Patrick is 44 years old, with no home, family, car, job, or possessions. He lays claim to being an artist, and does carry a box of paints and other art supplies for creating paintings. His art is intriguing, but there is something missing. Looking at the colorful swirling lines, one realizes that Patrick’s art lacks the same thing his life lacks – directive force and definition. His philosophy of non-materialism and anarchistic freedom can seem charming, until one realizes that he has spent a good part of his adult life living off others, a few months at a time. He boasts, “I’ve never paid a month’s rent in my life. . . . Well,” he hesitates, “maybe three months when I was just starting out.”
Patrick started out as a bartender and later a chef. Having those sorts of jobs, being a host, just naturally leads to drinking a lot of alcohol; he told a group of friends. “You can always sneak a couple drinks when no one is looking and it actually kind of helps with the job – being a little loosened up.” Later work as a chef and work on yachts led to more drinking, and it is clear, though he doesn’t like to admit it, that alcohol has had a hold on Patrick for a long time. He drinks less now than he used to, he says. “Less” is about a dozen beers a day, maybe with a little hard liquor as a supplement some days.
Every so often he gets roaring drunk, and the Patrick that emerges then is angry and out of control. Newfound friends distance themselves from him, and frequently, he ends up moving on.
He is part of a music group playing all electronic music, but it isn’t clear what his musical role is – he seems to be more involved in getting gigs for his group – gigs that don’t really pay, but allow them to sell a few CD’s. The other members of the group are ages 19 and 20. They are currently all camping out at a friend’s house, clothes and music al equipment strewn over the living room, but are late on the electric bill, and haven’t paid the car insurance, because they are busy trying hard to earn enough money to pay for tickets to the next big party. The owner of the house is about ready to make them move out.
Patrick has been able to charm his way into different homes and living situations, including a couple of wives, for months at a time, because he is a good cook, and he is good at friendliness. He seems quite able to accept criticism, but just as easily ignores it. The secret to his ability to manipulate people into supporting him is to appear agreeable and amenable, and to list his prior jobs and skills as soon as he meets people, as charmingly as if he were telling a story. Unfortunately for the people he takes advantage of, it is rather a story. But alcoholism is not really a moral failing, as much as a disease, which in some cases can become a disease of the soul. Patrick’s mother was alcoholic, too, and in some ways Patrick has inherited both the disease and his lifestyle, including the way he relates to others, from her. She, in turn, was terribly abused and neglected as a child, according to Patrick.
Patrick’s disease has one critical underpinning that permits it to go on, and allows others to succumb to his manipulation, which in the end only enables him to stay sick. That is his ability to tell his friends that he loves them and cares for them. Yet listening to Patrick as an outsider to the situation, it quickly becomes clear that for him, love is a fuzzy saying, with little real meaning as action.
But love is more than a sensation, more than just partying together. Love is a verb, meaning, “To act in the best interests of one’s friend (or spouse, or child)”. Patrick needs to understand this soon, or he will have fewer and fewer friends. And those friends around him need to act on this understanding of love now, to help him heal before his whole life has run out, in a lonely swirl of color and drink.
Recently, someone suggested he get some souvenirs from his latest travels. “Who would I send them to?” he parried. “Nobody really loves me.”
In a sense, then, he knows he needs to change, but he doesn’t know how. Programs for treating alcoholism help people like Patrick to change, and to understand how to mend their relationships. But some of the hardest cases may be those who, resisting confrontation with their friends and family, simply move on. In some cases, like Patrick, they may be just one charming smile away from being homeless, and miles from the treatment that they need.
REFERENCES:
Orford, Jim, et al. 2005. Coping with Alcohol and Drug Problems: The Experiences of Family Members in Three Contrasting Cultures . New York: Routledge.
Urschel, Harold C. III, M.D. 2009. Healing the Addicted Brain. Napierville, Illinois: Sourcebooks, Inc.
Article by By Catherine H. Knott, Ph.D.
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