I know I wrote about it before, but there’s so much to say on this one. There’s nothing like the alcoholic family that happens to be fun. How often do you hear about that?

The Set Up

It’s not uncommon for a therapist to find couples marrying people from families very different from their own. I tend to like treating these couples, especially when one of the partners is an alcoholic who has married a sober person precisely because he or she knows that sober is better, that this sober person is “good” for him.

(We’ll use “he” – could just as well have used “she.” And we can talk about the likelihood that the sober partner might still be from an alcoholic family another time.)

It feels like a step up to marry better. We usually know if our families are alcoholic. Alcohol is all over the place, in the crevices of every communication, and we know that having had an alcoholic parent is an indicator of neglect, sometimes abuse.

A person can’t be drunk all the time and still manage to get everything done, not always in good temper, for sure. Alcoholic folks get hung over, often, although they may try to hide it. In the most dysfunctional, if the bill collectors aren’t calling, it’s the school, wondering why Mommy or Daddy never signed the field trip permission form.

Simple as that is, I call it neglect.

But even if you know your family is incredibly dysfunctional, perhaps drinks at every opportunity, a child still might find this group of irresponsible individuals fun.

You might even love to drink with them, come to think of it. In the fun family maybe you’re one of the clowns. Maybe the only clown, or the best clown. In some alcoholic families there’s competition to see who can be the funniest person in the room. Damn the expense of those who happen to be the brunt of the jokes.

But there’s a huge seduction to be with them, and to drink with them. This still holds true even if you’ve married a sober partner and that person doesn’t fit in, indeed, hates to see everyone sloshed. No matter, the seduction is too strong to fight being with the fun fam. A sober partner will lose almost every time.

Then she (not that it can’t be a “he”) will come to me and say, GET ME OUT OF HERE! I’VE HAD IT!

You see, we’ve given him chances in this therapy, waited and watched as he’s failed each time. But this is the last straw, the proverbial bottom. (I allow six whole months). Perhaps this time he’s been behind the wheel of a car, loaded with booze, or maybe he never came home, or maybe he vomited or peed all over the new carpet, new, you see, because it has been replaced for obvious reasons.

Now what?

She’s there in my office and I’m supposed to get her out of it and yet, I know she doesn’t want to find someone new, she loves him, and he really wants her, too, and deep down inside he wants some semblance of a normal life. For this is why he married her.

Deliberately I’ve left him out of this conversation, this visit. With her alone I pitch Al Anon or Families Anonymous. And she sees me write the email pitch to him to go to Alcoholics Anonymous. It’s a good pitch, I’m not gonna’ lie.

I pitch it nicely to him, and the script is the same.

She’s leaving you, dear, she wants out. You say you want a better life. Now’s the time to go for it. It’s AA or the highway.*

There’s more, but that’s the gist.

And you know what?

He always goes. And she does, too.

therapydoc

*You can read a stronger post about the difficulty coping with an addicted spouse at my other blog, Everyone Needs Therapy It’s called: Relationships and Recovery. An oldie, but totally worth the trip.