Ways of Coping With an Alcoholic in a Loving Manner

At times it seems hopeless when coping with an addict. An alcoholic can turn our lives upside down if we allow them to. It's important for us to learn how to detach, but to also be able to detach with love. It is equally important to know how to set boundaries to protect ourselves from the negative effects the problem drinker can have on our lives. Finding a healthy balance between loving the alcoholic and hating the addiction takes time.

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When coping with dysfunctional situations we can easily find ourselves loosing control of our emotions, thoughts and the words that come out of our mouths. I want to specifically focus on how we can better control what we say to the problem drinker. It's OK to have a bad thought, but when we react by saying things that are mean and degrading, then we have to deal with a flood of negative emotions.

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There is a three step process that works really well when an alcoholic does or says something to get me upset. Here's what I do. I shut up, step back and smile. After doing all three, I then take a moment to analyze if what I have to say should even leave the lips of my mouth.

The way I determine if I should respond to the thought that I am having is I run it through a filter that works like this. I ask myself three questions. Is what I have to say necessary, is it kind or is it true? If the thought doesn't pass the test, then it never leaves my lips.

If we truly want to love an alcoholic, this is one of the most effective ways of coping with the difficult things they say to us. By not blasting them out of the water with a flood of anger, three things will happen. We will argue less, experience less guilt and not have to cope with feelings of shame because of something awful we said.

Now these tips need to be integrated with understanding that an alcoholic is really very ill with an addiction. They would not normally act or do many of the offensive things that they do if they were not wrapped up in their daily habit of getting blasted. If we can learn to have compassion on the person and hate the addiction rather than the addict, then we stand a chance of coping with an alcoholic in a loving manner.

Now, I am not saying in any way that we should just accept everything they say or do because they are ill. We still need to incorporate boundaries to protect ourselves from the destructive things they say and do. Here's the key though, we need to learn how to set boundaries in a loving way. As we learn how to have more control over the things we say, we can then say what we mean to the alcoholic without saying it in a mean way.

Coping with an alcoholic in a loving way is something that takes time to master. We have to learn how to do this from people who actively use methods that work. What I have shared with you is only a drop in the bucket compared to all that I know on this subject. It has taken me many years and several thousand support group meetings to learn how to effectively cope with an alcoholic in a loving way.

Ways of Coping With an Alcoholic in a Loving Manner

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Loving Your Alcoholic Wife

If anyone knows what it's like to live with an alcoholic wife it would be my husband, who for several years, battled with my addiction with me. That's right, he battled alcoholism with me. Because I have been sober for fifteen years I can write about addiction with confidence. Alcoholism is a family affair and without knowing how to handle addiction, being married to an alcoholic is an ongoing battle. It does not matter who is the alcoholic, wife or husband - what matters is how you handle the affects. If your wife is an alcoholic there is great hope in her recovery by how you manage the addiction.

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Through Al-Anon my husband finally learned how to stop enabling me and to move on with his life. "Moving on" with his own life does not mean that he left me, but that he learned to detach from my emotional outbursts brought on by alcoholism. We still lived in the same home, its just now my husband was not allowing my verbal abuse to affect him. It is not the end of your marriage because your wife is an alcoholic; it is through your strength to overcome the insidiousness of addiction that may bring the beginning of a new life for your wife and yourself.

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It wasn't always easy for my husband, but for him just having the ability to understand that my condition was not a reflection of him but a reflection of my own inner problems that needed healing, made a big difference in his attitude towards my addiction. What I'm saying is even though your wife may blame you for her drinking, you don't have to believe that nonsense. Anything that comes out of a drinking alcoholics mouth is devoid of making much sense.

The alcoholic will always need to find someone to blame and you happen to be living with her. If she lived with her aunt she would probably blame her aunt. Alcoholics are good at trying to find someone or something to blame for their behavior. That's because anytime they can find justification for their drunken behavior they will certainly jump on the chance to validate in their mind that it's all your fault. When she blames you, simply ignore it, don't fuss or fight with her because that makes you look like the one with the problem, and not her.

Your wife's emotional problems do not have to be your emotional problems. Be of support and encouragement to her when she is NOT drinking but do not enable her negative emotions and verbal spurts of abuse. Distance yourself from her mentally, emotionally, and spiritually by telling yourself that your wife is sick and needs healing. By walking away you don't take the emotional abuse. Tell yourself over and over again that by not arguing, blaming, yelling, fighting, and being verbally abusive back at your wife you are actually helping your wife to look at her drinking as a problem.

When a husband carries the burden of the negative emotions of his wife, the addiction will suck him in with it, and he will become just as emotionally and mentally sick as his wife. The more you allow the addiction to overshadow your own thought processes, the least likely your wife will get better or want to get better. A spouse can either be a detriment to the alcoholic or advantageous - it's all up to how you handle the alcoholic.

A husband may love his wife with all of his heart and feel it is his responsibility to help her, and that is mostly very true, but it's not a husband's duty to help his wife to kill herself by enabling and rescuing her addictive behaviors - there is a huge difference here. He should not enable her antic behaviors or console her emotional impulses. It is a husband's job to love and care for his wife, even when she is sick, but it is not his job to allow his wife to drain him of his own life in the process.

A husband must learn to detach with love before the addiction strangles him too! This is the only way he will be helping his wife to come to grips with her addiction and seek the inner healing she needs. A husband surely does not have to feed into his wife's guilt trips - remember she will blame you for her problems. Be assertive about your feelings and let her know that you love her but not the addiction. Tell her you will not help her to kill herself. That means don't give her money to buy alcohol with. Don't drive her anywhere, even if she pleads with you. Do not carry her to bed, even if she passes out on the living room floor - leave her where she passes out.

Don't allow emotional abuse to control what you do, or how you feel. If your wife feels like arguing, blaming, or screaming, simply walk away, or if that doesn't work, take the children out for ice cream. Don't stand around taking the abuse, do something about it, for your and the children's sake. The more garbage you take in by the alcoholic the more you will begin to believe and even behave like the alcoholic.

Do let your wife know that you are praying for her to seek the healing she needs. Do let her know that you love her but you don't love what the addiction does to her. You can love your alcoholic wife when you separate the addiction from her. God did not create alcoholics - alcoholics chose addiction. Do let your wife know that you appreciate her and need her but also let her know that you will not help her to abuse her body and mind. Do let your wife know that when she is ready to get the help she needs you will be there to support her every step of the way.

Loving Your Alcoholic Wife

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