This
is the time for holiday cheer and family memories and Norman
Rockwell-esque Christmas scenes with smiling families gathered around
a tree or a fire. Hopefully, not both. The reality for families of
the 20 million adults in the U.S. challenged by addiction to alcohol
or other drugs is more like the beginning of the Grinch tale, than
the end. (Watch the YouTube video or see the online article)
Holidays
are a stressful time in addition to being a time of joy. Alcoholics
and non-alcoholics alike drink to ease stress. The alcoholic can't
stop at one. Or six. Or on his own. And how many times, after a
tear-filled holiday or blacked-out Christmas on the couch has the
drinker vowed: Next holiday
will be better, I promise? It's part of the way we alcoholics
protect our drug. We shove the quit date off to buy one more day or
week or season. We make promises. And sometimes it isn't even that
we mean to break them. An alcohol abuser can quit but won't… an
alcoholic wants to quit but can't. Not on his own anyway.
They
quit with help. A family intervention is one way to get that help.
Two
questions come up: First… Is it Grinchlike to confront the issue
during the holiday? (And it's the alcohol, not the person, that's
the issue.) Second… can't
it wait til the New Year?
First,
it's not cruel. On the contrary. It may be the best gift you ever
give the person with the disease and the family around him or her.
Inside every person sick with this disease is a trembling, sorry, sad
person dying to feel well again. Invite him or her out onto the path
to recovery. Professional interventionists are especially
well-trained to do this with compassion and understanding.
Second,
There's
no better time than the present is the antiquated saying. In the
case of the disease of alcoholism, there's no worse time than waiting
for tomorrow, or the New Year. You
wouldn't imagine postponing treatment for a chronic, fatal,
progressive disease like cancer. Why postpone it for a chronic,
fatal, progressive disease like alcoholism? If the worry is that it
wouldn't be the holiday without that person near, what have the past
few holidays told you about that… and what if there isn't a next
holiday?
No comments:
Post a Comment