Help for the Alcoholic’s Family by Jerome Ellison

The exclusive story, with case histories, of a new group that is bringing hope to alcohol’s most tragic victims: The wives, husbands and children of the drunkards themselves;

One night three years ago a wife in Long medical care, $25,000,000 t o jail maintenance, Beach, California, despondent over her $89,000,000 to accidents, $188,000,000 to husband’s drinking, went to a meeting of the crime, and $432,000,000 to wage losses. Other local Alanon–contraction of Alcoholics costs, such as the addling of good brains, the Anonymous–Family Group to see what, if neglect and abuse of children, the disruption of anything, might be done. After an evening of families and friendships, are borne in large intent listening to men and women who had measure by those closely associated with served as spouses to other drinkers, she problem drinkers. It is this population segment of returned home with her strategy drastically 20,000,000 that Alanon Family Groups are revised. intended primarily to help. Always one to pour the household liquor “And we need help,” says the wife of down the drain when a binge was on, she now AA’s surviving founder. “After years of living purchased five imperials of the finest, lined them intimately with an acute drinking problem, we’ve up on the kitchen sink and waved an invitation to become as jumpy as the drinker, and as much in her husband to help himself. Unmanned by this need of restorative measures.” reversal, he sat down to hear her explanation. As in AA, help is given mainly in the form He was so impressed by what she had learned of shared experience. Just as former drinkers about his problem that he returned the bottles are best qualified to appreciate inebriates unopened and hasn’t had a drink since. problems, so the harassments of the alcoholic’s, Alanon Family Groups, of which there are spouse–or brother, father, sister, mother, now about 700 neighborhood units, have sweetheart, employer or friend–can best be produced many recoveries which are hardly less understood, Alanon members say, by a remarkable. The society is not mainly organized, nonalcoholic who has had similar experiences. however, to effect such comebacks. This is the The voices of experience are heard in the province of its parent organization, Alcoholics talks members give at meetings, during the Anonymous, or AA, the international fellowship refreshment period afterward, and through of former problem drinkers who keep sober by informal get-togethers between times. helping inebriates find sobriety. Alanon tackles Sometimes, as in the case of the Long Beach the problem from the standpoint of the wife, a listener gains insight that results in an nonalcoholic who is hurt in the emotional and immediate improvement of the home situation. economic tornado which so often accompanies Of course, no one had suggested treating alcoholism. Its members are mostly wives and alcoholism with alcohol. But the principle that a husbands of AA members or prospects. desire to stop drinking is an inward thing that The field for Alanon is larger, the statistics cannot be created by outside lecturing, suggest, than that available to AA itself, and the threatening, scolding or deprivation, is one of the need is scarcely less urgent. The National tenets embraced in a way of life that AA’s and Committee on Alcoholism, an educational and their mates call “the program.” The Californian fact-finding organization, estimates that of the grasped it promptly, applied it daringly and 65,000,000 Americans who drink, 4,000,000 achieved a seemingly miraculous recovery. have well-developed cases of alcoholism. A “Hang around,” new members are Public Affairs Committee summary of the annual advised. “Sooner or later, you’ll hear a story that cost to the nation charges $31,000,000 to

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exactly matches your own.” When this happens, Some had taken refuge in a dulled a feeling of belonging is strengthened, isolation acceptance. “I had given up hope and become a is ended, anxiety begins to ease off. martyr. We never talked much; we were almost In a recent trip through the East and strangers. He was sure I had stopped loving Midwest I met and talked with scores of Alanon him; I was sure he had stopped loving me.” members attended their meetings and heard “The strain had affected my disposition, their case histories. There was a fantastic and this, in turn, affected the children. Our variety of family narratives, most of them having daughter avoided home like a plague and our a happy ending. Families had been salvaged son was in trouble at school. Bills at all the from circumstances seasoned counselors had stores were long past due, we had no cash, our pronounced hopeless. With the help of AA and furniture belonged to a loan company. For a Alanon, chronic drunks had been restored as family accustomed to making its way, it was dependable fathers, female barflies had made a hard.” comeback as conscientious mothers, families Others had lived at a high pitch of had been lifted from a special brand of hell to a nervous protest. “When he was out, I’d jump out special brand of peace. of my skin when the phone or doorbell rang, “Stories,” as members call their talks at chain myself to the house so I’d be there when meetings, briefly describe the family’s condition he returned, visualize accidents, extravagances, before AA and Alanon, the circumstances that infidelities, arrests. When he was home there led to joining and the family record since. The were spilt drinks, uneaten meals, insults, “before” passages often recall days and nights physical violence, interrupted sleep, ordinary of desperation and shame. “Our house was filth, constant quarrels.” always a mess,” a New York husband One wife said, “Our marriage was held reminisced. “I could never be sure my wife together by a little hope, a large fear and two would be sober when I came home; we could children.” never entertain friends or go visiting. I hated all The children were not fooled. “I always of it.” A Westchester father said, “I dragged my knew when daddy was drunk, by the way he put son out of bars, argued with him, took his money his key in the door,” a drinker’s daughter said. and liquor away. Nothing worked.” “When he was like that I ran to my room and Wives spoke movingly of what had locked the door.” happened to their loved ones and themselves. Another recalled: “Kids notice things. I “He was changing before my eyes, losing his remember them stumbling around saying, This gaiety, growing irritable. He was a binge drinker is the way Marilyn’s daddy walks.“’ and the binges came closer together.” In some cases a family member took the “Our problem so filled my mind that I first step toward family recovery through Alanon, found myself forgetting appointments, riding past drawing the alcoholic into the AA orbit later. “Our bus stops, looking at people and not hearing doctor suggested AA as a possible step for our what they said.” son,” one father said. “I began attending AA “We lived in a small, gossipy, party-line meetings on my own, and after a time Bob went town. We tried to keep up a gay front, but were with me. AA made sense to him right away, and stingingly unhappy.” he hasn’t had a drink since his first meeting.” From a Western state: “You know the Later, this father helped organize a family group story: father’d get plastered and you’d retreat to and served as its chairman. a corner to commit mental suicide and murder. I The alcoholic’s response is not always could never know what turn things would take; so prompt. “Alanon welcomed my daughter and there was never any security or sense of well me and gave us new hope,” one wife said, “but being or peace. Finally I built a wall around my husband didn’t join AA until a year and a half myself and retreated behind it. We didn’t go out later, when being fired for drinking finally opened for months at a time.” his eyes.” The Alcoholic Doesn’t Fool the Children In a New York City Alanon meeting it was the questing wife, one night, who received

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the eye opener. After hearing the symptoms of my husband’s problem discussed, but there was alcoholism described she jumped up, saying, “I hardly any mention of husbands. I was huffed don’t belong here, but in AA. I’m an alcoholic!” when one wife expressed the opinion that fear, Some members report having been self- worry, gossip, criticism, grudge-bearing, selfconscious and even suspicious in the beginning. righteousness and self-pity might be as “We had been referred to AA by our minister. I reprehensible as drunkenness, lying and knew nothing about it, and my son was afraid it thieving. This was a shock–it hit home.” A more might let him in for some kind of enforced soul- usual first reaction is one of relief. Again and saving program. He came home glowing after again I heard of the newcomer’s reassurance on his first meeting, relieved of this and a great discovering that others had survived all he now many other fears.” This Midwest mother learned faced and more, and had emerged cheerful and of the family group, joined and became an with a solution. effective counselor to other families. The “after” portions of the stories did not Family groups like to compare notes always proclaim unqualified victories over the about how they happened to “come in.” Some demon rum. AA claims to be able to help all are awed at the unlikely “chance” which brought sincere applicants except those who are help in a desperate hour. A husband said, “One “constitutionally unable to be honest with day when I was at my wit’s end about Mary’s themselves.” A number of these are represented drinking, I ran into an old friend who had been a in Alanon by their spouses. One wife felt that the complete lush, and found out about AA. Mary Alanon program was successful in her case said she’d try it, and I joined the local family “simply because I have some degree of serenity group to help her.” and good health, and can feel respect and good A wife reported: “During the last week of will for my husband even though he’s just come Jim’s last bout, a ninety-seven-day affair, I knelt off a two-week drunk.” Another reported down in my flower garden and said what was dramatic relief from disabling headaches which probably my first really serious prayer. A few she believed had been psychosomatic. A fiveminutes later a neighbor called and suggested I year member, she is successfully raising her two phone AA.” sons, though her husband remains a Frequently the alcoholic joins AA and the pathological drinker. One wife advised nonalcoholic partner affiliates with Alanon at the newcomers to be optimistic and patient about same time. “While I was in the hospital for an mates who were slow to respond. Her husband, operation, my husband drank himself into now sober four years, had taken seven years to another hospital. The AA’s called on him, and “make” AA! when he came out he was a member. When I Another group of “after” stories bears a came out I joined the family group.” restrained witness to improvement. “Has all More commonly the alcoholic pioneers in disagreement ended in our household?” one AA, and the spouse joins Alanon weeks or woman asked rhetorically. “No, but friendly months later. One factor is curiosity. “Something compromise has become possible.” had worked a profound change for the better in After a year of Alanon, a wife reported: my husband,” a Buffalo, New York’ wife testified, “The main difference in our family is that now we “and I wanted to find out what it was.” Another can talk. The two hardest people on earth to talk factor is a constructive kind of rivalry. In my to are a drunk and an irritated wife. Now that visiting around the groups I heard frequent we’ve broken the sound barrier, companionship reference to the growth in understanding and is growing.” maturity of the alcoholic spouse through AA. Generally, however, Alanon stories “We had to find out what it was all about or be reflect a happily reconstructed family life. They hopelessly outdistanced.” are preponderantly enthusiastic. “I’ll never forget those first meetings–seeing so many people I Finding out what it’s about sometimes knew, never dreaming they’d had the same comes as a shock. “I was quite put out at my problem we’d had! I’d been a plain snob! We first meeting,” one wife said. “I expected to hear

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had all been so foolish to cover up our problem one day fourteen years ago, when an AA instead of solving it!” stranger from Omaha blew into town, told Ray “I’ve made such wonderful friends! We he was the man to introduce AA to Des Moines, can laugh and even cry together and understand and wrought the marvel of sobriety. just what we’re laughing or crying about.” The secretary and treasurer reported “My advice to families with an alcoholic briefly, and members learned that some $17.85 problem is, don’t try to do it alone; it’s too big.” remained in the till. A collection basket was “We found this secret of harmony: When passed, into which the ladies put as much as a each partner is trying to remedy his own defects, dollar and as little as a dime. Four new members there’s nothing to differ about.” were introduced, and presented with pamphlets I recall particularly a meeting in Des outlining the nonalcoholics’ adaptation of AA’s Moines, which has a family group of the twelve suggested steps, stressing selfpredominantly female variety. Since AA runs examination, self-improvement, prayer and more than five-to-one male, this is the usual, but service. A rummage sale was announced by no means invariable, complexion of the among the coming events, and a home-talent spouse groups. The main AA group in Des show. These latter are popular, drawing as Moines has more than 200 members and holds many as 500 spectators. At one of them a meetings in its downtown clubrooms, over a prominent local political candidate and AA store at 816 1/2 Walnut Street, on Tuesday member offered his services as a target for evenings. Saturday night is family night, and it is custard pies. At five dollars a throw, he became not unusual to have seventy for dinner and twice a formidable moneymaker. By these and other that many for the evening program of AA means, the family group has provided the club speakers. Family group meets on second with furniture, television, piano, refrigerator, Wednesdays at eight P.M. dining silver and kitchen range. At the meeting I attended I counted The first speaker, an attractive forty-yearabout eighty women. There were grandmothers old redhead celebrating the first anniversary of and there was a babe in arms. The twenties and her family’s affiliation with AA, said it had been a forties were well represented, with the thirties short year and the happiest of their married life. having a plurality. The members were smart in “When Don came in a year ago, the appearance and cheerful in demeanor, and the neighborhood tavern keeper made a pool on quarters pleasant. The loft measures perhaps which of the first fourteen days Don would forty by a hundred feet. In the rear are kitchen resume drinking. The pool was extended to and dining facilities, a coffee bar and an office. three, then four weeks, then called off. Don likes The front portion, where the meetings are held, AA and likes sobriety, and now it’s a year. In our is a lounge and auditorium. Presiding was the house, it was a revelation to learn that for an secretary, a long-limbed, gently spoken matron alcoholic the dangerous drink is not the third or in her thirties named Dorothy H. seventh or eleventh, but the first! It’s wise to Before the meeting I learned that recall the things that happened while Don was Dorothy was the wife of Ray H., a prominent drinking—it encourages a sense of gratitude-local attorney and one of the founders of the but unwise, I think, to brood over them. Some of Des Moines AA group, and that they have an them, recalled a year or two later, even seem eleven-year-old son. Ray, in his day, had been funny. jailed eighteen times for drunkenness, and “We didn’t go out much, because Don hospitalized countless times. On one of these drank all day and wanted only to sleep when he occasions the attending doctor jotted: “A chronic came home. Now and then, to make up, he’d alcoholic, formerly a man of repute.” As Ray’s blow me to his idea of a big treat–like the time secretary, it was once part of Dorothy’s job to he took me to a drive-in theater, then snored all cover up for him during his binges. She agreed through the show. Our social life has improved a to marry him only if he’d give up drinking. He great deal, now that people can understand accepted the condition and stayed sober three what Don is saying. Don says my cooking is months. There followed four “awful” years, until better. Of course, it is. He used to phone at

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dinnertime and say he’d be home in ten minutes. members submitted written questions, and the Two hours later he’d call and say he’d be home program consisted of older members’ answers. in five minutes. An hour later, when everything These were typical questions: How far was dehydrated to the consistency of cedar does one go in accommodating an AA spouse’s shingles, he’d turn up for dinner.” She had long drunken proteges? How do you take a moral been in the habit’ she said, of cutting out and inventory? Should liquor be kept under lock and saving quotations that particularly appealed to key? To what extent should one cover the lies of her. She read us one: “A clever wife sees a husband who’s still drinking? How long after through her husband; a good wife sees her the alcoholic stop drinking does that awful husband through.” uncertainty persists? The next speaker was one of the A question which drew a comment from founders of the family group. “Jack and I came practically everybody present at the Montclair into AA eleven years ago. He’s a broker. He meeting was: How do I find peace of mind? The drank a lot in his business and we drank consensus was that one never captured it by together daily, I almost as much as he. Things frontal attack; when it came at all, it was a bywere not going well with us, with Jack’s product of some other activity–usually of trying business, with the children. There had to be a to help someone else. Some found a measure of change, either for better or for much worse. peace in counting blessings, others in talking out Then Jack Alexander’s article came along in The a problem with an understanding friend. Saturday Evening Post, and we began to talk Prayers–“Don’t let me think that way,” “Help me about AA. After three years of talk, my Jack to make the most of this single day,” and the actually joined, and, of course, I affiliated with familiar AA prayer for serenity and wisdom-the family group. It has given me friends, and were reported as tending to restore tranquility. steady help with current problems, and many good times.” She closed by reading the passage The program is obviously flexible as of the marriage ceremony that goes: “—from – to size, location and form of meetings. I received this day forward, for better for worse, for richer an impression, however, that it called for a or poorer, in sickness and in health—” It helped certain minimum of individual effort. A sincere her perspective to remind herself, she said, that desire to get sober and remain so is expected of she had once made such a promise and the alcoholic; and of the nonalcoholic, a genuine considered it binding. wish to achieve and maintain harmonious family relationships. Reform activities are to be The active therapeutic ingredient of confined to oneself; efforts to change others are AA-Alanon, a mysterious force that AA’s are to be restricted to friendly concern. Criticism, sometimes heard to call “the program,” is a little gossip and grudge-bearing are definitely off the hard to define. After attending meetings over a program. One may rib another person only on wide geographical spread, I concluded that the condition one ribs oneself more sharply. effective essence is not in physical surroundings Humility, though regarded as nearly or programming. In Montclair, New Jersey, and unattainable, is nevertheless to be sought, along Kew Gardens, New York’ the groups met in with patience, understanding, thoughtfulness churches. In Jackson Heights they met in an and honesty. The participation of a Higher office building, in Westchester in a museum, in Power is frequently alluded to as a desirable New York City in an AA club, in Buffalo in an condition for the program’s fulfillment. Regular apartment. In Des Moines there were eighty at attendance at meetings and frequent contacts the meeting; in other places the average with other members are parts of the program. attendance was twenty. In Westchester and in Through these contacts the extraordinary one of the North Jersey groups, the chairmen understanding of one sufferer for another finds were men. Buffalo and New York City had opportunity to take effect. speaker programs. In Kew Gardens and The growth of the family groups roughly Jackson Heights the meetings were open parallels that of AA, which celebrates its discussions. In Westchester and Montclair, new twentieth anniversary this month with an

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anticipated attendance of 15,000 at its St. Louis Family Groups Handbook, a 200-page two-dollar convention. The two founders of AA were a Wall volume has just–June 1955, made its – Street broker and an Akron physician. From the appearance. The Alanon Family Groups beginning, their wives were important partners in Clearing House publishes a monthly bulletin and the movement. They turned their homes into answers inquiries from P.O. Box 1475, Grand virtual rescue missions overflowing with drunks. Central Station, New York 17, N.Y. It is manned As more family men entered AA, there were by volunteers; overhead is defrayed by a more wives to be encouraged and advised. The traditional dollar a member in spring and fall. book Alcoholics Anonymous, from which the AA as a whole has welcomed its society took its name, was published in 1939. offspring, if not always with a wild exuberance, Special chapters were addressed to the needs at least with a warm tolerance. What is probably of wives and families of alcoholics. When the a consensus was well stated by AA’s official first meetings were held in members’ homes, publication, Grapevine, in an approving article spouses chatted over coffee in the kitchen while by an initially suspicious member. “This reporter AA’s met in the living room. Some went along on had heard about these goings-on,” the piece responses to appeals for help–“twelfth-step says, “and, like many a smug AA, assumed they calls”—talking with the sober spouse while the were mere knitting circles. I was lured into one AA dealt with the inebriate. Later, in localities of their meetings recently. If I came to sneer, I where the AA tradition includes large “open”–to remained to pray. This was no sewing bee but a the public–meetings, the nonalcoholic partner spiritual force at work. I guess I was expecting to attended regularly. Even where there were only hear long complaints about how they’d been put “closed’‘–to all but alcoholics–meetings, enough upon by our boozing. There was none of that. AA thought filtered through to provoke a lively They were examining not us but themselves!” curiosity. Whatever “the program” may be, there is Mainly, however, Alanon has drawn its no longer much question that in many cases it strength from a discovery that the affected can reunite families, sometimes beyond nonalcoholics have problems distinctly their reasonable expectation. I talked with a father of own–problems which respond amazingly to five children who had spent nine years in a state appropriate application of the familiar ideas penitentiary for bad-check passing, an activity which make up AA philosophy. Nonalcoholic that invariably accompanied his drinking. There auxiliaries, variously called Alanon, Alano, was an AA group in the prison and he joined. Onala, wives’ groups and ladies’ auxiliaries When he found that it worked for two years sprang up. By 1949 there were about fifty of “outside,” he got in touch with his wife, who these. The need for some such agency as a meanwhile had divorced him, and began a partner and helpmeet for AA was becoming second courtship. Part of his wooing was more evident. AA general headquarters at 141 introducing her to Alanon. They’ve now been E. 44th St., New York City was receiving a remarried two years. steady stream of inquiries from distracted wives Then, of course, there are the cases and husbands of alcoholics. Family groups were where it has not quite worked, and these are the clamoring for some sort of central facility. sad ones. While I was in Des Moines, Ray H., A report on family groups was given at the lawyer, took me down to the courthouse one the 1950 convention in Cleveland, which was afternoon when a family case was set to be attended by more than 10,000 AA’s and their tried. “Just so you can see what can happen mates. Returning delegates spawned groups when we miss,” he explained. Both the father everywhere. In the next five years 650 were and mother in the case were alcoholics and formed, including units in Europe, Africa and there were six children, eighteen to four. The Oceania. There are now 300 in Canada alone. continued destructive drinking of the father Groups are so numerous in California that the produced a home unfit for children. County state had to be divided into northern and welfare had worked with the family for years and southern councils. They are still forming, at a given up hope, and now was asking the -court to current rate of about one a week. The Alanon take the children from the father and mother.

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This was done, and I shall not soon forget the read their mail. One day they let me read some tear-stained face of the fifteen-year-old daughter of it. I jotted down the closing words of one or the way the four-year-old kept looking into letter: “My husband is an alcoholic, but will not people’s faces, trying to understand. There are ask for help. He thinks he can work it out for such scenes in all the courthouses all the time, himself. He’s not doing it, but what can I do? Is and not all of them, we now know, are beyond there anyone in the world who can help us or will hope. There is need for AA’s new present to all try to? Please, for God’s sake, can you help the family. me?” Volunteers at the Clearing House–all AA wives–don’t have to be told of this need—they

Source: The Saturday Evening Post, July 2, 1955

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