Living With An Alcoholic
Living with an alcoholic can be quite a nightmare. As the spouse, child or parent of an alcoholic, you have no choice but to endure both fear and pain. Living under the same roof as an alcoholic is one of the hardest things to do in life, since you constantly have to cope with lies and manipulation, all for the sake of that next drink!
An alcoholic’s true love is reserved only for the bottle, and he or she will leave no stones unturned to get themselves what they want. Hopefully, a set of firm boundaries, luck and plenty of help from God can change all that and get the alcoholic in your family on the road to recovery.
The biggest lie that alcoholics tell themselves and their loved ones is, “I do not have a problem”. They would claim that they have not been drinking, but their lies come unmasked when they get involved in an accident, get arrested or simply make a nuisance of themselves.
These incidents are then followed by another set of lies, with empty promises of cutting back or quitting completely. Of course none of these things really happen and soon you realize that you and your family are caught in a vicious cycle with no solution in sight.
The reason why you choose to believe an alcoholic’s lies is because you love him or her, and cannot bear to see them falling apart at the seams. The love and concern makes you cover up for them, like calling in at their place of work with excuses, or bailing them out of jail repeatedly. Unfortunately this must stop if you really want to see your alcoholic make progress.
Stop making excuses for him or her, and tell the person in no uncertain terms that unless they make good of their promises to you, there will be no more support from the family. Sounds like a ruthless thing to do, but that is the only way you can get your alcoholic to realize the consequences of his or her actions, provided all other methods like interventions have yielded no tangible results.
Withholding the love and support that came so easily from you is the only way to make the alcoholic understand the extent of damage being caused to the entire family. If he or she still chooses the bottle over family and friends, at least you would know that you had made every effort to make living with an alcoholic work till you could.