In my home growing up, there was no alcohol. Between my grandfather’s alcoholism and my southern Baptist roots, it was simply forbidden.
Those rules didn’t stop some members of my family from drinking to excess. That drinking caused a lot of problems. It seemed that our family’s prohibition wasn’t achieving what it had set out to do.
When I met my husband, I was amazed that they not only had alcohol in the home, but they’d sit down and have a drink together. At the time, I didn’t see that they had any problems with alcohol.
So, I decided that it was better to openly teach my children how to drink. Maybe that way, they’d have the proper instruction. Maybe if it was not ‘off limits’, they would be less likely to hide. I could also caution them not to drink to excess and never to drink in order to feel better.
I’d like to tell you that it worked out great. I’d like to be able to say ‘yes, there is a simple formula…just do A and B and you will never have to worry about the misuse, abuse, dependance or addiction to alcohol and other mind-altering substances.’ But, things didn’t really turn out the way that I’d planned…
A few weeks back, a young man was speaking at an open Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meeting about the first real drink that he took at fifteen years old. He recalled that from those first few minutes after taking his first sip, he knew that he was going to drink as often and as much as he could for the rest of his life.
He wasn’t concerned about the type of drink that he was drinking. Taste didn’t enter his mind. There was no thought of moderation because he was a kid who felt that he didn’t fit in and after just one drink, he was suddenly ‘the cool kid.’
I’ve heard that same story before, at other speaker meetings. In fact, I’ve lost track of the number of times that I’ve heard that same story, told by a different person, with different circumstances. At it’s core, the message was always the same: a person feels bad about himself, he takes a drink, he feels better.
Today, I realize that I came up with arbitrary rules because I didn’t have a clear understanding of the problem. Alcohol gave each of these people a feeling of being enough. If we are enough, then we feel capable of being loved and accepted. I think that is what we are all looking for.
This problem is not caused by a lack of education. It has little to do with access. It is a spiritual problem.
The psychiatrist Carl Jung was among the first in his field to understand that alcoholism should be approached from a spiritual angle. In a letter to Bill W. (AA’s co-founder) he said, “You see, alcohol in Latin is ‘spiritus’. You use the same word for the highest religious experience as well as for the most depraving poison. The helpful formula therefore is ‘spiritus contra spiritum.’
In other words, we substitute. We are ‘looking for love in all the wrong places.’ We all do it in one form or another.
What is the remedy? We replace substance with a Higher Spirit…God. It takes time. It takes prayer and meditation. It takes dealing with what we have or haven’t done. It isn’t easy but, the things that are worth it rarely are.
It is my hope that this information helps…even just one family. As we say in my twelve-step program: we didn’t cause it, we can’t cure it and we can’t control it. But, we can contribute to it. Let’s all work together to offer the right information so that we can stop contributing to this disease.