Whether or not the person(s) saying that to jboy were referring specifically to us family members, or not--------- this issue needs be talked about in terms of the family of the alcoholic.
This concept can easily----------and HAS easily------- be used, once again, to paint the family member into a no-win corner.
A.) DOES the family member 'feel responsible' for what he or she does? Does the alcoholic feel responsible for what he does?
1.) The still-drinking alcoholic seldom feels responsible for anything he or she does. As we say in the field of alcoholism, it is a "blame game" for the alcoholic......... he drinks because the Yankees won, he drinks because the Yankees lost, and he drinks because the Yankees did not play.
This blaming attitude creates its own ripple effects in the brains of the still-drinking alcoholic.
The family often gets blamed -- directly or indirectly ----- if the alcoholic is not pleased by just about anything in the world.
(And, often, too, the alcoholic likes us just about only when we agree with him that someone else he is angry at, at the moment, is at fault......THEN he 'loves us'.)
2.) The family member is often the 'mirror-opposite' of the alcoholic. WE take the blame.......EASILY.....SO EASILY.
When I am training counselors, I bring out a blackboard. And on the blackboard, write "This is the heart of the problem".
Underneath, draw a bell curve.
At one end of the bell-curve, is "The Disease".
And the sentence I write that describes the family disease, is "The alcoholic and the family member both tacitly agree that the family member is to blame."
At the other end of the bell-curve, I write, "This is the result of recovery for both the alcoholic and the family member".
And I put these sentences on the board to describe that ------- "The alcoholic consistently nurtures the family member--------and both the alcoholic and the family member enjoy this nurturing of the family by the alcoholic. The alcoholic consistenly enjoys the nurturing of the family member WITHOUT RESENTMENT. And the family member consistently enjoys the nurturing from the alcoholic WITHOUT GUILT ------------
OR WITHOUT FEAR OF LOSING THE ALCOHOLIC'S LOVE IF THE FAMILY MEMBER DOES NOT DO LOTS MORE FOR THE ALCOHOLIC TO KEEP HIM FEELING HE LOVES HER."
Why do I write that the family member 'CONSISTENTLY enjoys the nurturing without guilt or fear of losing his love'.
Because, usually at some point, after months'- long nurturing from others, we family members start to feel uneasy.
We start to feel that we must 'buy them lots of things' or 'do do do for them'.........or some such activities to 'keep them loving us'.
We very often do NOT admit to ourselves--------or anyone else--------that we feel that way.
Why? Because we get ashamed of feeling that way. For that feeling that we are expressing is unworthiness.
And we like to seem 'strong' to ourselves and others......so we find it very hard to say that or when we feel unworthy.
So-------We often bluster and say that we certainly do not feel unworthy!
But it is almost second-nature for us to give too much TO THE WRONG PEOPLE.
Other people-----------people who grew up in healthy families------ certainly buy people gifts.
******But when they encounter people who wind up spitting in their faces on a regular OR irregular basis------they do not try to cull their friendship or their love.
WE have learned, as children of abusers and/or alcoholics......that we must be responsible to make people who make us feel bad-------
feel good.
Yes, we are the mirror-opposite of the alcoholic.
When the alcoholic is unhappy, he blames others.
When we are unhappy because someone has punched us in the face------- we, at first, of course, say he is to blame because he punched us........ but then, we grab the responsiblity-------- EVEN THOUGH WE ARE NOT KNOWING WE ARE DOING IT ---------and we try to make that abuser not feel bad so that he will not emotionally hit us again.
****** THAT is how we take responsibility when WE are abused.........we take the responsibility FOR the abuse, IN OUR OWN HEADS, each time we take actions to try to please the person who just abused us.
We have learned, as little children who grew up in abusive or alcoholic homes, to take the responsibility for abuse heaped on us.
******We learned to try to make the abuser happy--------- so he or she wouldn't do it again.
Those who tell us that we need to take responsibility do NOT realize how very much we take responsibility.
It smacks VERY much like those who tell us that we are 'enablers'......that we 'volunteer for abuse'.
There are lots of ways that the sideways-blame is thrown on the family.
(IT SEEMS LIKE THOSE WHO WANT TO CONTINUALLY BLAME THE FAMILY, FIND IT NECESSARY TO TELL US MUCH MORE FREQUENTLY THAT WE NEED TO "SPEND MORE TIME ON OUR OWN ISSUES" THAN ON THE FACT THAT WE ARE LIVING WITH MANIAC ABUSERS. THOSE PERSONS APPARENTLY HAVE NEVER GONE TO ENOUGH A.A. MEETINGS SO THAT THEY COULD HEAR THE RECOVERING ALCOHOLICS SAY, OVER AND OVER, THAT ONCE THEY GOT THE TOXINS OUT OF THEIR BRAINS, AND BEHAVED CORRECTLY TOWARDS THEIR FAMILIES------- OVER 90% OF THE "PROBLEMS" IN THE HOMES JUST TOTALLY STOPPED.)
B.) What about the "spiritual axiom" that "whenever I am emotionally hurting, I must look inside"? (That is quoted in the A.A. Big Book in Step 10).
Yes, it is ultimately true that "whenever I am hurting, I must look inside"..... but it needs to be very clear that-----
1.) that does not mean that the alcoholic is not hurting us! I had a counseling client who called me, crying. Her alcoholic (drinking) was verbally vicious. She ran out to the garden, and sat on a bench and cried. He followed her and said, "You know, you need an Al-Anon meeting. You KNOW you are supposed to detach from anything I say!"
2.) Another person recounted to me that her newly-sober-in-A.A. guy told her, (when she yelled at him when he had sex with her best friend), that "she had better take her OWN inventory and stop looking to him to make her happy!"
Yes-------just writing this does make me angry for those women who were not only abused------but who's alcoholics knew just how to USE the spiritual program of A.A. and the spiritual principles of life, to FURTHER HURT someone they just abused.
If someone emotionally hurts me, then yes, I need to do something "inside myself' to try to lessen/end my emotional pain from that person's hurting me-----------BUT THAT DOES NOT AT ALL ABSOLVE THAT PERSON FROM THEIR GUILT.
MY NEED TO DEAL WITH MY OWN FEELINGS IS AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT ISSUE FROM THEIR GUILT.
C.) So-------- what about my need to change one's inner self's feelings after someone emotionally hurts you?
That's where learning how detachment........clinical detachment......works. That concept started many decades ago, in Al-Anon. That program is amazing at helping families of alcoholic in getting some emotional distance on the alcoholic's junk that comes out his mouth.
BUT IT DOES NOT ABSOLVE THE ALCOHOLIC FROM THE GUILT.
And the A.A. program KNOWS this.
That is why 'making amends to the family' is such a huge part of the A.A. program of recovery. .............. love, Toby
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