I just started this whole process and there is one thing that is really bugging me.  It's that a lot of what I have been reading and hearing so far focuses on what NOT to do.....  Don't nag, don't cry, don't scream, don't patronize, don't drink with them, don't count what they are drinking, don't...., don't....., don't.....  What I really could use are some suggestions on what TO do instead of what not to do.  I know you don't give advice in al-anon, but I see a lot of what not to do and then the focus is on negation.   I like to have positive choices, but I am still focusing on don't do this or don't do that......

When you tell me what not to do then that's where my focus is - for example....  Don't think about a purple elephant.  Do whatever you want, I don't care, just don't think about a purple elephant. 

Even for someone who is an alcoholic it's got to be hard if the only thing you hear is DON'T DRINK - then what they have in their mind is DRINK cause that's the last word they heard.  I can think of some suggestions for an alcoholic - like instead of drinking, you could play cards sober or go for a walk sober or read a book sober. 

But what about the family of an alcoholic, are there any suggestions on what TO do instead of what they already do that's not working.  A list of stuff that maybe we could look at and pick from when we are in the middle of a situation and all we can think of is what NOT to do and how not to do it then get stuck doing it cause all that's in our mind is what not to do and nothing else.

Maybe I am just confused right now and the answer will eventually come to me, but I am so stuck at what to do in the moment when he's drunk. And I am just praying that I will get some ideas so I don't go back to what I have been doing that is really destructive in so many ways.

By the way.... how many of you are picturing a purple elephant?  

Hello Mariposa , I know everything sounds confusing at first , to keep it simple just do the opposite to what u have always done, always remembering that what u were doing was not bringing about the changes u wanted. so u  really having nothing to loose here.  I was told I only had to know 2 things when to speak up or when to shut up !

That was keeping it really simple but was what I needed to hear, I had to learn that it's usless trying to reason with or talk to an A when drunk, always leads to an argument and I never win actually no one wins except this damn disease.

When I really needed to talk to the A , yo wait til they are sober keepit simple and stick to one topic only,talk about how ufeel about what is going on around you , use I words instead of you words.  Once u have told the A about how u feel , let it go no need to repeat it again , keep your expectations low and dont expect that it will change anything , except u will feel better when u speak up instead of keeping it all bottled up. Al-Anon is for me to make me feel better not to make him do anything.

If u just remember that nothing was working before u found this prog so why not try Al-Anons suggestions it has to work out different, dosen't it ??  

And always remember my fav ,  Say what u mean, Mean what u say, but don't be mean when u say it.

Ultimatums don't work, tears don't work , playing the victim dosen't work,nothing works because this is not your problem to fix. it's his.  Get your life back , let go of the obsession of your husb drinking so that u can live your life happy regardless of what  he does.  good luck

Louise

I love your post...good point...what to DO.  Actually, while this is probably not exactly what you are looking for, I thought of it because it is the Al-Anon "Do's and Don'ts" that were read at the beginning of the local meetings I first started out in.  Here they are:

DO:
 Forgive
 Be honest with yourself
 Be humble
 Take it easy - tension is harmful
 Play - find recreation and hobbies
 Keep on trying whenever you fail
 Learn the facts about Alcoholism
 Attend Al-Anon meetings often
 Pray

DON'T:
 Be self-righteous
 Try to dominate, nag, scold and complain
 Lose your temper
 Try to push anyone but yourself
 Keep bringing up the past
 Keep checking on the alcoholic
 Wallow in self-pity
 Make threats you don't intend to carry out
 Be over-protective
 Be a doormat

Love, Kis

Hi, well i am a do this person.. so there! lol For me when I find my A is drunk I will listen and talk until his disese really takes ovoer then I say ok I am going to go read a bit or go for a walk or say I have to feed now. I love my A very much and am not a negative person. The disease will do its best to drag you in. It does not like to be alone. For me I save myself and do not engage but keep busy doing my own thing, which is helping me. I don't usually talk to the A much if he is drunk. I always liken it to 'a wad of cancer talking yap yap yap. It means nothing to me. I want my real A back. Alanon takes time for everyone to learn like anything else. It is many skills we put together in a program that works for each of us individually. Some of us still love our A's. Some of us are just putting up with it becuz we cannot afford to leave, there are a million different people living with this disease a million different ways. What you said makes a lot of sense. When you keep on with alanon all your questions will be answered I promise. One thing is it will get easier as you find out you don't have to do anything for your A It is not your disease. It is not your problem. We cannot control the disease or our A. It is no different than us controlling a river. It cannot be done so why bother? We learn to just love the person, but allow them the dignity to take care of it themselves or not They feel so guilty and ashamed, they know what the disease does. They have to take care of themselves. The book,"Getting Them Sober" is the best. I am reading it again for the umpteenth time. I take one day at a time, I watch my breathing, drop my elbows to relieve my shoulders. Taking one day at a time for me is doing my best each day and not thinking about the future. I will pay what I can, do what I can and leave the rest. Depression is a big one for us. For me it is a grieving one. Just too many losses for me in the last few years. My A is living at his moms. I hate it. Leaves me alone. I hate that too. But doing my best. Take care of you. If A is acting out around family or where ever, it is not you. His disease is not doing anything to you. You cannot do anything to help. The only thing you can do is go on with your life. I hope this has helped some. please keep coming back. love,debilyn

 

Hi Mariposa,

I know exactly what you mean, when I was in college I learned that the brain has a lot of trouble processing negatives, so, when you tell a child "don't touch the stove" the brain processes "touch the stove" a lot better than the "don't" part.  It is a very complex theory, that the brain can process some words better than others and in different parts of the brain...

Anyway, that is why so many teachers focus on positive commands, rather than negatives, such as "use your indoor voice" rather than "don't yell indoors".

The adult brain is similare to the child's brain in many respects, such as the ackwardness in processing negatives as well.  So, as you see, I do relate to the crux of your question.

I too live with my alcoholic family member, and what I have found is that it is really impossible to have any sort of legitimate conversation with him, as many here have already stated.  He either wants to talk a lot to me, non-stop, more like listening to a monologue than a conversation, or he is very volitile, angry at the world, ready to engage me in an argument.

What I DO is treat him like I would any "mentally ill" or  "out of control" or "dangerous" person, in other words, with kid gloves.  I humor him as best I can, in things that are not legal or moral issues.  What I am talking about here is more like not correcting him if he says the sky is purple, I just let that comment pass. I don't comment, dicuss, or give my opinion on anything unless he directly asks me, then I try to keep it short and non-argumentative.  If he asks me if I agree that the sky is purple I might say that it can appear that color to some people, but don't tell him that he is drunk and seeing things. That is, if for some reason or another, I am forced to be in his presence, which I assure you I try to avoid when he is drinking. 

In the past he has successfully engaged me in an argument by baiting me with nonsense, that I felt obligated to correct, lest he say later that I "agreed" with him on something stupid.  However, I have discovered that he seldom remembers anything that he said while drunk and if he remembers, his memory is foggy and unreliable, so when I said I DID disagree with him (and I used to add that since I totally abstain from all central nervous system depressents my memory is not faulty, LOL) he just does not remember.   Since discovering al-anon I have learned much more effective and healthy ways to deal with alcoholics without such sarcasm, which is never effective, nor is it kind or healthy.  That is how I used to deal with him, however, in recent years I have learned to let 99.9% of his stupid drunken comments pass.  When he is giving one of his monologues and I know if I try to break away or do something else he will "lose it" and chase me to wherever I am going to scream at me at the top of his lungs spitting food out all over me, I just find a place to sit as far away from him in the room as possible, then I mentally plan work stuff, or my latest home imporvement project, since he is drunk, I appear to be listening intently, but my mind is far away... 

So, to make a long story short (too late now, LOL)

These are things I DO to deal with alcoholic husband:

1) Try to inobtrusively notice his pattern of drunkenness so I can plan ahead better to not be in vicinity.  I have even scheduled my work hours to coincide with his usual drinking patterns, or I might go shopping, often when I arrive home from work or shopping he is unconscious and easy to ignore.

2)  If contact with drunken husband is unavoidable, I begin to engage in an actvity which discourages him drawing me into his drunken reasonings, such as a phone call to a friend (make sure this is a very cheerful and light hearted conversation), reading a book (works GREAT), or washing dishes (we don't have a dishwasher so this works great too, it is hard to talk to someone facing sink running water), or taking a long hot bath, or washing my hair.  If he seems like he wants to talk to me, I do the dishes, or bath thing and tell him I am doing dishes to make house look nice for him, or I am bathing to look extra pretty for him, LOL.  Not an entire lie, but, a little stretch of the truth...drunks are easily flattered.

3)  If somehow he manages to engage me in direct conversation, since he wants someone to run his mouth too in his monolouges, I resist all temptation to act as though this is a normal conversation, even though it often seems like one at first.  I remind myself that he is not in his right mind and how quickly he can take an innocent comment like "yes, your right, it looks like it is going to rain" into a screaming raging hissy fit that I am "hinting" that he should cut the grass rather than get off my lazy butt and do it myself...you get the point.  You simply cannot talk to someone who is drunk, no matter how jovial they appear at first.  I keep my mouth shut as much as possible, unless he asks me direct questions, than I try to make my comments as harmless as possible, like agree with him if I can, UNTIL I can get away to one of the above activities.

In other words, act like a politician around a drunk, LOL, I have actually gotten to be pretty good at this, I should run for office, LOL.

Seriously, I hope this helps you and my heart goes out to you.  I have learned after many many many years of heartache to use humor to deal with the pain as much as I can, but I  know that living with a raging alcoholic is no laughing matter.   Try to plan ahead as much as you can.

Isabela40 

 

 

Hi & thanks everyone for your responses!

Isabela, you hit the nail on the head with the negation brain connection thing.  That's exactly what I was getting at as I have studied it, too.  It's a total paradigm shift to go from don'ts to do's and I try to use it as much as I can.  If you tell someone what TO do and give choices it's easier for our brains to figure it out and actually DO what we need to.  I got it from the talking to children thing because before a certain age negation is a totally foreign concept and like you said even as an adult it's harder to make the connection.  Especially when you are in a crisis because your brain goes back to the reptilian brain and we are really thinking with our brain stem and not the full cerebral cortex like a rational calm person.  In those heated moments we can't function rationally because we are not using our whole brains and concepts like negation are too complex.  When it's heated 'fight or flight' is basically where we (I) get stuck. It's the whole brain theory thing that you were referring to. That's why I wanted to get tools to actually DO and be prepared for them whenever I get pushed back to that part of my brain. (I hope that makes sense to everyone...) 

Louise, I think I am going to make a print that Say What You Mean slogan (is that a slogan?) out.  It makes a lot of sense - maybe it will be a good mantra to say to myself before I open my mouth next time!!  I really appreciate that!

Debilyn, I just looked for that book and there seem to be a lot of editions - which one do you have?

Richard, right now goodbye is not the option I am going for.  I said goodbye before, but ended up coming back.  If and when I leave again it's going to be for good and I want to make sure I am totally ready to do that and not do anything without a good plan the way I did before. So, I am going to try to do something for myself here and if it doesn't work I will say goodbye with a good plan.

Kismetstrand, Thanks for the Do's and Don'ts.  I like the do's and I think I am going to try to reword the don'ts (just for myself) into Do's so I can focus on what to do.  Cause what I have been thinking lately is just don't nag, don't holler - but for me that leaves me without what to do (it probably is fine for some people, but I need to get the do's to stick in my mind.  (I hope that makes sense!!) :grin:

Mariposa,

     Great share, I can so relate at many times.  I agree so much with what everyone is telling you.  It is so hard to be told no and in essense thats what is happening when someone tells you don't.  I equate being told don't with telling my 6 year old, remember don't touch that, sure enough now thats all he can think about until he touches it.

     A counselor made a very good point to me, I brought up this exact oint and said I keep telling myself I won't do that anymore and two minutes later there I am doing it again.  My counselor suggested that I stop saying I won't do that anymore and replace it with I will.  For example instead of "I won't yell at him anymore"  say " I will control my temper and remain calm when I am angry with him."  It sound way to easy but I found that this positive approach helps, I'm stubborn and I don't like to be told what not to do.  So it helps to tell myself what I can do.

     I also find it very frustrating with the don't talk to them when they are drunk thing because seemed like the only time he wasn't under the influence was in the morning when I don't have time to stop and try to talk about my feelings.  Sometimes I do talk to him even if he is drunk and then I drop it hoping he will remeber some of it.

    I hope this helps, I know that it can be a frustrating process, but do your best to find things that work for you, the most important thing is to find what makes your life happier.

Love Ya,

Holly

I really felt that way when I first started with alanon - I was looking for some solutions, and nothing said really seemed to make practical sense. Now I realize that I was trying to find 'fixes', adn was still focusing most of my energy on the A. When I stopped thinking so much about him, and started thinking about myself, things fell into place better. So, here's my list of DO's Do what you want, whether or not the A likes it - it's not like he will be happy with you if you only do things he likes, anyway. Do your venting to someone else, not the A, he's heard it before, and doesn't listen anyway. Do search for the things that lift your spirit and give you joy, and pursue them Do let yourself enjoy him when he is being nice - 'punishing' him only punishes you, too. Do open up your life, meet new people, try new things Do take care of yourself - eat right, excercise, get your sleep Do find out what you can about the disease, it will give you some perspective