By Catherine H. Knott, Ph.D.

K. is the principal and head teacher of a small charter school. She is fiercely protective both of her school and the children in it. She is creative, dedicated, and a gifted teacher and artist. She is also alcoholic. Her gifts to her community are many; and she tamed the worst of the monster years ago. But it still crouches within, ready to spring on her when her stress levels get beyond what she can manage. She said with a sigh, not so long ago, “I’m drinking too much again. I know I am. I’ve got to stop.”

Her alcoholism was compounded early on by other forms of substance abuse: marijuana, cocaine, and other drugs. Partying was perhaps one of the few forms of recreation available in the remote rural area where she lives, which was even more isolated when she first moved there. A group of neighbors got together frequently for poker and pot, drinking, and experimenting with other drugs. She’s given that up now.

But like so many people who drink and abuse drugs, she had grown up in a household where a parent abused alcohol. She admits she has many of the traits of an adult child of an alcoholic. She’s a perfectionist, controlling, and afraid when she can’t be in control. She typically has a hard time delegating, wanting always to make sure that everything is done right, because she grew up in a home where many things were not done right at all. One of those things was the way she was raised. Her father created a reign of terror when she was a young girl, even holding her head under water and threatening to drown her. That behavior is now considered torture. He trespassed against the boundaries of her body through unsafe behaviors and harsh discipline; he trespassed against the boundaries of her heart through a lack of caring expressed in appropriate, safe, and responsible ways.

She escaped that life, took her first child and moved as far away from her family of origin as she could. With hard work and a fierce ability to survive rugged conditions in a remote area, she bought land and made a new life for herself. But she couldn’t leave all her early, unspoken sorrows behind.

As a result, K. has emerged as a strong leader, with a damaged heart. She is strong – she survived that childhood, after all – and she has been able to grow her school and nurture many of her students through her zeal and dedication to her work. But in certain areas of her life – those closest to home, her behavior sometimes verges on the bizarre as she aggressively protects the outer boundaries of her life – the road that leads to her house, and her property. She kicked a man so badly during a dispute over the road next to her property that another neighbor had to take him to the hospital. She has cut down neighbors’ fences, trees, and once, a whole line of beautiful spruce on a neighbor’s property without asking permission, because of an argument about where the road was placed. Her neighbors get angry but are afraid to confront her because of the rages she gets in during stressful times when she returns to the bottle. At the same time, they recognize her contributions to the community, and don’t want to diminish her work. “We stay away from her when she is under stress”.

These behaviors, and her infrequent rages, could undo all the good work she has done for the community, and could threaten to undo her own happiness and satisfaction.

K. is a step farther on the road to recovery than many alcoholics. She recognizes it, admits it, and seeks treatment sporadically. But she obviously needs more; she needs time to repair the broken boundaries of her heart, the places where trespass occurred and was never mended. Otherwise she will continue to try to fix those boundaries by projecting her fears and hurts outward, onto property boundaries and dirt roads whose defense will never mend her heart. Someone needs to listen to her hurts, and listen a lot. Perhaps a whole community needs to listen, and hear the unspoken sorrows of that child still within her. She needs more consistent help managing her stress levels, and she needs coaching to learn to give up some control and delegate the work overload that creates more stress in her life. She needs people to respect her boundaries, but also to be firm with her about their own boundaries, especially when she acts in ways that transgress society’s civil code of behavior. With a blend of firmness and support, her community can help her to continue to contribute, while learning to share and let go of the hurts that have persisted inside her. Then she can stop fighting shadows she fears will encroach upon her outward boundaries again, and put her energy back into the good work that she does for the children of her community.

REFERENCES:

Benton, Sarah Allen. 2009. Understanding the High-Functioning Alcoholic: Professional Views and Personal Insights. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Publications.

Colleran, Carol, and Debra Jay. 2002. Aging and Addiction: Helping the Older Adult Overcome Alcohol or Medication Dependence. Center City, Minnesota: Hazelton.

Khantzian, Edward J. and Mark J. Albanese. 2008. Understanding Addiction as Self-Medication: Finding Hope Behind the Pain. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, Publishers, Inc.

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.

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin published a new autobiography, “Magnificent Desolation,”  in which he details his battle with depression and alcoholism.  After going to the moon Aldrin was commandent of the test pilot school for a year. He became depressed and sought medical treatment, which included a month of hospitalization.

Aldrin explains that while the military’s discipline and commitments kept him on track, once he no longer had those commitments and started to make unwise decisions.

“I inherited those tendencies for alcoholism from both of my parents, for depression – mostly from my mother’s side,” he told Lauer. “She committed suicide a year before I went to the moon.”

Aldrin recently celebrated his 30th year of sobriety.