my questions for Riley (from the Immortal Alcoholic's blog)

Over on another blog, called The Immortal Alcoholic, I asked Riley, a now-sober alcoholic who has been in and out of rehab and close to death many, many times, some questions. To read the interview in its entirety (and see the video) GO HERE.

Here is a little excerpt of my particular questions:

Angry Alcoholics –

What kind of person do you think you would have been if you had never tasted alcohol?

Very dull.

What would you have done with your life?

Something dull, probably not spend 25 years on submarines. I would be very much like my father.

What would you be doing now?

I have no idea, but I would probably be dead now.

What were your dreams?

Mine? I think there is no burden greater than a great expectation. I didn't have any dreams for myself as I was expected to.

What advice would you give to a man who feels he is not an alcoholic, but who is drinking three quarters of a bottle of gen a day, starting every morning and sipping throughout the day?

Try to quit.

How would you wake up his family that he’s in trouble?

It is very difficult to wake up the family as quoted by you. I'm not sure that I could. The family and associates have a tendency to tip toe around the elephant in the room. 

stuff feelings, don't talk or trust, be invisible: the message of dysfunctional alcoholic families

name of artwork: Keep Feelings to Yourself, Keep the Dirty Family Secret

(inspired by the book title of Robert A Becker and the observations of Claudia Black)

image is ©2014 Lise Winne
(for information regarding licensing any images contact LilacGroveGraphics (att) yahoo.com) 

This article by Pamela Weintraub in Psychology Today describes what living with alcoholic parents are like and why trauma is acute and common. Excerpts from the article:

The alcoholic family is one of chaos, inconsistency, unclear roles, and illogical thinking. Arguments are pervasive, and violence or even incest may play a role. Children in alcoholic families suffer trauma as acute as soldiers in combat; they also carry the trauma like an albatross throughout their lives.

Not only is the experience devastating, it's common, says Stephanie Brown, founder of the Alcohol Clinic at Stanford Medical Center, where she formulated the developmental model of alcohol recovery. Seventy-six million Americans (about 45 percent of the U.S. population) have been exposed to alcoholism in the family in one way or another, and an estimated 26.8 million of them are children... 

... Claudia Black, a leading expert on adult children of alcoholics and author of It Will Never Happen to Me, says these children grow up with three dangerous rules: don't trust, don't feel, and don't talk ... Since the parents inflict so much pain on their families, they teach their children to suppress their emotions just to survive. Indeed, alcoholic parents are prone to angry or violent outbursts that (along with the drinking itself) they end up denying, and children in such a home may buy the delusion, themselves. Since the children are inculcated to deny the reality around them, they develop a resistance to talking about urgent, important, or meaningful aspects of life. -- Pamela Weintraub

I have also personally witnessed and known some adult children of alcoholics who also expect their children not to feel anything in traumatic situations (and the children who do "feel" being labeled as crazy and over-reactive when hurt or abused by others), though I haven't been able to find any literature on the subject (note on 4/12/15: I did find some answers, and I wrote about them here). It is just something I note in my observations in meetings, group therapy situations and in experiences in my own life. As with active angry alcoholics, it is about walking on eggshells, keeping quiet and not having a voice (especially if it is about confronting, i.e. about important and meaningful subjects that may be mutually emotionally laden or controversial, none of which can be expected to be resolved in a healthy open-discussion manner)...

To find out more about the dynamics of how angry outbursts that end in abuse by a member of a dysfunctional alcoholic family get discounted and diminished by other family members, GO HERE TO THIS POST.