I met new people and old acquaintances. I was able to catch up with one of the latter at the tail end of the evening and asked how his home life was going. He’s married to an alcoholic and despite her severe ups and downs with the disease, he’s stuck by her like the true gentleman he was raised to be. But gentlemen aren’t necessarily happy.

He told me that there had been another crash and burn recently, although his wife insists she isn’t drinking. He suggested that what she might be going through is a dry drunk – which he understands to be a condition post drinking where alcoholics can develop the same physical symptoms of drunkenness, despite being dry.

I’m not sure where he’s getting his information from, but that’s not my understanding of a dry drunk. In my world, a dry drunk is someone who is not drinking, but still carries many of the isms of a dunk. While this may or may not have physical manifestations (I’d leave it with addictions doctors to determine that), it definitely includes certain behaviours common to active alcoholics.

For example, a dry drunk may continue to feel paranoia. They may be highly judgemental, impatient and short-tempered, ego-centric, self-centred, irrational in their logic and decision-making processes, or unable to make decisions, and they may continue to require immediate gratification.

It has been my experience, personally and through years of attending support groups and hearing from others, that this condition is particularly prevalent in the first year of recovery for an alcoholic and can persists beyond that – perhaps for years. Alternatively, alcoholics in recovery can revert to the dry drunk condition periodically throughout their lives. It can be brought on by triggers, such as stress, or simply be a manifestation of the reality that recovering alcoholics can have their good days and their bad days. No garden path is perfectly straight and no life’s journey is without its challenges.

That said, the toll on the supporter of the alcoholic can be enormous. I’ve frequently heard that living with someone in their first year of sobriety is far worse that living with their active alcoholism. Someone in the middle of alcoholic chaos would find that hard to believe, but it can be true that with alcoholism often come some silliness, gushy love, “honest” conversation, and strong feelings of involvement (interdependence) with your partner. The lack of alcohol, at least for a period of time, removes many of these things along with the drink, and we’re left only with the isms of alcoholism referenced above. To face these isms during that first year is tough; but to continue to face them for periods of time further out can be devastating to the partner.

How do we deal with them? I’ve only seen two successful ways. One is to leave. It’s not quite that simple. Leaving involves a long and careful process – usually with professional help of some kind – to ensure you know exactly what you want and need to do, that you are prepared to do it, and that you have all of the support you need to leave. So this isn’t a quick and easy answer, but I do want to put it on the table as an option.

The second is to embrace your support system or program and take the focus off of the alcoholic and place it onto yourself. It is possible to remain in an alcoholic relationship and find happiness in your own life. But it takes a lot of work to get there and I’ve never met anyone who could do it on their own. Very occasionally, a recovering alcoholic will find a pink cloud, which means they will immediately understand their disease and be able to overcome it without torturing those around them who love them. But that is extremely rare. Mostly, alcoholics get and stay in recovery slowly, painfully, and effecting those closest to them. That is why it is said the alcoholism is the family disease. It effects far more than the alcoholic, and you all need help and healing.

If I were around a dry drunk all of the time I’m not sure I would want to remain in that relationship. However whether this was permanent or temporary condition of someone I chose to be with, I would focus all of my energy on learning how to support and focus on myself during those periods. As for the dry drunk behaviour, remember the three C’s:

I didn’t cause it.
I can’t control it.
I can’t cure it.

All I can do during these dry drunk periods is to take care of me. And I’m worth it.

My youngest of two kids just started grade eleven. He’s been a slow starter in terms of developing a personal sense of responsibility for things like chores and homework. So when he asks me to help him with his homework (which means he’s actually doing his homework!) I readily agree. This week, he had to interview family members about their religious beliefs and experiences (he goes to a Catholic school). While I would describe myself as spiritual rather than religious, I answered as best as I could. But I faltered on the final question, which was “have you ever experienced a miracle and if so, please describe the experience”. My son insisted I was not allowed to reference the birth of my children, so I pondered other options and started to describe how grateful I was now for having successfully made it through the past four years of my life. “That’s not a miracle” he insisted. I disagreed and tried to explain, but quickly realized that I couldn’t defend my position with him because I’ve never told him the full story.

The truth is, my sons don’t know the depths of the pain I went through as a result of their father’s alcoholism. I have been as honest as I felt was appropriate, but I’ve also been aware that what happened with their father is my journey, not theirs. They are responsible for their own relationship with him, and it is not fair for me to taint that relationship by sharing with my sons in detail what their father put me through, what I put myself through, how close I came to not making it, and how incredibly different my life is now compared to that period of hell.

They were young, protected and have perhaps blocked some of their memories from those years. They know a little of what happened and they understand that I’ve been through a very trying period. For years they have seen me go off to my support group meetings, have encouraged me to do so. They are proud that I wrote and published a book about my experiences. But I have not allowed them to read it, although I’ve told them that at legal age, they can decide for themselves if they want to.

In fact, they’ve appeared so relatively unscathed by the entire process that it’s caused me a different worry. I don’t want them to think that being raised by a single parent is just fine. I know that sometimes it’s necessary, and single parents can make it work, but I don’t think it’s ideal. And I certainly don’t want to condone their father’s decision to move away and not participate in raising them. Most of all, I don’t want to raise men to believe that it’s acceptable for a father to opt out of the role. Yet I say nothing about this and this is my conundrum: how can I be honest about my circumstances, while allowing the kids to make up their own minds about their father?

Throughout my own recovery, one of my guiding principles has been the concept of “let go, let God”. I’ve learned that I don’t have to be in charge all of the time. Sometime, I can simply pray for the guidance toward the best possible circumstances, and then go with the flow, trusting that God is taking care of us. Whenever I have done this, we have been protected and even happier than I believe we would have been if I had enforced my own will instead.

So this summer as we planned our vacation time, for the first time I allowed the boys to visit their father in the States. Previously, I always insisted he vacation with them up here in Canada. In my opinion (and one shared by my sponsor), he simply wasn’t ready for the responsibility before. But his actions of late have suggested he is far more stable and responsible, so it felt like the right thing to do. And it was. He did a fabulous job of planning a wide range of activities for them. They went canoeing and para-gliding but also to the symphony, a play and an animation conference. The nine days the boys spent with him were well planned and beautifully executed, and the boys had a blast.

But on their return I noticed a difference in their behavior – especially by my youngest. He cleans his room and did his chores without reminders. When I ask him to do something, he does it immediately. He apologizes easily, and has hugged me and told me he loves me more in the past two months than in the past ten years. He is a new person, and a joy to live with. Why this sudden change? It’s not as if he had a terrible time with his father so is finally appreciative of me – or at least, not entirely. I do believe what I’m seeing is gratitude through a living amends. I think he realizes what I’ve done, what I continue to do, and he’s thanking me by becoming the nice person he always was, underneath the sadness and anger. Perhaps he is remembering more than I’ve been giving him credit for.

I suspect that he now understands and values my being there for him, constantly and lovingly. He gets the difference, aAnd I didn’t have to say a thing. I just had to love and nurture him the way I would have done whether his father was in his life, or not. I let go, let God, and instead of focusing on what his father wasn’t doing, I focused on what I could do. And that has turned out to be the best thing I could possibly do for my son. I’ve come to realize that my son’s metamorphosis, despite everything we’ve been through together, is the current miracle in my life.

In times of terrible dysfunction, it’s important to remember that if we do the work, focus on keeping our side of the street clean, and stop trying to micro-manage the lives of everyone around us, miracles do happen.

My children were between the ages of six and thirteen during the worst times of living with their alcoholic father.   At first they thought his more dramatic behavior was funny.  For example, they giggled when he had to crawl from the living room to the bedroom because he was too drunk to walk.  They thought he was joking when he answered their questions in semi-gibberish.  As they grew older, however, they learned the difference between when he had fallen asleep, and when he had passed out from drinking.  They also noticed how he didn’t attend any parent-teacher conferences, and how few piano recitals or soccer games he went to.  Mom was always there – they knew they could count on me.  But at these events, they saw that their school mates usually had two parents.  

I noticed this, too.  The role of the “other” parent can be a difficult one because we feel we have to find a way to overcome this deficit.  We work hard trying to get the alcoholic parent to participate.  We bend over backwards to create the circumstance they insist on to make this happen.  And we make excuses for the alcoholic when they do not participate in our children’s lives.   

I would suggest you make it easier on yourself by stopping all of this behavior.  The relationship between the alcoholic and their children is not your responsibility.  You may have been taking on that role, but from what I have experienced, read and learned through my support groups, this action will not help the situation.  Ultimately, relationships are the responsibility of the individuals involved.  If your children are not to have a functional relationship with their father (or mother) without your intervention, then perhaps they are not suppose to have a functioning relationship with them.   Pretending won’t make it real.

What you can do is to ensure that you and the children are safe; and then you can ensure that they know you love them and are there for them, unconditionally.

I believe that regardless of circumstances, children need to know that at least one adult person in this world is there for them.  Ideally this person is a parent, although a family counselor friend has assured me this could also be a different relative, the parent of a friend, or even a teacher.  Be that loving, caring, dependable person for your children.

This may mean that you have to take on the lion’s share of responsibility for them.  That was certainly true in my case.  But I found that loving and caring for my children actually gave me a reason to push myself to heal.  The act of being there for them, physically and emotionally, helped to bring me out of my own misery.  The deeper relationship I’ve developed with my kids as a result has been a reward I didn’t expect, but one for which I am eternally grateful.   I also found that the more I focused on my children, the less I focused on my alcoholic.  This ensured that he was making his own choices, about his relationship with me and his children, and about his life. 

My job as my children’s parent is simply to love and be here for them.