An Alcoholic in the Family

“Alcoholism includes alcoholics . . . While there may be only one alcoholic in a family, the whole family suffers from the alcoholism.”​—Dr. Vernon E. Johnson.

FIVE-​YEAR-​OLD Alice lay in bed, her leg throbbing with pain. An injury sustained two days earlier required that she wear a full leg cast. But the cast was put on too tightly, and her leg was swelling under the pressure. Alice begged her parents to take her to the doctor, but her father was suffering from a hangover, and her mother was torn between them, uncertain about who needed attention most.

Within several days, Alice’s leg went numb. When a dark liquid began dripping from her toe, Alice’s parents finally rushed her to the hospital. When the cast was removed, the sight of the leg caused one nurse to faint. Gangrene made it necessary for Alice’s leg to be amputated.

Alcoholism and Codependency

The tragedy of this incident goes far beyond the loss of a limb. Alice’s father was an alcoholic. As such, he was emotionally and physically unavailable when his daughter desperately needed him. “The nature of alcoholism demands that the alcoholic place his family last​—after alcohol and all its demands,” says counselor Toby Rice Drews.

What about Alice’s mother? She too had a dependency, not on alcohol, but on her alcoholic husband. Typically, the nonalcoholic spouse is totally consumed by efforts to stop the alcoholic’s drinking or at least to cope with his unpredictable behavior.a She becomes so caught up in the alcoholic’s problem that she manifests the same dependency traits​—but without the alcohol. For this reason, people like Alice’s mother are often called codependents.

Both the alcoholic and the codependent are unwittingly controlled by something or someone outside of themselves. Both are blinded by denial. Both are emotionally unavailable for their children. Both are caught up in a life of frustration, for just as the alcoholic cannot control his drinking, the codependent cannot control the alcoholic, and neither one of them can control the impact that alcoholism will have on their children.

But there is help for the alcoholic and his family. This will be considered in the following articles.

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