“Untreated Al-Anon”

Alcoholism and addiction are a ‘family disease’.  Addiction doesn’t just affect the individual but is a systemic and community problem.  There was a time when the idea of ‘schizophrenogenic mother’ existed in the literature. This was countered quickly by the recognition that mothers of schizophrenics were more likely ‘reactive’ than ‘creative’. Still the dynamic existed. 

 In addiction matter was more pronounced because the ‘system’ that developed in response to the addiction whether ‘primary’ or ‘secondary’ could impact recovery for the individual. At the worst it could contribute to relapse.

“If I could genetically paint ‘untreated al anon’s’ day glow orange and follow them I’d guarantee they’d identify any potential alcoholic better than any tests we have to date,” he told us. A leading expert in addiction with years of experience.

“Al anon’s have a peculiar attraction to the alcoholic either after or before the disease manifests fully.” He said.

In an attempt to understand this phenomen Transactional Analysis researchers noted that alcoholics appeared to have an ‘overdeveloped’ ‘child’ function while Al Anon’s had an ‘overdeveloped’ parental function. In Transactional Analysis each individuals was considered to have three modes of functioning, Parent, Adult and Child.  

The research collectively into addiction concluded that researchers perceived addicts as ‘emotional immature’ or ‘underdeveloped’.  On the developmental scale hypothesized by child psychiatrist Anna Freud from the natural narcissism of the baby to the wise altruism of the mature adult, it appeared addicts and alcoholics were fixated or regressed to an earlier developmental stage than their cohort.

Addicts and alcoholics ‘emotional age’ appears commonly ‘adolescent’.  

Meanwhile ‘untreated Al Anon’s’ appeared to be similiarly underdeveloped but in a different though complementary way.  In the classic scenario the ‘untreated al anon’ was under developed in the child function or mode and over developed in the parental mode or function. Often they ‘mothered’ other adults and appeared to need the alcoholic to have ‘fun’ or ‘purpose’ or ‘meaning’.  

As one recovered researcher put it simply, “They have a very peculiar attraction to us and often resist our recovery because it points out the depth of their own disease and peculiarity.”

In the studies of ‘character’ this historic religious ‘sins’ have been secularized. Indeed the whole notion of ‘character’ and ‘morality’ were developed long before psychological or scientific interest in ‘human traits’.  All religions and cultures developed a characterization of what was a ‘good’ versus a ‘bad’ person. There was inherent as well an idea of what was a ‘child’ and what was an adult.  These became enshrined later in the literature, religion and philosophy of different communities. 

The seven ‘cardinal’ or ‘deadly ‘sins’ or ‘vices’ were 

1. Pride

2. Greed

3. Lust

4. Envy

5. Gluttony 

6 Wrath

7. Sloth.

In the church the gender joke is that the worst of the ‘church ladies’ are gluttonous, loveless, envious and prideful while their husbands were gluttonously drunk and slothful with pride and greed. The distinction between the church’sinner’s and the non church individual was that those in the church acknowledged their ‘imperfection’ and were doing something about it. The joke with the alcoholic falling off the bar seat at the bar is he proudly says ‘I don’t have alcoholism. I’m not going to Alcoholics Anonymous.” He says as he has his umpteenth drink and pukes before passing out. 

The 12 step programs which developed originally in western culture building on the substrate of what it was to be good or mature seeing  ‘pride’ like the Greeks and Roman’s of old as ‘hubris’ or most deadly’. “Pride goest before the fall’. In the jargon of the psychology of addiction alcoholics and addicts were described and described themselves as ‘egomaniacs with inferiority’ complexes.”  They lacked the capacity to be ‘right sized’. 

Socially they felt uncomfortable finding it difficult to ‘chill’ or ‘fit’ or ‘feel comfortable in their own skin.”  In modern terms they commonly suffered ‘social anxiety’ and both untreated al anon’s and ‘alcoholics’ were commonly diagnosed as ‘bipolar disorder II” or ‘Anxiety disorder’. Indeed the ‘genetic trait’ most associated with the ‘disease of addiction’ was anxiety which , expressed as either anxiety or hypomanic moodiness, an irritability as opposed to sadness seen in unipolar depression.

This sense of ‘terminal uniqueness’ seen with the ‘alcoholic’ whose ‘love song was ‘I did it my way’ was expressed similiarly with the untreated al anon as a different kind of ‘uniqueness’. 

Often marriage therapists see couples as being ‘one up’ or ‘one down’ and that this tendency to ‘see saw’  in relationships was seen in the ‘bickerson’s.  The famous family therapist and originator of ‘relationship therapy’  Virginia Satir showed this with her “human sculpting’  Couples lacked ‘reciprocity’ and ‘balance’ and showed  their fixations and preferences for ‘self pity’ or ‘superiority’.  

Individuals who had childhood trauma were as likely to ‘recreate’ the ‘trauma’ or to ‘seek the traumatic situation’ in an attempt to ‘win’ in the interaction later in life.  

One of my patients who was best described as an ‘untreated al anon’ actually found three different men with untreated alcoholism all who had a ‘mom’ tattoo. No small feat. In each relationship she was abused recreating and attracted to the same model of family she’d grown up in.  It was what she was familiar with. Only with in depth therapy was she able to engage in a ‘higher level’ of interaction without the anger and violence.  She married a man in recovery eventually who didn’t have a. ‘Mom’ tattoo but he still had  a whole lot of tattoos.  She had naturally attempted to get him to hit her because she’d learned that was the way the previous men in her life gave attention and ‘showed love’.  Despite the rocky start the relationship continued a bit boringly as the man had no desire to ‘hit a woman’ in recovery.  Obviously alcohol and drugs are the principal contributor to domestic violence but without the fire starter and fuel for the fire, the underlying predispositions remain.

Opposites are less likely to attract than ‘complements’.  

Al Anon teaches that the  ‘controlling’ , ‘perfectionism’, ‘anger’, ‘pride’, ‘manipulation’ are characterological  of the  ‘untreated’ and persist in stealing the joy from the individual and relationship.  The untreated al anon is ‘fearful’ and ‘anxious’.  They historically were attracted to the alcoholic because early alcoholism is commonly associated with the appearance of ‘confidence’ and ‘courage’ which later is recognized as the clay feet of  ‘liquid courage’. In the prefrontal  phase of alcoholism the alcoholic is successful and some appear the ‘life of the party’.  If they are able to ‘curb’ their tendency to drink in their early adult years they commonly go on to be highly successful.  However a sub set who express the disease of alcoholism will be unable to moderate their alcoholism with the result being the full blown illness develops..  This leads to ‘early death, institutions or insaniety’.   

The untreated al anon will not uncommonly follow them along this journey out of ‘love’ or ‘fear’.  Indeed untreated they ‘enable’ and ‘worsen’ the progress of the disease often ‘killing with kindness’, lacking the capacity to ‘detach’. A foundation of the al anon group is to teach the principle of ‘detach with love’ .  Al Anon family groups have noted the difference between ‘co dependence’ and ‘inter dependence.   

Melody Beattie’s work with alcoholics, addicts and those with those traits lead to the group call ‘Co dependent’s anonymous’.  As is often the case a healthy trait is somehow ‘twisted’ to be ‘unhealthy’.  Inter dependence, with division of labour and mutual reliance for the normal couple especially the longer they are together is ,somehow perverted in addiction to become a ‘fear based’ and ‘desperate’ co dependence’ . Erickson in his classic,  the Art of Loving,  distinguished the ‘immature’ or ‘adolesnce’ unstable condition of ‘falling in love’ with he more mature and adult ‘love’ of ‘standing in love.’   The untreated al anon has difficulty moving from ‘sentimentality’ to ‘deep love’. Their ‘anxiety’ which attracts them to the alcoholic and addict who themselves is ‘deeply anxious’ needing increasing amounts of substances to address their increasing anxiety,  

The substance the untreated al anon is attracted to is the ‘addict or alcoholic’ . They are addicted to their ‘project’, this ‘fixer upper’,  the idea of their egotistical notion that they ‘caused’ or “created” or can ‘fix’ this other often comes from the trauma of their own childhood.

In al anon a fundamental teaching is called the ‘three c’s’ .  “We didn’t CAUSE it; we can’t CONTROL it; We cannot CURE it. “. So ‘We can’t COMPLAIN; We Don’t CRITICIZE; We don’t CONTROL

Part of the message of al anon is that the untreated al anon has tended to ‘blame’ and ‘distract attention’ from themselves to the usually more ‘overtly’ obvious ‘character defects’ exposed in the alcoholic or addict.  Historically they were ‘the long suffering one’.  

However, that historic ‘parent child’ fixation, the ‘good mother and bad boy’, of ‘alcoholic co dependency’ was challenged by the early ‘al anon’s’ who found that rather than finger pointing and tongue wagging what was needed was for the untreated al anon’s to develop emotionally themselves and ‘lead’ They learned to become  part of the ‘solution’ rather than persisting as part of the ‘problem’.  

In the Al Anon group and family experience the Al Anon addressed their own ‘social anxiety’ and ‘Co dependency’ finding support and confidence in community relationship through work psychologically on their own issues of ‘pride’ and ‘fear’ and ‘anxiety’ . They also identified the  common ‘process’ addictions which became more apparent in the ‘al anon’ community. Gluttony, obesity, lack of self care, lack of exercise, isolation, negativity, depression, all were ‘personal’ issues which needed to be addressed individually rather than ‘explained’ or ‘blamed’ on the ‘alcoholic’.  

In psychiatry the idea of ‘locus of control’ has long been a central concept because developmentally individuals and cultures tend to remain fixated as long as they interpret the problem as ‘somebody’s elses’.  Indeed the whole ‘legal system’ and ‘political system’ capitalize on this human tendency to ‘blame’ and indeed ,in some venues, this is true. War is a failure of diplomacy.  The world and humans in general are not perfect . 

The whole of therapy however developed from the model that an individual could first change and that this change would lead to change in the environment around them.  As long as I consider the problem is an SEP, ‘somebody else’s problem’,  I don’t have to change myself. However if as an adult I identify my own problem and look at my choices I can be proactive, created and get out of the rut I am in. 

The focus of Al Anon is ‘choice’. The al anon who is treated moves from ‘dependence’ on their ‘unreliable’ alcoholic partner to ‘independence’ by developing the skill or ‘detaching’ from the ‘unreliable dependence’. An example would be the alcoholic drives but is so hung over they fail to drive the al anon to work so there is recurrent complaints because the al anon is late to work ‘because of the alcoholic’.  This ‘argument ‘persists for years’ . When the untreated al anon joins al anon an older or more experienced woman or man would simply ask ‘why don’t you get your driver’s license’.   That is a ‘choice’ and moves the problem out of the adolescent realm of “I’m right, they’re wrong’ into ‘solution focused’.  Of course the untreated al anon would say “why should I have to change since I’m not the problem’ The irony is that the alcoholic in morbid parallel always says “why should I change, why can’t everybody else cut me some slack’.  They’re two peas in a pod. 

Often their ‘fight’s’ are the ‘passive or covert aggression’ what has some times been called ‘female agression’ coupled with ‘active, overt, or male’ aggression.  Siege and Charge tactics in the living room and bed room.  

Both Alcoholics/addicts and untreated al anon’s resist the formal group or ‘community involvement’. The family is commonly full of ‘secrets’ and both have difficulty ‘sharing’ or ‘asking for help’ at the community level. 

The alcoholic and addict has an ‘unrealistic’ dependence on their partner resulting in the joke that the mating call of untreated alcoholics and addicts is ‘’would you be my mommy?” Or ‘would you be my daddy?”  Developmentally they have difficulty moving from adolescent to mature adulthood.  Similarly the untreated alcoholic or addict expects their ‘emotional needs’ to be met in the ‘nuclear family’ with the result that the ‘children’ commonly become the ‘parents’ of the untreated alcoholic or the untreated ‘al anon’.  “Mommy was always depressed and anxious so we kids had to not upset her.  We had to take care of her because of Daddy’s drinking’.  In this classic scenario the children loose their childhood because the alcoholic and the al anon are ‘stuck’ developmentally in ‘adolescence.’  

The organization Adult Children of Alcoholics came to exist because of the ‘neglect’ that the children of ‘alcoholic homes’ experienced because of the immaturity of both parents. 

Transactional analysis family studies showed that the ‘untreated al anon’s’ had severe deficits in their own capacity to ‘have fun’ and self soothe’. They not uncommonly developed later life process addictions such as over eating, gambling, financial mismanagement, debt, overspending sexual acting out. They appeared to lack a capacity for ‘self soothing’.  Commonly Al Anon members in their first year and doing the ‘steps’ of Al Anon will describe ‘feeling joy’ for the first time or the first time in many years.  They commonly describe living life as ‘white knuckling’ it or ‘being ‘grim’.  They often don’t like other adults and prefer only being with children. They are comfortable in the ‘care giving’ mode but don’t really like being cared for’. They have deficits of true sensitivity but are very good at ‘maintaining the appearances’.  They ‘chameleon adult behaviour’.  They are ‘fine’ (Fucked inside, nice exterior - an acronym favoured in 12 step programs for the ability of both the untreated al anon and early untreated alcoholic for ‘keeping up appearances’. 

However, they lack ‘fun’.  Sexually they commonly have considerable inhibitions and difficulties not surprisingly because of the sexual difficulties known to alcoholism and addiction.  Given that the drugs or addictions negate performance the wife or husband of the addict or alcoholic will personalize the lack of bedroom pleasure rather than attributing it to the substance. Not surprisingly the addict or alcoholic who is taking a sexual performance deterrent will blame their partner for their lack of performance rather than the substance.  (In contrast to Hollywood where sexual difficulties appear the greatest due to the proliferation of alcohol and drugs, the sex lives of alcoholics and drug addicts are commonly least satisfying. It’s no surprise that Hollywood has such sexual deviance and ‘sexual addiction’s’ because of the drugs and alcohol impact on marriages, couples and performance. Hollywood presents the greatest lie, the truly FINE’

Alcoholic Republic is an excellent study of the effect of alcohol on the west at the cultural and community level. In the east opium had a similar impact, cocaine serving along with alcohol in South America and marijuana having its own problems when abused in other cultures.  

Al Anon recognizes that addiction and alcoholism is a family disease. The individuals who are impacted by alcoholism and addiction, the spouses, children ,adolescents, whether the addiction is active or in recovery benefit tremendously from the ‘community’ of Al Anon. In addition to adult Al Anon. There’s Al a Teen groups. 

Individuals and families were not meant to be alone but needed a ‘village’. The ‘nuclear family’ in the west associated with the wealth and prosperity physically is coupled with the emotional and spiritual deficits of isolation.  Misery loves company. A problem shared is a problem halved.  Al Anon serves to address the existential anxiety of human existence with individuals coming together to help their shared problem.  

Untreated al anon’s are ‘needy’ and ‘draining’ with jealousy, control and criticism. Just like untreated alcoholics and addicts are emotionally painful with their unreliability, criticism, irritability and moodiness.  By contrast those in recovery are noted by their joyfulness and creativity.

Biblically the ‘gifts of the spirit’ are described as charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, generosity, faith, modesty, self control. Being with some one in long term recovery in Al Anon is as much a ‘good feeling’ as being with someone in long term recovery from drugs and alcohol.  There’s a calm and confidence that fulfills.  It’s also been described as ‘graceful’. Al anon’s in recovery are especially ‘graceful.’  Their relationships and lives have a special ‘quality’ that especially to themselves was missing when they were not part of this greater whole called ‘recovery’.  Al Anon’s in recovery really are loving in the deepest sense and special in the traditional family and community sense.