Is it OK to drink alcohol around a sober spouse?
Does someone in your family suffer from addiction? Are you partnered with an alcoholic? If so, you may already recognize ways that you are influenced by addiction. Maybe you’ve expressed concern or were the first to identify the problem?
Maybe you’ve picked your partner up off from Northwestern Memorial Hospital because of their drinking? Maybe you avoided drinking (even in healthy ways) because you didn’t want them to get drunk? Maybe you suggested rehab? Often, the influence of addiction on so many aspects of the relationship can catalyze resentment and also confusion.
One of the most common concerns among loved ones is whether or not you can continue to drink; and, if so, is it okay to drink around your partner? While this seems like a simple question, the healthiest answer is quite complex – often made more difficult by the drinking culture that permeates the social fabric of Lakeview, much of Chicago, and many American cities.
Consider that you are a part of, and inflicted by, addiction. That’s right – family members are part of the system too! Every aspect of someone’s life – especially relationships – can be influenced by addiction. For many loved ones, this is difficult to recognize and even more difficult to accept.
My colleague Alex DeWoskin, LCSW, profiled the 6 common roles in alcoholic families – dependent, enabler, family hero, family scapegoat, lost child, and mascot. Each of these roles, while distinct and connected by addiction, is dysfunctional in some way. Which role do you play?
Seriously, consider for a moment that you are also part of an afflicted dynamic. What is the impact on you? Answering this question is important to inform questions about how to respond and in what ways you can best support your partner.
Although the decision to drink or not seems to be the most important, it’s a complex question. Given that you are afflicted with the complex impacts of addiction, it’s worth considering all of the following when making the decision. In this way, you can understand your circumstance and make the healthiest decision.
1) Are you educated about addiction and recovery? What do you have to learn?
Because alcoholism (and addiction more broadly) is so complex, loved ones must work to understand it before being equipped to make decisions about how to help the addict, support the relationship, and meet their own needs.
Educate yourself on addiction, including triggers, health issues, enabling behaviors, and the recovery process. A good start is understanding addiction as a disease.
Have you considered addiction to be a disease? Heard others do so? The disease model of addiction posits that addicts, including alcoholics, have a brain based disease in which they are genetically predisposed to be addicted and that predisposition is exacerbated by environmental factors.
Scientists studying addiction have identified primary symptoms of the disease (desensitization of the reward circuits of the brain; increased conditioned responses related to the substance an individual is dependent upon; and, declining function of brain regions that facilitate decision making and self-regulation (Volkow, Koob, and McLellan, 2016).
With clearly observable and identifiable symptoms identified, brain scientists have been able to narrow research to brain structures and chemicals that control related behaviors and functions.
Researchers have been able to consistently identify physical traits in the brain associated with addiction and support the conclusion that addiction is a brain disease.
This does not indicate that the person with addiction has no responsibility for their recovery. In fact, they must take responsibility for their recovery. Not to do so would be like having heart disease and dismissing responsibility because the condition is a disease.
2) Are you accepting reality?
If addiction exists, it has to some extent, impacted your relationship. As your partner sustains recovery, you must accept change. Recovery can change a person’s goals, actions, and even aspects of their personality. This can be very positive, but also scary. You may be forced to confront underlying issues in your relationship that have been previously covered up by addiction.
Again, this is an opportunity for growth, but requires that you accept change is happening and that you are a part of it.
You must also accept that you and your loved one may face lasting problems. The process of recovery is long, and while it establishes a course to reduce many of the problems associated with drinking, the problems don’t go away overnight. Relapse is always a consideration and the threat of relapse must be accepted.
Financial hardship and health problems caused while drinking take time to repair. Issues such as past problems with the law or career pursuits may also persist. Trust is often a major problem in relationships and it will take time, if at all possible, to repair.
In order to really consider your role in the family and the way that role exacerbates preexisting predisposition to addiction, you must first accept that the problems exist and may be lasting.
3) Are your expectations reasonable?
We all want those that we love to be happy and healthy. While this doesn’t change for someone who is an alcoholic, it’s easy to presume that “a few simple decisions and they will be cured.” Unfortunately, it’s not that easy.
Attending rehab or starting AA, doesn’t mean someone is healed. Instead check your expectations and commit to understanding that sobriety is a lifelong journey.
Celebrate the little wins along the way, but don’t expect a quick cure or you may quickly feel disappointed.
4) What changes are you willing to make to support your partner’s recovery and what are you unwilling to change?
You’ve probably been waiting for this question. After all, its answer helps to guide whether or not you drink around your partner. Unfortunately, the answer still isn’t simple.
First, it is reasonable and valid to make changes to your life to support your partner’s sobriety. Healthy and loving partners recognize that their actions influence their partner and consider their partner when making personal decisions. Addiction doesn’t need to change that. These changes (e.g., finding sober activities to do together, engaging with sober friends, focusing on new aspects of life, etc.) are often important supports for people in recovery.
With that said, considering your partner and making some changes does not mean that you will choose to change everything that makes your partner’s sobriety more simple.
Second, it is reasonable and valid to have boundaries and to be fair to yourself too. If you’ve begun to educate yourself on addiction and recovery, you’ve inevitably heard the term codependency.
Mealanie Beattie, author of Codependent No More, suggests that “a codependent person is one who has let another person’s behavior affect him or her, and who is obsessed with controlling that person’s behavior.” This can get murky, because loved ones’ behaviors very often affect us.
However, do we respond to or obsess over their behavior with ways to attempt to control it? This is the defining factor of codependency.
It’s common to give more of you than is fair. This choice is often with the intent to save the addict and often disguised as “supporting what they need to get better.” Recognize when you have given more of you than is fair.
These actions can include sleeping with your phone on, missing work to care for a hungover loved one, assuming greater financial or childcare responsibilities, etc.
When considering what changes you are willing to make and not make (i.e., whether to drink around your sober partner or not), you must be absolutely clear of your boundaries. For some these boundaries are financial, for some social, for some pertain to living arrangements, and for some pertain to your use and possession of alcohol.
Know your limits. Search long and deep internally about your comfort level. Will you resent the addict if you don’t create this boundary? What is permissible to you and what is not?
When your boundaries are clear, make them known to your loved one. Hold those boundaries firm, even if they are tested by the person suffering from addiction. Doing so will help prevent resentment, encourage empathy, and support sobriety. Not only is this the best course of action for you, it is also healthiest for your relationship, and for your partner.
5) How are you taking care of yourself?
To thoughtfully consider your boundaries, you must have clarity of mind and this requires taking care of yourself. Addiction impacts you too; so, make sure you are seeking treatment in some way.
Consider journaling, mindfulness meditation, yoga, or personal retreats. Formalized treatment is also necessary to recognize the way you are involved in a sick system of addiction.
Individual therapy for you or other members of your family, family therapy, Al-Anon, Nar-Anon, and SMART Recovery are all excellent options.
You are not alone. Addiction is a horrific disease and its impacts are deep and wide. You’ve taken a step to better educate yourself and consider the health of your actions.
What will your next step toward greater wellness be?
