By Sr Dr Judy Lewis, UFS
Mangaluru, Dec 4: Alcoholism is a global phenomenon that has destroyed innumerable families. If the head of family is an alcoholic, the whole family suffers; obviously, the person who suffers most in the family is his own wife. In many cases the wife is helpless, miserable and a silent sufferer. She is tormented from all directions. On the one hand, she has to bear with the misery of the children whom she has to look after, on the other, the addiction of her husband over whom she can have hardly any control. Millions of families have been shattered due to the addiction of the head of the family. How can we help the wife to cope up with her alcoholic husband?
In my profession as a Counsellor, I have met, in a month, as many as 16 wives with alcoholic husbands, who were in distress and hence came to me seeking comfort and counsel. These had experienced untold misery, sorrow, rage, distrust, anxiety, fear, depression, self-pity, shattered expectations, broken promises, unfulfilled dreams, rejection, deception, despair, and dishonesty - all this just because their husband was an alcoholic.
The case of a particular woman is worth mentioning. Her husband had become addicted to alcohol at the age of 16 and now he is 36. He was forcefully married to this woman by his family members, hoping that he would give up alcohol after his marriage to her. But in reality things became worse. He enjoyed the company of alcoholics more than that of his wife. Everyday evening he came back home fully drunk just to bash her, manhandle, abuse and torture her. “My husband is an alcoholic, what shall I do,?” was her first question. In this family, it is not only his wife, but also his parents, grandparents and his own brother and sisters suffered. This shows that the family crisis related to alcoholism is a serious, complex and pervasive social problem as it is linked to violence, disrupted family roles, impaired family communication precipitating physical and psychological illness.
Hence alcoholism can truly be declared as a ‘family disease’, which increases sorrow, tension and stress of family members. For this reason families with alcoholic members very often become ‘dysfunctional’. Similarly the children of alcoholics have greater tendency towards violent behaviour. Many a times, they are a failure in academics, have higher incidence of depression, anxiety, stress and low self-esteem than their peers. This happens because the children of alcoholics sufferfrom lack of parenting, poor home management, and lack of family communication skills.
Definitely, alcoholism can destroy the entire family as every member of the family gets affected. The family of the alcoholic would likely to experience stressors and find no meaning in life. The end result of this is the family disorders, enhanced poverty, loss of assets and strained relationships. The family conflicts due to alcohol can easily result in marital separations and divorces, causing untold existential hardship to the family.
In every family the mother is the core personality. If she has to live with an alcoholic husband, then she ismost likely to have highly stressful emotions and negative meaning in life. The alcoholic loses control over himself, over his speech and activities. He may even become unpredictable and erratic in his behaviour. Alcohol has been considered to be an important risk factor in husband-to-wife marital violence. If the husband fails to care for his wife and assaults her under the influence of the alcohol, how can their relationship continue in a stable manner? In such cases, the family relationships are bound to break down.
The important point here is to help and support the wives of alcoholics, and, instruct them on how they can handle stress and have the situation under control. In order to improve the ways of coping among the wives of alcoholics, they should be made aware of the coping mechanism. ‘Coping’ basically consists of human reactions - mental and physical - to stressful experiences. Whether one is managing a particular situation well or not, whether one is trying to resolve the situation or not, is determined through coping.
There are numerous cases of women all over the world who just try to cope with their alcoholic husband. They being the core members in the dysfunctional family system, they need to achieve functional stability in the family. In addition, the good mental health of a woman in a family is very important to the alcoholic husband and their children.
The best and very effective help that can be rendered to a wife with alcoholic husband is through counselling. Counselling helps them to alleviate the stress they experience, to find positive meaning in life and to cope with painful circumstances. It can also help them to establish stability in their spousal relationships and encourage healthyinteractions between spouses. Counselling can open the doors for dynamic women who can live with dignity and respect. It can be offered individually or in a group.
The individual counselling is done in one to one basis. It facilitates the exploration and resolution of personal problems and issues according to the needs of the individual. Moreover, in this method, the counsellor provides insights to wives to learn to understand themselves. Also, the counsellor can teach them to learn effective techniques and mechanisms of coping during the process of counselling.
In the group therapy the clients could be either a group of wives with alcoholic husbands or all the members of the family of the alcoholic. In the former case, the group gives the opportunity to decrease the sense of loneliness, and lessen stress, and increase the coping strategies and also to learn new ways of coping with the alcoholic husbands. It is an occasion to share and discuss the vicissitudes of life which are bound to strengthen them psychologically and socially to face their plight. In the latter case, namely, the group-counselling of all the members of the same family, it is the opportunity to conduct the family therapy. The marital and family therapies are two of the most outstanding current advances in the area of psychotherapy. The family therapy allows sharing and discussion on interpersonal misunderstanding which can be reinterpreted and explained by the Counsellor as a facilitator.
Many of the wives of the alcoholics narrated in the process of counselling sessions that after their marriage with addicted husbands, they underwent frustration and suffered from the feelings of despair and hopelessness, guilt, humiliation, wretchedness, and a few of them even were tempted to commit suicide. But thanks to counselling that has helped them to experience a certain amount of relief and relaxation and made them confident of leading a meaningful life with patient endurance.
(Sr Dr Judy Lewis UFS, Sampoorna Counselling Centre, St Ursula Convent, Bolar, has a doctorate in Clinical Psychology and Counselling from St Thomas University, Manila, Philippines. She is presently working as counsellor and animator in Mangaluru, Udupi and Bengaluru. You can reach her at Judylewis77@gmail.com)