Irene, in her late 40s, had been in an out of treatment centers for years before consulting with me. When in treatment, she was fine, with no desire to drink, but once she returned home with her husband, Frank, and two adolescent children, it didn’t take long before she was back to drinking. Even though she faithfully attended AA meetings, she could not stay sober once she returned home. She loved her husband and children and could not understand why she could not stay sober at home. Each time she went back to drinking, she would hate herself for her weakness, seeing herself as a deeply flawed, defective person. She believed that the problem was entirely hers – that her family had nothing to do with it.

“What changes regarding how you feel when you go home?” I asked her on one of our phone sessions.

“I feel trapped. I feel controlled and suffocated, like I can’t be myself.”

“What happens that make you feel so trapped?”

“I don’t know. Frank is such a sweet and wonderful man, and I know that he really loves me. And I love him. I don’t get what is happening that makes me feel so agitated and trapped.”

I asked her if Frank would be willing to join us in a phone session. She was quite sure he would – that he would be willing to do anything to help her and help their relationship.

Frank was willing. In the first session Irene expressed to Frank her feelings of being trapped. Frank’s response was to attempt to talk her out of her feelings by talking about how wonderful their life is. In this first session, I immediately felt Irene cave in and completely give herself up, saying nothing to Frank about how she felt when he didn’t hear her and tried to talk her out of her feelings.

“Irene, in my experience, Frank is not hearing you at all and is trying to talk you out of your feelings. Does this happen often?”

“All the time,” she answered. Frank immediately went into denial, saying that is not what he was doing and that it certainly didn’t happen all the time. His voice was very firm and parental, as if he really knew what he was talking about. Irene went silent.

“Irene, what are you feeling right now?” I asked.

“I feel like I’m going to explode. I just want to get away and have a drink. I feel sick to my stomach.”

Frank actually started to attempt to talk her out of these feelings and then stopped. “Do you really feel that way?” he asked.

“Yes, and I feel this way much of the time we are together.”

“Why haven’t you told me?”

“I am telling you right now and all you want to do is tell me that I am wrong and shouldn’t feel this way!”

In subsequent sessions with Irene, I helped her to articulate all the things that Frank did that made her feel trapped and invalidated – and there were many. He would grab her breasts, no matter how many times she had told him that this didn’t feel good. He would get judgmental when she wanted to spend time with a friend that he didn’t like. He would even try to control what she wore. Invariably, Irene would cave in – and then drink.

Irene and I worked on her learning to speak up for herself and take loving action for herself – disengaging and walking away when Frank was discounting her, pulling on her, or judging her. She had always been afraid to hurt his feelings with her honesty because would be angry and withdraw for days when she did manage to speak up. I encouraged her to tell him that she would no longer be around him when he was angry and withdrawn, and then to spend time with friends, go on a little vacation with her kids, or pursue her hobbies when he acted out.

Once Irene started to tell her truth and take action on it, she found herself not wanting to drink. She was able to make the connection between her drinking and her abandoning herself in the face of Frank’s controlling behavior.

Because Frank does love Irene, he was willing to address his subtle and overt controlling behavior. While it did not happen over night, Irene’s drinking is no longer a problem for her.

People often feel sorry for, or angry with, alcoholics. These days, they are starting to realize that people close to the alcoholics are also damaged by their actions.

Alcohol addiction strikes at everyone around the alcoholic. Wives, husbands, partners; children, mothers, fathers; employers, employees, staff; and even random strangers who were just “in the wrong place” at the time.

Almost always, it is not the intention of the alcoholic to cause problems. The person addicted to alcohol often has feelings of despair, helplessness, self-loathing and fear. Sadly, they become wrapped up in their own misery and fail to notice the effects that they have on other people. Because of their dreadful introspection, alcoholics then enter a downward spiral, where they drink to forget or to cope with their unpleasant feelings, and the alcohol simply makes those feelings worse.

Eventually, the alcoholic believes himself or herself unable to cope without drinking.

Because of the addling effects that alcohol has on the brain, the alcoholic will start to blame circumstances and other people for his or her problems. It becomes a case of believing, “I’m not an alcoholic. I only drink because…” followed by some excuse. It stops the person from admitting the problem/

In order to learn how to stop drinking alcohol, the person will need plenty of support, from loved ones and friends, professional organizations, and therapists. However, none of this will help if the alcoholic has not first admitted without reservation to the problem.

The first step to helping the alcohol, then, is to get that person to admit to the problem. This is not easy. Each time you help, it becomes another excuse for the alcoholic. He may crave the attention that drinking gives (reinforcing the effects of self-pity); she may see the help as insufficient (no matter how unfair that may be). Unfortunately, many alcoholics admit their problems only after they have lost everything that is dear to them: Family, children, friends, job, house…

Once the alcoholic has admitted to the problem and agrees to seek help, then is the time to support. The alcoholic needs tools to learn how to stop drinking alcohol. In addition to the expert advice from organizations, there are books, hypnotherapy, complementary therapies, and retreats (some of them free).

The important thing to remember is that alcohol is a highly addictive drug, and so alcohol addiction (usually) needs more than one approach. Mixing together as many different approaches as possible, all working together, will give the greatest chance of success.

The underlying basis of all addictions – and alcohol is no exception – is the avoidance of pain. While there is evidence that some people have genetic and biological predispositions toward alcoholism, not all people with these predispositions abuse alcohol or become alcohol dependent. Many people who join AA learn to deal with their painful emotions without the use of alcohol, regardless of their genetic predisposition.

What if you are a person who wants to stop drinking, who has tried AA and treatment programs, and just can’t stop? What might be happening here?

Often, the pain you want avoid is the pain of loneliness and inner aloneness. The aloneness is caused by inner disconnection, and the loneliness is caused by not connecting with others.

Sometimes, the situation you are in is extremely lonely and painful; yet leaving the situation might seem even more painful.

For example, Gwen married a man she thought was kind and caring. But after they had a child and experienced financial stress, he became verbally abusive to her and to the children. Alcohol had always been a part of her life, but she started to abuse it when the pain and stress of her marriage became too great for her to handle. Due to her fear of her family’s judgment and her two children, Gwen did not want to leave her marriage.

Gwen felt stuck between a rock and a hard place. If she stayed, she would need to continue to be at the other end of her controlling, angry, needy, blaming, judgmental husband. Gwen felt extremely lonely with him and suffocated by him – feeling like she had to tow the line and do what he wanted or be at the other end of his rage. Whenever he would attack her with his anger and criticism, she would overtly give in, but covertly numb out and resist him with her drinking. Her husband, Sam, hated her drinking, and would become even more controlling. But for Gwen, drinking was the only way she knew to survive the pain of his insults while finding some way to resist his control. Not knowing how to take care of herself with her husband, she gave herself up, creating the inner aloneness.

If she left, she believed she would need to face the anger and judgment of her parents and siblings. No one in her family had ever been divorced. Gwen was terrified of being outcast from her family of origin. She believed that the pain of leaving would be worse than the pain of staying – that she would end up feeling even lonelier.

Gwen tried to learn to speak up for herself, but this only brought more abuse. From Gwen’s point of view, there was no way out other than to numb the pain through drinking.

As long as Gwen believed that she could be okay only though the approval of others, she remained stuck and unable to stop drinking. But Gwen decided to get some help in learning how to take loving care of herself.

Gwen grew up being the good girl in her family, the person who looked after everyone else’s feelings and needs. She learned well to ignore her own feelings and needs. When she started counseling with me, she actually had no idea why she drank.

As Gwen started to tune into her own feelings and learned to connect with a spiritual Source of love and comfort, she realized that keeping herself and her children in an abusive situation was not loving to anyone. She asked her husband to join her in counseling, but he refused. Mustering her courage, she left her husband – and discovered that her family was actually relieved for her! They had been very worried about her, but had not wanted to interfere.

When Gwen no longer felt trapped and suffocated, her desire to drink went away. She was so excited to be able to be herself. “I just couldn’t be myself with Sam. No matter what I did, it was wrong, unless I did exactly what he wanted me to do. It is such a relief to be able to just be myself. And my children actually seem happier too. They are so happy to have me back rather than numbed out with alcohol.”

If you want to stop drinking and can’t, you might want to look closely at what you would need to do to change your situation so that you no longer need to drink to avoid pain.