Are there any recovered alcoholics or those with greater understanding than me, that could help?
Am still really struggling though I left abusive ex months ago. (I've written several threads). I attend Al Anon 3 - 4 times a week.
However there is so much I do not understand. (in meetings, you can't ask questions or 'cross talk' ie there are no two way or more, conversations.. you just share your own experience - and I understand so little so get frustrated at times just being told to 'detach and accept')
I keep thinking that part of my own Recovery would be to understand alcoholic behaviour better.
If I google this subject I get such conflicting views.
I want to know what causes abusive behaviour in alcoholics. To me it's not the simple answer of 'well, ummm,alcohol?!!' As there are alchoholics who are NOT abusive. I've spent a lot of time in the past with ones that aren't abusive, and didn't cause many problems (except to their own health).
Is it alcoholic that makes the person abusive or is the abuse already there in their nature but the booze brings it out? Then why not in everyone?
Is it how alcohol affects brain chemistry? how does this happen on a physical level? Al Anon tell me it's such a spiritual level but I need to know the scientific facts here. I know when I drink(which is rare) I can get sad, maudlin, perhaps a bit paranoid.. sometimes happy.. then tired.. but never aggressive in any way.
Does an alcoholic actually MEAN the terrible things they say/ do? eg if my ex calls me 'an adulterous whore who deserves to die' (he always accused me of having affairs..his ex wife did have many and he does often get us mixed up when he's on his benders).. does he really, truly believe that at the moment he says it? He really wants me dead (eg 'I'm praying for your death' is one he frequently wheeled out. How can someone say they love me more than anyone in the world then say that at the most random times? even when we've been getting on well? He would say it out of the blue so often.. like a switch had gone off in his head..even if we'd managed a rare nice day together) Or is he just saying for maximum effect? It's so hard for me to hear things like this from a once so loving man.
At Al Anon they say it's a disease and so abusive words and violence are part of that disease.
But then i meet people with alcoholic partners, and their partners are quite gentle..even loving at times...(basically just pitiful cases who'd never harm a fly) and never aggressive.... and what of abusive people who never touch drink, drugs? (my own father was very violent..but no drink or drugs involved..he was a policeman and then a fireman, very much against those things) So why do AA and Al Anon give alcoholics the accuse of the disease? Cancer is a disease but it doesn't make people violent.
It is all so hard to get my head around. I know it would kind of help me if I thought my ex didn't actually mean those things (though i'd never go back, even if he stayed sober). When he's drunk, ranting and threatening, is that the true him? Has drink brought out his real nature? Or is the sober man (the man I knew for three years before he picked up the cider again) the real man? (there were still alcoholic traits there, but I didn't realise they were part of an illness.. I knew nothing about it except he was a 'recovered' alcoholic. The only alcoholics i'd met in the past had been jolly, fun, generous etc with no aggression).
At Al Anon they say the disease is hereditory and in the DNA. Therefore does that mean even the innocent child who has never drunk, is still an alcoholic? Just waiting for that bomb to go off once they get their first sip?
And what about the lies and obsessive behaviour? I can understand how alcoholics lie and disguise their drinking... my ex often did, but not always . Sometimes he was very defiant and open about it, and called anyone who mentioned it, a bully.. but what about the other obsessive behaviour made worse by drinking? eg stalking, accusing of affairs etc.. as my ex did and still does with me. Is that already in their nature and alcoholic exaggerates it? or would they be that bad without the drink? Is it a need to control because they know they are out of control in other ways eg the drink? so they try to control the partner? And put all their focus on that?