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We will now look at the role of the spouse as the enabler of the continuation of the illness and the usual attitudes and feelings which determine the type of role being played. The importance of this is that in order for the spouse to be able to confront the alcoholic constructively, she has to understand how she feels about the alcoholic, how these feelings developed and how, through knowledge and understanding, to change her attitude. She will then be in a position to confront the alcoholic.

ROLE OF THE SPOUSE AS ENABLER
As the alcoholic's lifestyle deteriorates and his social functioning becomes more and more unpredictable, friends and acquaintances begin to avoid him. Those closer to him often confront him with their scorn, anger and disgust. As a result of this, the alcoholic becomes defensive, isolated and withdrawn.

The spouse, aware of what is happening, reacts by taking on new roles. As the problem worsens, her behavior may form a defense that prevents both of them from seeing the reality of the situation.

THE PROTECTOR
In the initial stages, when the heavy drinking spells are infrequent, she begins to unconsciously assume a lifestyle, which causes her to adopt the defensive attitude of the "protector". This results in her taking on responsibilities such as:

1. making apologies to family and friends for her husband's antisocial behavior when he is drinking;
2. Calling the employer to make excuses for his tardiness or absences which are alcohol-related;
3. Supporting his various rationalizations propounded for his abnormal drinking.

Each time she is forced to accepted one of these new responsibilities, her own self-image is lowered while her defenses rise to hide reality from her. She begins to use rationalization and repression as defenses, for instance: "It really is the flu, not the drinking", "Last night wasn't really all that bad". Her defenses, therefore, like those of the alcoholic, form a wall of self-deception that allows the illness to continue unabated.

It is important to see how defenses begin to take control of her life. As the alcoholic's drinking increases so too his projections. The spouse becomes the recipient of an increasing number of statements such as

• "Those kids would drive any man to drink. You should control them better."
• "If you didn't nag, then I wouldn't drink so much."
• "If you were more of a woman, I wouldn't need to drink so much."
• "When I am in this house there is never a moments peace, that why I go to bar so often"

In this way, the alcoholic unconsciously dumps his self-hatred on her and the result, for her, is growing feelings of guilt and inadequacy. She begins to question her abilities as mother, wife and person. She begins to wonder if SHE is causing the drinking. As these self-doubts intensify, her defenses will rise to block out the reality of her own problems and act to hide her negative feelings about herself.

She therefore becomes the protector in an unconscious attempt to prove to herself that she is a meaningful and worthwhile person. She tries to be the "ideal" wife, not realizing that she is reacting to his projections of his own self -hatred. She begins to nurse him, apologize to him, excuse him and supports his "other reasons" for drinking.

He therefore successfully deceives her into believing that "everybody drinks too much once in a while ", or if she changes, everything will improve. In other words, she minimizes what is happening and accepts the blame for his drinking. However, as the drinking accelerates, this is no longer possible. So the next stage begins.

THE CONTROLLER
As the abusive drinking and projections increase, so does the deterioration process within the spouse. She feels increasingly responsible for his drinking and his behavior, and that somehow she is to blame. Consequently, her feelings of self-worth progressively decline. Now, in her unconscious attempt to regain some feelings of worth, the attitude of "controller" becomes a significant part of her growing defensive lifestyle. She begins increasingly to:

1. drink with him in the hope of keeping it within limits;
2. cancel any social events which might result in excessive drinking; buy the liquor in order to keep it "under control"
3. pour out or hide any extra liquor she finds in the house;
4. plead that if he ever loved her and the children, he would control his drinking; assume responsibility for family finances.

It is important to understand why the spouse acts this way. The alcoholic's projections send her the constant messages "If it were not for me, he would not need to drink". His drinking becomes an outward manifestation of her own internal inadequacy. Her feelings of self worth become directly intertwined with his drinking.

In other words, she cannot feel good about herself until his drinking is brought under control. She finds herself caught in a downward spiral. The more she tries to control the drinking, the more he drinks. She has therefore become trapped in a progressively worsening situation. She becomes desperate in her attempts to handle her feelings of poor self-esteem and so moves into the next stage.

THE BLAMER
In a desperate and hopeless attempt to handle these now constant feelings of poor self worth, she adds further to her self-destructive defense system. The attitude of "blamer" becomes incorporated into her wall of self-deception, which unknowingly causes her to now project onto others most of her feelings of failure, hurt, fear and anger.

In this way, her husband is then seen as the cause of her problems. She "dumps" her bad feelings about herself in the following ways;

• BLAMING: "If you would just drink like other people I would not be a nag."
• ATTACKING: "if you would start to act like a MAN and use some will power, you could control your drinking. I control MY drinking."
• SARCASM: "Well I suppose it was ANOTHER flat tyre tonight. "
• THREATENING: "If you don't do something about yourself, the kids and I are leaving."
• SILENCE: A cold shoulder and black looks.

As the disease progresses, the spouse increasingly experiences uncontrollable and inappropriate mood swings. She fluctuates from extended periods of deep depression ending in hours of lonely bedroom crying scenes to violent outbursts of rage and hostility that are often triggered by minor irritations.

These mood swings leave her feeling bewildered and thinking that she is about to slip into insanity, defenses again rise up and blocks from her the full impact of these feelings. This in turn prevents her from gaining the necessary insight that could help to free her from her prison of hostility and depression.

THE LONER
The spouse's defensive attitudes become rigid and fixes. She loses any ability to increase her own self-esteem. She is locked into a self-defeating pattern of relating to others, which now affects all areas of her life. Other family members and friends begin to feel uncomfortable when with her, because she unconsciously slips into such defensive roles, as:

• THE SUPER MOTHER: "I am the only thing that is holding the family together."
• MRS. SELF-RIGHTEOUS: "Why can't you be more like ..." "I told you so."
• MARTYR: "What I put up with for the children's sake ..."
  "Oh, what a life I could have had if only..."
  "god knows I've tried"
  "What is meant to be, is meant to be."
  

The outcome of this type of growing hostility and self-pity is the increasing alienation of most of her family and friends. Thus she has become the enabler, increasingly isolated, hurt and bewildered by her husband's drinking and totally enmeshed in his mental mismanagement.

THE ENABLER
Her defenses are now so highly developed that she is unable to see that her own reactions are worsening the problem. What she does not realize is that as she becomes a "protector", "controller" and "b;lamer" she progressively assumes more and more responsibility for her husband.

Thus, by assuming responsibility for his actions, she is transformed into a full-blown "enabler". Her behavior allows her husband constantly to avoid the consequences of his abnormal drinking. Her compulsive and disparate attempts to manipulate and control his drinking actually support his chemical abuse!

The end result of this type of interaction is the continuation of the drinking, whilst the spouse becomes even more angry, isolated and alienated.

THE CO-ALCOHOLIC
The "enabler" is now the "co-alcoholic". She has become increasingly defensive in her attempts to cope with disease. Her sincere belief at this stage is that her only problem is "his drinking" which shows how far she is from reality. She is not able to see how her defensive attitudes are keeping her locked into a life filled with hostility, self-pity and loneliness.

The sad fact of this is that unless she gets some help she will continue to deteriorate emotionally while she compulsively enables her spouse's drinking. The lifestyle, which she has now adopted, will force her to pick up the pieces after each of his drinking episodes.

She not only becomes more protective, controlling and blaming, but also inadvertently she hides reality from him. Thus the disease will progress while the spouse continues to deteriorate.

THE INTERVENER
You, the non-dependent spouse, must now examine the above facts in terms of how you have reacted to your spouse's alcoholism. Can you begin to see how your actions helped his drinking? Can you begin to see that you are not responsible for his drinking problem or illness? He is responsible! Look at yourself and see what defenses you have been using to cope with problem and where they may be wrong.

Try as honestly and objectively as possible to gain a new perspective on yourself, your past actions and feelings. You will find that your feelings of self-worth will no longer be thoroughly involved with his drinking. You must be able to separate yourself from his drinking and thereby gain the freedom to choose a meaningful response to both your spouse and his illness.

Restored in this way, you will change from the harmful enabler of your spouse's disease to the intervener. This could start him or her on the road to recovery

It is not easy to look at yourself and analyze your feelings and attitudes in an attempt to discover where you have been going wrong, but help is readily available.

See also Enabling. My Wife - My Supplier

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