able to break the big mess he felt their life was into smaller, more manageable problems. In this case he could define the problem as Louise's pattern of responding to a stressful day at work by overdrinking. When Richard looked at it this way, he could see that her response to stress provided a good starting place for him. So he defined the problem as having to come up with a new way to lessen the effects of work stress and to help her unwind without drinking.

  Step 2: Brainstorm

  The best way to come up with new ideas is to turn off your internal editor. In ot
her words, make a list of every possible solution you can think of—regardless of whether it makes sense, is realistic, or is absolutely ridiculous. Richard's list of all the possible (realistic and ridiculous) ways he could help Louise unwind without overdrinking is shown below. As you can see, he was able to turn off that internal voice we call our editor; you know, the voice that says, “That's a dumb idea” or “It'll never work.” Once Richard had as long a list as he could think of, he moved on to Step 3.

  Richard's brainstorming list of possible ways

  to help Louise unwind

  Tell her to chill

  Offer her tea

  Get rid of the kids

  Rub her neck

  Rent her favorite movie

  Limit her to one drink

  Offer to fix dinner

  Draw her a bath

  Give her a massage

  Sing to her

  Dance with her

  Call her selfish

  Remind her everyone has rough days

  Plan a vacation

  Give her a shampoo

  Throw a tantrum