We who love or have loved an alcoholic want so much for their health and happiness that when bad behavior occurs, we almost forget that they are sick.  If your child had a temperature of 101, would you still insist that they go to school or their piano lesson?   Would you go to the lesson for them, as if that would make it right again and counteract the reality that they are sick?  Would you blame yourself for their sickness and try to insist that they threw up one less time, or demand that their temperature lower this instant?  I don’t think so. 

Yet when our alcoholic acts irrationally and exhibits behavior that does not bode well for a healthy family life or relationship, our natural inclination is to get in there and fix it in some way.  But I’ve learned that this is as irrational as the suggestions I made above.  Instead, I try to focus on the three C’s of acceptance:

1.  I didn’t cause it.  The alcohol is in charge, and the alcoholic is making the choice to feed into the alcoholism instead of relying on their recovery program.  This is not about me.  I might have to deal with the feelings the alcoholic’s actions lead to, but I didn’t cause the behavior , even if they suggest I did;

2.  I can’t control it.  I can’t stop someone from lying or cheating.  I can’t insist an alcoholic get only half-drunk and expect them to stop there.  I can’t try to control someone who is out of control themselves;

3. I can’t change it.  The only person I can change is myself, and how I respond to the world around me.  But I can’t change the alcoholic and if I ever doubt that, I consider my history with trying to do so.

The beauty of the three C’s is that they can be used for any situation where someone is behaving with ism’s.  People don’t need be an alcoholic to have serious issues.  And we don’t have to be forever triggered by those ism’s if we remember the three C’s.  I didn’t cause their behavior.  I can’t control their behavior.  I can’t change their behavior.   All I can do is focus on loving myself, and working on my own recovery program.  Ultimately, that is the action that will serve both me and my loved ones the most.

We have isms of our own: we jump to take blame, defend people, over-compensate for the weakness of others, micro-manage, move too quickly into catastrophic thinking, and more. 

These isms are hard to live with, on both sides.  And when the drinking or other addiction stops, the isms continue unless we work to reprogram ourselves.  By reading this blog, you are taking steps to help overcome your own isms.  How do you live with those of your alcoholic?  Here are some suggestions:

• First and foremost, remove yourself (and your children) immediately from any dangerous situation;
• Improve your radar – learn to realize when an “ism” is happening and consciously decide how to act, instead of reacting with your own counter-ism;
• Have some compassion: if he or she doesn’t have a program, the alcoholic probably doesn’t know how to recognize the isms in themselves, let alone change them;
• At the same time, set and maintain boundaries for how you wish to be treated.  When they’ve been crossed, follow through with the consequences (if you’re going to yell at me I’m going to have to leave the room until you calm down);

When I learned about the isms, I realized that I had been modifying my behavior around my alcoholic to avoid triggering his isms.  My sponsor explained that this was actually controlling and enabling behavior, and that I was also not honoring myself.   We shouldn’t have to tip toe around those we love, or who are supposed to love us.  But with compassion, neither do we purposefully act in ways to put the alcoholic in harm, such as goading them into a fight.   My sponsor encouraged me to recognize and ask for what I needed in each situation.    While this might or might not change the behaviors of my alcoholic toward me, the point was to advance my own growth by understanding and then putting my needs on the table.  In this way, I was breaking through the habits of my own isms.

In time and in a healthy, recovering relationship, the alcoholic and the supporter should be able to have conversations about the isms and even help each other to recognize when an ism is occurring, so that behavior can be modified by personal will to do so.   We can’t change others, we can only change ourselves.  But it’s been my experience that quite often when I make a shift, those around me tend to make them as well.