Christmas can be a time of great joy, an excellent chance to spend time with friends and family. But it can also be a complete and utter minefield if there is alcoholism to cope with. With so much booze and partying through the whole season, the opportunity for heavy drinking is at an all-time high, and therefore so is the potential for crushing destruction through abusive or unacceptable behaviour.
How many family Christmases are ruined by someone else’s drinking? How many of us know that underlying sense of fear when faced with erratic or unpredictable behaviour? Rows over lunch, failing to turn up, broken promises and shattered dreams all lie in tatters as the spirits of Christmas are consumed in vast amounts, overriding everything else, to the detriment of all around the drinker. It’s at Christmas that situations like this will often come to a head.
It’s not all bad new
s though. It’s often said that in order to recover, an alcoholic has to receive the ‘gift of desperation’ – or hit ‘rock bottom’ in order to accept that they need help, that they want to change. Christmas, with its excess and resultant ill health, and the remorse that comes with spoiling everyone’s fun, often presents that opportunity, and following the festive season, more alcoholics reach out for help than at any other time of year.
How would you know if you were an alcoholic? What’s the difference between a heavy drinker and someone with the illness of alcoholism? AA offers a pretty good benchmark if you’re not sure; ‘Is it costing you more than money?’ If your drinking is costing you your friendships, affecting your work, your health, your family… any of these things and more… if it’s costing you more than money, then there’s a good chance you should take a long hard look.
Alcoholism is a family disease, inasmuch as it affects everyone it touches. Partners are drawn into crazy, unhappy behaviour, children – at best upset and disappointed, at worst subject to serious abuse – are deeply affected. Friends and family alike will all find themselves touched by this illness. There is help for both those with the drinking issue, and those around them, but you need to know where to look. If any of the above sounds familiar, from whatever standpoint, there is Alcoholics Anonymous or Al-Anon for the friends and relatives of alcoholics, or Alateen for older children affected by a parent’s drinking, but you could also do worse than to have a look at my book, which addresses the issues faced as a family, from all sides. However you cope with it, changed behaviour can make a huge difference. And who knows, maybe the Christmas story next year will be a very different tale…
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