Assertiveness, Anyone?

We’re always looking for common themes among our clients and how these play into alcohol abuse. Over the past 20 years a number of traits have emerged as contributory factors.

While the ones we often share are loneliness, boredom, anxiety, and escape, the traits that lead to these conditions and the need to escape are often rooted in intelligence, sensitivity, and a fear-based (as opposed to anger-based) personality.

As complicated as this all sounds, it usually comes down to problems within our personal relationships. Afraid to assert ourselves, we allow ourselves to be taken for granted, neglected, abused, and/or exploited.

In return, we drink to ease the resulting loneliness and, often, as a passive-aggressive way of getting back at our spouses, other family members, or boy/girl friends. But that backfires and only reinforces our “one down” feelings and position.

The solution? Assertiveness training – which is, of course, anathema to the AA/12 Step based philosophy that stresses “powerlessness” and victimhood and their adherents’ inability to deal with other people (the fear of “normies”).

Is it really any surprise that traditional treatment usually fails and even results in increased alcohol abuse?

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Just after we wrote last week’s article for couples we received the following e-mail.

“Hi Mary Ellen,

Just wanted to let you know that things are going well with us almost a year after we first met you and Ed. We desperately needed help getting back on track at that time and are so grateful that you both were there for us.

It’s been an interesting year, but can say with lots of hard work, patience and love that we’re in a good place. We’ve worked on many of the goals that we set when we were in California, individually and as a couple, and that’s helped us to appreciate what brought us together all those years ago.

To celebrate our 30th anniversary, we’re headed to Hawaii next month–a place we both love.

A year ago I was scared about the future and never could have imagined how much better things could be for us & our family. Thank you so very, very much for all your help in getting us here.”

A year from now, perhaps even sooner, you could be writing a similar letter. Isn’t that what you want?

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“May I Have This Dance?”

We do a lot of work with couples and what neither spouse nor partner understands is that they are really dancing together.

That’s right — it isn’t just the drinker’s problem, but a problem they have created together. It’s a dance they join into automatically and whenever either of them thinks about changing the other one pulls them right back in.

The easiest version of the formal dance is the AA/Alanon 12 Step. The “alcoholic” doesn’t want to give up drinking. The spouse loves complaining about it. And they’re both using alcohol to avoid intimacy. Works great. Guaranteed to last a lifetime.

The less obvious version is the “Okay, I’ll quit!” in response to the “You quit or I’m out of here (or you’re out of here)!” version. We’ve seen many many couple who have been dancing to this tune for 10, 20, even 40 years or more. The drinker stops — or goes to treatment — long enough to placate the spouse, the spouse relents, then the same old unresolved problems recur and the drinking resumes.

Of course the real problem is that neither spouse really wants anything to change and neither has a shred of credibility. The drinker isn’t going to stop, nor is the complaining spouse going to leave. Both are too afraid, or angry, to risk changing.

Funny how that works.

Interestingly, we have clients from either side of the dance. Usually it’s the drinker who signs up, sometimes to placate again — though we’re pretty good at screening out those folks — but mostly because they’ve decided to change. Same goes for the drinker’s spouse who signs up first, and then is surprised to find the drinker trailing along.

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“Does outpatient rehab work?”

This is another of those frequently Googled search phrases that has folks finding their way to our website.

The problem?

The question makes a couple of assumptions that are false to start with. First, the question implies that residential programs “work” when there isn’t any actual evidence that they do and quite a bit that they don’t.

Second is the implication that all outpatient programs are alike and either do or don’t “work.”

Once again we are stuck with the usual problem of people being misled into thinking that “rehab” is something that is done to them, or for them, and either works or doesn’t.
Again, the real question should be, will a particular form of rehab be effective for me?

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Yes, we know it’s Super Bowl Sunday, so you probably won’t be quitting today, but tomorrow…

Well, it’s not rocket science – or magic…

Leaving your alcohol abuse behind isn’t a change that depends on the “magic of the steps” or complicated scientific approaches. Nor is it as simple as “Why don’t you just quit!!!” as many exasperated spouses and/or family members shout.

So what is it?

Frankly, it comes down to replacing one set of rewarding behaviors with a better set of more rewarding behaviors.

That sounds deceptively simple – why should it be hard to replace one reward with another?

It’s hard because drinking is an immediate short term reward, and the replacements are all deferred long term rewards. Let’s face it – we like our rewards.  NOW!
It’s tough for any of us to give up immediate gratification for greater satisfaction “later.” If it wasn’t, none of us would be overweight, smoke, buy things we can’t afford, or drink too much.

Our part of solving the drinking problem with you is helping you through that period between cutting off the short term benefits and the point where the long term benefits begin to kick in.

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Rehab Or Quit On Your Own, Which Has The Best Results?

It’s a fair question. The answer isn’t all that difficult to decide if you sort out the real options. The trouble is, when we start trying to figure out what to do we’re usually in such a mess that we don’t always make good decisions. That’s the real fly in the ointment.

So, in the interest of full disclosure, I will confess that I quit on my own when I was 41. But it took me a long time to do it. It shouldn’t have, but there wasn’t any real help available – just the same old failed Minnesota/AA/12 Step Model.

So what’s new?

Actually, over the 25 years that have elapsed since I muddled my way to a better life quite a bit has changed – not that you’d know it by visiting web sites or traditional programs or reading the industry hype.

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We offer all of the following:

• Luxury!
• Privacy!
• Confidentiality!
• Individuality!
• Effectiveness!
• Affordability!

What more could you ask for?

That’s right – we offer everything anyone else claims to, but in much less time, and at far less cost, much more choice – all under your control – not some program’s control – and with successful outcome rates ten to twenty times higher.

We know it’s easy to make those claims but we’re prepared to back them up, one at a time.

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Couples!

Several times a year we work with couples who both have alcohol problems (as we also do with couples where only one is the “designated client”). We can do this very effectively when no one else can.

Why?

First, because we work as a team. If you’ve every been to “couples counseling” you know that it almost immediately degenerates into a two on one blame session and whoever is “it” storms out never to return again. But with us that triangulation problem never comes up.

Another pont is that between us we have the “roles” covered too. I used to have the alcohol problem and Mary Ellen got to be the concerned family member designated to find help for her brother.

Next, alcohol abuse always exists within a context and spouses are, after all, a major component of anyone’s day-to-day living. You can’t fix your drinking problem without changing the way you live your life and that means, as spouses, you either change together, go your separate ways, or keep on drinking.

If you want to end the alcohol abuse then spouses have to be part of the solution, or there isn’t going to be one.

Why don’t other programs include spouses? Or treat couples?

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A recent client from Chicago said:

“I visited dozens of websites before I called you. I called because yours was the only one that actually told me how you propose to help me, and the only one to tell me the cost!”

He went on to note six other important points:

• When I called, I actually talked to both of you. Not some volunteer, flunky, client, or marketing department;
• When I was in L.A. on business you met with me at no charge to further discuss whether you were the right match for me;
• You’re both very smart – no one I talked to in any of the traditional programs was;
• As promised, there was no pressure, no pitch, no magic, no crap!
• You’ve both been available for follow-up as you said you would be;
• I think you’re the only people around who actually provide what you say you will.

Those are all points we think are important, and we think you should too, and, yes, no one else offers any of that.

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Think!

Mary Ellen writes:

  “A week before Christmas my brother Jim, was diagnosed with a very extensive cancer. We don’t know the type of cancer yet, but we do know that the tumors are large and in many organs. He hardly had any symptoms at all, so this was a real shock to him and to all of us in the family.

He went from assuming he would live a long and interesting life, like our parents have, to thinking very seriously about end-of-life issues.  I am not sharing this for any sympathy, but to make sure you all realize how very fragile our lives really are.

Many of you read our newsletter every week. For some of you that may be all the help you ever need. For others, you may be assuming that there is lots of time to fix your drinking problem and start living again, so you wait and think about getting help.

You haven’t called – you assume there’s always time for that.  I want to tell you that the time is now. Don’t wait any longer. Make your life really count. Start living again.”

We can still help you. Give us a call now.

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