I’m lucky enough to have the instinct which says ‘that’s enough’ after a glass or two. My clever, gorgeous, successful, kind fiancé lacked that. He broke his foot, had a psychotic episode, and fell into a coma before truly accepting that drink was the problem. We got together on a project of sobriety - and he did sober up. AA took a long, long time, but he emerged a positive, grateful, and determined, if disabled, man. Then, two years on, he was diagnosed with throat cancer caused by alcoholism. He died sober, after five sober years.
Much as I resisted it, being with him was like a full-time job. Alcoholism is known as the Family Illness because it expands beyond the person who has it, and gets its hooks into everyone who loves them. It fills parents, siblings, partners and children with doubt and fear and shame and unearned guilt, making them think it’s their fault and their responsibility to solve the problem. And it is an illness - it has known symptoms, a predictable course, it damages both the body and the mind, it requires medical attention, it can kill. Don't let anyone tell you it’s a moral failing or a lack of willpower.
Do you think someone in your family is drinking too much, too often? Is it causing trouble? Is it your partner? Your child? You? When they pass out yet again or make another scene - is that alcoholism? We see the clues but we so want it not to be true that we can’t see the woods for the trees, and become blind to those indications. Bear in mind that it’s not what you drink, or how much you drink. It’s why you drink and what it does to you.
Some people get rat-arsed from time to time, but they don't ruin their life as a result; they don't make their children fear them or their partner hate them. Other people have a beer or two and take on a different personality: often arrogant and argumentative, frequently glassy-eyed and comatose; sometimes violent and aggressive; almost always incapable of stopping once they’ve started.
Drinking alcohol is normalised in Western societies and people who don't drink are often treated as bores or weirdos. Say no at prosecco o’clock and you get: ‘Are you pregnant then?’, ‘Oh, can you not drink?’, ‘Oh, go on!’ Sometimes, the whole world seems made up of people with alcohol problems who can’t bear it when someone chooses not to join in.
When drinking itself is so normalised, it’s no great leap to normalising alcoholic behaviour: the defensiveness when people who love them try to talk about it, the bravado, the blaming everyone else, the not listening, the not taking responsibility, the not being there, physically, emotionally or domestically. This is followed by the hangover days, the loss of memory, crashing the car, losing the job, and always drinking more, in a futile attempt to get past the shame. It is a dismal merry-go-round.
The family members don’t recognise it at first, and almost get used to it in a weird way. They slip into acceptance, while feeling they should be able to do something about it. It’s bad enough for adults, but for children it becomes a very damaging shadow under which they cannot grow straight. For parents looking at their drunk offspring, it’s harder still not to feel that you should have been able to stop this from happening. That it’s your fault.
But it’s not. Don’t blame yourself for its existence, or for the fact you can’t cure an illness with love. You have to get past that, and the sooner the better. Because then you can get help.
So, if we love an alcoholic in our family, what are we meant to do? It’s such terrible, complex territory. Nobody wants to go there. But it’s so hard to desert family who are so clearly in need of help. You love them. You're tied in. But here’s one thing - in the words of the song, ‘just because you’re strong don’t mean it’s easy’. There is no shame in seeking help for illness. It’s necessary.
Talk without shame. Go to the GP. Go to AlAnon. Get on the support threads here on Mumsnet. Google ClubSoda. Know that you didn't cause it, can’t change it, can’t cure it. Get help for yourself. Lead by example.
And then, if and when they come to recognise their condition and get help, you need to prepare for whatever it was they were drinking to block out.
Louisa Young is the author of You Left Early: A True Story of Love and Alcohol, published by Borough Press. Please post your comments and questions for Louisa in advance in the comments below and she will be joining us to answer questions on Monday 16 July at 9pm.