The Alcoholic’s Problems

The Alcoholic’s Family Problems

The Alcoholic’s Problems

Living with an alcoholic is to tread on thorns.  It is difficult for an alcoholic to maintain a normal pattern of life.  The life which many alcoholics, who persists in drinking, lead is often a “fate worse than death.”  It is a life devoid of real happiness.

Among other things, excessive drinking frequently relaxes the customary self-control exercised in matters pertaining to sex.  Alcohol frequently removes the barriers which normally check one’s inclination to over-indulgence in sex.  It brings about aberrations in sex.

In the words of Dr. Ruth Fox, Medical Director of the National Council on Alcoholism: “The incidence of homosexuality, philandering and impotence among alcoholics is much higher than the general population.  Their divorce rate is four times higher.”

Alcohol affects the whole spectrum of sex relations, in the physical as well as in the emotional sense.  Drinking disturbances are very frequently entwined with sexual disturbances.  One reinforces the other.  When Doctors or Counsellers help the alcoholic discover the basic cause of his drinking, they often find it rooted in sexual inadequacies.

In many instances a husband’s drinking is tiggered by a lack of sexual compatibility with his wife.  As he drinks more, the relationship deteriorates further.  She becomes disgusted with his sloppiness.  She may pity him, but she cannot respond to him.

He feels guilty.  But rather than facing his inability, he accuses her of unfaithfulness.  She may be driven to extramarital affairs.  She may be pious and guard her chastity but the alcoholic husband suspects her.  He becomes inimical and hostile.  This results in greater impotency that drives him to more drinking.  The cycle is vicious and endless.

The man who turns to alcohol for a solution to his problems is often fixed in the preadolescent stage of sex gratification.  He may be a dependant personality and may have married a woman who could support his contribution to the sexual problem.  But the alcoholic cannot tolerate frustration.  Such characteristics make for poor sexual performance.  The resulting loss of self-esteem is assuaged by drinking.

A female too may have sexual troubles at the root of her drinking problem.  She may have started drinking in order to lose her fear of men or to feel more relaxed.  She may need a drink to be less sexually inhibited so as to attract men.  She too lacks in self-esteem and in a mature ability to relate to the other sex.

In extreme cases such type of man or woman, besides trying to solve sexual identity problems through drinking, may try to escape them through homosexuality or perversion.  

Alcoholism can and does contribute to juvenile delinquency, divorce and anxiety.  Family troubles complicate the problems of the alcoholic, such as:

1.                  Economic: As a rule, the father is the breadwinner.  If he is an alcoholic, he may lose his job and jeopardize the security of his family.  When the wife is an alcoholic, she will continue no care for the maintenance of her home.  She would spend food-money for alcohol and lose interest in her appearance.  She would be an embarrassment to her husband.

2.                  Social Life: Non-alcoholic partners face grim situation at times.  They become increasingly reluctant to entertain in their homes or to accept invitations abroad.  The non-participation of these individuals and their alcoholic mates, could create an unpleasant situation.  In the end they would isolate themselves, or have the company of heavy drinkers.  So, the problem worsens.

Children: It is difficult for the non-alcoholic parents to be both mother and father.  If the husband is the alcoholic, the wife must find a way to earn a living.  Earning a living may be easier for a non-alcoholic father, but he will encounter all sorts of problems to run the house.  For example, his children may be reluctant to bring their friends home because they know “Mother is there and would not like their presence in the home.”  As they grow older they may become resentful.  They will deliberately stay out very late.  Children who come from a home where there is an alcoholic parent, often react so strongly to alcohol that they become rigid in their disapproval of it.  When they become adults in their own homes, this rigidity is evidenced by not drinking, serving, buying or permitting their children to drink.  This attitude may set the stage for another generation of alcoholics.  On the other hand, they may imitate and adopt the alcoholic parent’s method of coping with tension, anxiety and the problems of living.