Hugging a Cactus: Loving and Helping an Alcoholic

Loving an alcoholic is torture. Helping the alcoholic you love requires unexpected knowledge, uncommon mental toughness, baffling counterintuitiveness and faith that’s stronger than pride. It takes a hero to love and help someone struggling with alcohol. Most of the time, we get it wrong and the love we feel is overwhelmed by anger, resentment, shame and blame.

It is understandable, really. Those of us who suffer from addiction to alcohol are often intolerable. Our behavior makes us almost unhelpable. Our actions overshadow love.

When I was drinking, my wife, Sheri, and I did not fight all the time. We did, however, live in a constant state of uneasiness. Sheri was uncomfortable around me — never able to lower her guard and be herself with confidence because although our arguments weren’t ever present, the threat of a disagreement was. She never knew what would set me off. Rational behavior in an alcoholic is like a cell phone call in a tunnel — it flickers in and out unreliably and makes meaningful communication impossible.

When we would fight, we said vicious thing to one another. The vile name calling and hate-filled blaming was alcohol-induced and relentless. Booze removed my filter and made me evil. It forced me to say things I would never say when in a state of rational sensibility. When alcohol…