Family in the Big Book

Twenty-two, and a veteran of foreign wars, I went home at last.

Though my drinking was not yet continuous, it disturbed my wife.

Living modestly, my wife and I saved $1,000.

I failed to persuade my broker friends to send me out looking over factories and managements, but my wife and I decided to go anyway.

There had been no real infidelity, for loyalty to my wife, helped at times by extreme drunkenness, kept me out of those scrapes.

We went at once to the country, my wife to applaud while I started out to overtake Walter Hagen.

We went to live with my wife’s parents.

My wife began to work in a department store, coming home exhausted to find me drunk.

Nevertheless, I still thought I could control the situation, and there were periods of sobriety which renewed my wife’s hope.

The house was taken over by the mortgage holder, my mother-in-law died, my wife and father-in-law became ill.

Before then, I had written lots of sweet promises, but my wife happily observed that this time I meant business.

Shortly afterward I came home drunk.

Sometimes I stole from my wife’s slender purse when the morning terror and madness were on me.

There were flights from city to country and back, as my wife and I sought escape.

My weary and despairing wife was informed that it would all end with heart failure during delirium tremens, or I would develop a wet brain, perhaps within a year.

I thought of my poor wife.

My wife was at work.

My wife and I abandoned ourselves with enthusiasm to the idea of helping other alcoholics to a solution of their problems.

I have seen hundreds of families set their feet in the path that really goes somewhere; have seen the most impossible domestic situations righted; feuds and bitterness of all sorts wiped out.

I have seen men come out of asylums and resume a vital place in the lives of their families and communities.

In one western city and its environs there are one thousand of us and our families.

One poor chap committed suicide in my home.

It brings misunderstanding, fierce resentment, financial insecurity, disgusted friends and employers, warped lives of blameless children, sad wives and parents—anyone can increase the list.

Strangely enough, wives, parents and intimate friends usually find us even more unapproachable than do the psychiatrist and the doctor.

He uses his gifts to build up a bright outlook for his family and himself, and then pulls the structure down on his head by a senseless series of sprees.

In a vague way their families and friends sense that these drinkers are abnormal, but everybody hopefully awaits the day when the sufferer will rouse himself from his lethargy and assert his power of will.

If what we have learned and felt and seen means anything at all, it means that all of us, whatever our race, creed, or color are the children of a living Creator with whom we may form a relationship upon simple and understandable terms as soon as we are willing and honest enough to try.

Here are some of the methods we have tried: Drinking beer only, limiting the number of drinks, never drinking alone, never drinking in the morning, drinking only at home, never having it in the house, never drinking during business hours, drinking only at parties, switching from scotch to brandy, drinking only natural wines, agreeing to resign if ever drunk on the job, taking a trip, not taking a trip, swearing off forever (with and without a solemn oath), taking more physical exercise, reading inspirational books, going to health farms and sanitariums, accepting voluntary commitment to asylums—we could increase the list ad infinitum.

This man has a charming wife and family.

His family was re-assembled, and he began to work as a salesman for the business he had lost through drinking.

Moreover, he would lose his family for whom he had a deep affection.

Here was the threat of commitment, the loss of family and position, to say nothing of that intense mental and physical suffering which drinking always caused him.

Finally, he can no longer work, his wife gets a divorce and he is held up to ridicule.

This is a point we wish to emphasize and re-emphasize, to smash home upon our alcoholic readers as it has been revealed to us out of bitter experience.

His income is good, he has a fine home, is happily married and the father of promising children of college age.

I have a shadowy recollection of being in an airplane bound for New York, and of finding a friendly taxicab driver at the landing field instead of my wife.

We hope it strikes home to thousands like him.

Actually we were fooling ourselves, for deep down in every man, woman, and child, is the fundamental idea of God.

Business failure, insanity, fatal illness, suicide— these calamities in his immediate family embittered and depressed him.

He is the Father, and we are His children.

We found it very desirable to take this spiritual step with an understanding person, such as our wife, best friend, or spiritual adviser.

We were usually as definite as this example: I’m resentful at: Mr. Brown Mrs. Jones My employer My wife The Cause Affects my: His attention to my Sex relations. wife.

Self-esteem (fear) Told my wife of my Sex relations. mistress.

parent was that this world and its people were often quite wrong.

Notice that the word “fear’’ is bracketed alongside the difficulties with Mr. Brown, Mrs. Jones, the employer, and the wife.

Then we have the voices who cry for sex and more sex; who bewail the institution of marriage; who think that most of the troubles of the race are traceable to sex causes.

It may be one of our own family, but we cannot disclose anything to our wives or our parents which will hurt them and make them unhappy.

Returning home we find a place where we can be quiet for an hour, carefully reviewing what we have done.

Because of resentment and drinking, he had not paid alimony to his first wife.

It would have been impressive heroics if he had walked up to the Judge and said, “Here I am.’’ We thought he ought to be willing to do that if necessary, but if he were in jail he could provide nothing for either family.

We suggested he write his first wife admitting his faults and asking forgiveness.

If he opened that old affair, he was afraid it would destroy the reputation of his partner, disgrace his family and take away his means of livelihood.

After consulting with his wife and partner he came to the conclusion that it was better to take those risks than to stand before his Creator guilty of such ruinous slander.

But drinking does complicate sex relations in the home.

After a few years with an alcoholic, a wife gets worn out, resentful and uncommunicative.

The husband begins to feel lonely, sorry for himself.

A man so involved often feels very remorseful at times, especially if he is married to a loyal and courageous girl who has literally gone through hell for him.

If we are sure our wife does not know, should we tell her?

It is as good for the wife as for the husband.

If we have no such complication, there is plenty we should do at home.

Certainly he must keep sober, for there will be no home if he doesn’t.

But he is yet a long way from making good to the wife or parents whom for years he has so shockingly treated.

Passing all understanding is the patience mothers and wives have had with alcoholics.

Selfish and inconsiderate habits have kept the home in turmoil.

He is like the farmer who came up out of his cyclone cellar to find his home ruined.

To his wife, he remarked, “Don’t see anything the matter here, Ma.

We ought to sit down with the family and frankly analyze the past as we now see it, being very careful not to criticize them.

So we clean house with the family, asking each morning in meditation that our Creator show us the way of patience, tolerance, kindliness and love.

Unless one’s family expresses a desire to live upon spiritual principles we think we ought not to urge them.

If circumstances warrant, we ask our wives or friends to join us in morning meditation.

This advice is given for his family also.

If there is any indication that he wants to stop, have a good talk with the person most interested in him— usually his wife.

The family may object to this, but unless he is in a dangerous physical condition, it is better to risk it.

Don’t deal with him when he is very drunk, unless he is ugly and the family needs your help.

Then let his family or a friend ask him if he wants to quit for good and if he would go to any extreme to do so.

Neither should the family hysterically plead with him to do anything, nor should they tell him much about you.

The family must decide these

Usually the family should not try to tell your story.

When possible, avoid meeting a man through his family.

Though you have talked with the family, leave them out of the first discussion.

He will feel he can deal with you without being nagged by his family.

He should not be pushed or prodded by you, his wife, or his friends.

But you should not deprive your family or creditors of money they should have.

Perhaps you will want to take the man into your home for a few days.

Be certain he will be welcomed by your family, and that he is not trying to impose upon you for money, connections, or shelter.

It may mean sharing your money and your home, counseling frantic wives and relatives, innumerable trips to police courts, sanitariums, hospitals, jails and asylums.

Your wife may sometimes say she is neglected.

A drunk may smash the furniture in your home, or burn a mattress.

It is not good for him, and it sometimes creates serious complications in a family.

Though an alcoholic does not respond, there is no reason why you should neglect his family.

The family should be offered your way of life.

Should they accept and practice spiritual principles, there is a much better chance that the head of the family will recover.

And even though he continues to drink, the family will find life more bearable.

Some of us have taken very hard knocks to learn this truth: Job or no job—wife or no wife—we simply do not stop drinking so long as we place dependence upon other people ahead of dependence on God.

When your prospect has made such reparation as he can to his family, and has thoroughly explained to them the new principles by which he is living, he should proceed to put those principles into action at home.

That is, if he is lucky enough to have a home.

Though his family be at fault in many respects, he should not be concerned about that.

If persisted in for a few months, the effect on a man’s family is sure to be great.

Little by little the family may see their own defects and admit them.

After they have seen tangible results, the family will perhaps want to go along.

The wife should fully understand his new way of life.

Let no alcoholic say he cannot recover unless he has his family back.

In some cases the wife will never come back for one reason or another.

We have seen men get well whose families have not returned at all.

We have seen others slip when the family came back too soon.

When working with a man and his family, you should take care not to participate in their quarrels.

But urge upon a man’s family that he has been a very sick person and should be treated accordingly.

If you have been successful in solving your own domestic problems, tell the newcomer’s family how that was accomplished.

The story of how you and your wife settled your difficulties is worth any amount of criticism.

Ask any woman who has sent her husband to distant places on the theory he would escape the alcohol problem.

We feel that each family, in the light of their own circumstances, ought to decide for themselves.

TO WIVES* W ith few exceptions, our book thus far has spoken of men.

But for every man who drinks others are involved— the wife who trembles in fear of the next debauch; the mother and father who see their son wasting away.

Among us are wives, relatives and friends whose problem has been solved, as well as some who have not yet found a happy solution.

We want the wives of Alcoholics Anonymous to address the wives of men who drink too much.

As wives of Alcoholics Anonymous, we would like you to feel that we understand as perhaps few can.

We have been * Written in 1939, when there were few women in A.A., this chapter assumes that the alcoholic in the home is likely to be the husband.

Our loyalty and the desire that our husbands hold up their heads and be like other men have begotten all sorts of predicaments.

We have told innumerable lies to protect our pride and our husbands’ reputations.

When we were invited out, our husbands sneaked so many drinks that they spoiled the occasion.

not have brought the pay envelopes home.

The bill collectors, the sheriffs, the angry taxi drivers, the policemen, the bums, the pals, and even the ladies they sometimes brought home—our husbands thought we were so inhospitable.

We have tried to hold the love of our children for their father.

They struck the children, kicked out door panels, smashed treasured crockery, and ripped the keys out of pianos.

The unexpected result was that our husbands seemed to like it.

Perhaps at this point we got a divorce and took the children home to father and mother.

Then we were severely criticized by our husband’s parents for desertion.

We finally sought employment ourselves as destitution faced us and our families.

How could men who loved their wives and children be so unthinking, so callous, so cruel?

Could we have been so mistaken in the men we married?

And even if they did not love their families, how could they be so blind about themselves?

These are some of the questions which race through the mind of every woman who has an alcoholic husband.

Perhaps your husband has been living in that strange world of alcoholism where everything is distorted and exaggerated.

Today most of our men are better husbands and fathers than ever before.

Try not to condemn your alcoholic husband no matter what he says or does.

Is it right to let him ruin your life and the lives of your children?

The problem with which you struggle usually falls within one of four categories: One: Your husband may be only a heavy drinker.

Two: Your husband is showing lack of control, for he is unable to stay on the water wagon even when he wants to.

Three: This husband has gone much further than husband number two.

His friends have slipped away, his home is a near-wreck and he cannot hold a position.

Four: You may have a husband of whom you completely despair.

Sometimes he drinks on the way home from the hospital.

Many of our husbands were just as far gone.

Let’s now go back to husband number one.

Even though your husband becomes unbearable and you have to leave him temporarily, you should, if you can, go without rancor.

Be determined that your husband’s drinking is not going to spoil your relations with your children or your friends.

It is possible to have a full and useful life, though your husband continues to drink.

Do not set your heart on reforming your husband.

Your husband may come to appreciate your reasonableness and patience.

Your husband may be willing to talk to one of them.

If this kind of approach does not catch your husband’s interest, it may be best to drop the subject, but after a friendly talk your husband will usually revive the topic himself.

Meanwhile you might try to help the wife of another serious drinker.

If you act upon these principles, your husband may stop or moderate.

Suppose, however, that your husband fits the description of number two.

The same principles which apply to husband number one should be practiced.

If you have a number three husband, you may be in luck.

In some cases it may be better to let someone outside the family present the book.

If your husband is otherwise a normal individual, your chances are good at this stage.

In any event, try to have your husband read this book.

Perhaps you have a husband who is at large, but who should be committed.

The wives and children of such men suffer horribly, but not more than the men themselves.

If your husband is a drinker, you probably worry over what other people are thinking and you hate to meet your friends.

You draw more and more into yourself and you think everyone is talking about conditions at your home.

ing, even with your own parents.

You do not know what to tell the children.

When your husband is bad, you become a trembling recluse, wishing the telephone had never been invented.

While you need not discuss your husband at length, you can quietly let your friends know the nature of his illness.

But you must be on guard not to embarrass or harm your husband.

You will no longer be self-conscious or feel that you must apologize as though your husband were a weak character.

The same principle applies in dealing with the children.

Then that terrible tension which grips the home of every problem drinker will be lessened.

Frequently, you have felt obliged to tell your husband’s employer and his friends that he was sick, when as a matter of fact he was tight.

Whenever possible, let your husband explain.

You may be afraid your husband will lose his position; you are thinking of the disgrace and hard times which will befall you and the children.

It may convince your husband he wants to stop drinking forever.

We wives found that, like everybody else, we were afflicted with pride, self-pity, vanity and all the things which go to make up the self-centered person; and we were not above selfishness or dishonesty.

As our husbands began to apply spiritual principles in their lives, we began to see the desirability of doing so too.

We thought, on the whole, we were pretty good women, capable of being nicer if our husbands stopped drinking.

We urge you to try our program, for nothing will be so helpful to your husband as the radically changed attitude toward him which God will show you how to have.

Go along with your husband if you possibly can.

If you and your husband find a solution for the pressing problem of drink you are, of course, going to be very happy.

The faith and sincerity of both you and your husband will be put to the test.

Your husband will sometimes be unreasonable and you will want to criticize.

These family dissensions are very dangerous, especially to your husband.

We do not mean that you have to agree with your husband whenever there is an honest difference of opinion.

You and your husband will find that you can dispose of serious problems easier than you can the trivial ones.

If your husband is trying to live on a spiritual basis, he will also be doing everything in his power to avoid disagreement or contention.

Your husband knows he owes you more than sobriety.

We women carry with us a picture of the ideal man, the sort of chap we would like our husbands to be.

Another feeling we are very likely to entertain is one of resentment that love and loyalty could not cure our husbands of alcoholism.

Your husband will

After all, your family is reunited, alcohol is no longer a problem and you and your husband are working together toward an undreamed-of future.

You have been starving for his companionship, yet he spends long hours helping other men and their families.

We suggest that you direct some of your thought to the wives of his new alcoholic friends.

It is probably true that you and your husband have been living too much alone, for drinking many times isolates the wife of an alcoholic.

Therefore, you probably need fresh interests and a great cause to live for as much as your husband.

You, as well as your husband, ought to think of what you can put into life instead of how much you can take out.

Perhaps your husband will make a fair start on the new basis, but just as things are going beautifully he dismays you by coming home drunk.

Your husband will see at once that he must redouble his spiritual activities if he expects to survive.

The slightest sign of fear or intolerance may lessen your husband’s chance of recovery.

God has either removed your husband’s liquor problem or He has not.

Then you and your husband can get right down to fundamentals.

* The fellowship of Al-Anon Family Groups was formed about thirteen years after this chapter was written.

Though it is entirely separate from Alcoholics Anonymous, it uses the general principles of the A.A. program as a guide for husbands, wives, relatives, friends, and others close to alcoholics.

The foregoing pages (though addressed only to wives) indicate the problems such people may face.

Alateen, for teen-aged children of alcoholics, is a part of Al-Anon.

If there is no Al-Anon listing in your local telephone book, you may obtain further information on Al-Anon/Alateen Family Groups by writing to its World Service Office, 1600 Corporate Landing Parkway, Virginia Beach, VA 23454-5617.

O ur women folk have suggested certain attitudes a wife may take with the husband who is recovering.

All members of the family should meet upon the common ground of tolerance, understanding and love.

The alcoholic, his wife, his children, his “in-laws,” each one is likely to have fixed ideas about the family’s attitude towards himself or herself.

We find the more one member of the family demands that the others concede to him, the more resentful they become.

Is not each trying to arrange the family show to his liking?

Is he not unconsciously trying to see what he can take from the family life rather than give?

A doctor said to us, “Years of living with an alcoholic is almost sure to make any wife or child neurotic.

The entire family is, to some extent, ill.”

Let families realize, as they start their journey, that all will not be fair weather.

Suppose we tell you some of the obstacles a family will meet; suppose we suggest how they may be avoided—even converted to good use for others.

The family of an alcoholic longs for the return of happiness and security.

Today’s life is measured against that of other years and, when it falls short, the family may be unhappy.

Family confidence in dad is rising high.

But the wise family will admire him for what he is trying to be, rather than for what he is trying to get.

Now and then the family will be plagued by spectres from the past, for the drinking career of almost every alcoholic has been marked by escapades, funny, humiliating, shameful or tragic.

The family may be possessed by the idea

The alcoholic’s past thus becomes the principal asset of the family and frequently it is almost the only one!

This painful past may be of infinite value to other families still struggling with their problem.

We think each family which has been relieved owes something to those who have not, and when the occasion requires, each member of it should be only too willing to bring former mistakes, no matter how grievous, out of their hiding places.

For example, we know of situations in which the alcoholic or his wife have had love affairs.

Husbands and wives have sometimes been obliged to separate for a time until new perspective, new victory over hurt pride could be rewon.

We families of Alcoholics Anonymous keep few skeletons in the closet.

Members of a family should watch such matters carefully, for one careless, inconsiderate remark has been known to raise the very devil.

In either case certain family problems will arise.

The family will be affected also, pleasantly at first, as they feel their money troubles are about to be solved, then not so pleasantly as they find themselves neglected.

He may take small interest in the children and may show irritation when reproved for his delinquencies.

If not irritable, he may seem dull and boring, not gay and affectionate as the family would like him to be.

Sometimes mother and children don’t think so.

The family is mystified.

Both father and the family are mistaken, though each side may have some justification.

The family must realize that dad, though marvelously improved, is still convalescing.

The head of the house ought to remember that he is mainly to blame for what befell his home.

Since the home has suffered more than anything else, it is well that a man exert himself there.

We know there are difficult wives and families, but the man who is getting over alcoholism must remember he did much to make them so.

As each member of a resentful family begins to see his shortcomings and admits them to the others, he lays a basis for helpful discussion.

These family talks will be constructive if they can be carried on without heated argument, self-pity, self-justification or resentful criticism.

Little by little, mother and children will see they ask too much, and father will see he gives too

As soon as his sobriety begins to be taken as a matter of course, the family may look at their strange new dad with apprehension, then with irritation.

He may demand that the family find God in a hurry, or exhibit amazing indifference to them and say he is above worldly considerations.

When father takes this tack, the family may react unfavorably.

If he means to right his past wrongs, why all this concern for everyone in the world but his family?

If the family cooperates, dad will soon see that he is suffering from a distortion of values.

He will perceive that his spiritual growth is lopsided, that for an average man like himself, a spiritual life which does not include his family obligations may not be so perfect after all.

If the family will appreciate that dad’s current behavior is but a phase of his development, all will be well.

In the midst of an understanding and sympathetic family, these vagaries of dad’s spiritual infancy will quickly disappear.

The opposite may happen should the family condemn and criticize.

If the family persists in criticism, this fallacy may take a still greater hold on father.

Instead of treating the family as he should, he may retreat further into himself and feel he has spiritual justification for so doing.

Though the family does not fully agree with dad’s spiritual activities, they should let him have his head.

Even if he displays a certain amount of neglect and irresponsibility towards the family, it is well to let him go as far as he likes in helping other alcoholics.

One more suggestion: Whether the family has spiritual convictions or not, they may do well to examine the principles by which the alcoholic member is trying to live.

Nothing will help the man who is off on a spiritual tangent so much as the wife who adopts a sane spiritual program, making a better practical use of it.

There will be other profound changes in the household.

By force of circumstances, she was often obliged to treat father as a sick or wayward child.

Thus mother, through no fault of her own, became accustomed to wearing the family trousers.

This means trouble, unless the family watches for these tendencies in each other and comes to a friendly agreement about them.

The family may feel they hold a mortgage on dad, so big that no equity should be left for outsiders.

Instead of developing new channels of activity for themselves, mother and children demand that he stay home and make up the deficiency.

At the very beginning, the couple ought to frankly face the fact that each will have to yield here and there if the family is going to play an effective part in the new life.

Though the family has no religious connections, they may wish to make contact with or take membership in a religious body.

He and his family can be a bright spot in such congregations.

each family play together or separately, as much as their circumstances warrant.

The alcoholic may find it hard to re-establish friendly relations with his children.

The children are sometimes dominated by a pathetic hardness and cynicism.

Whether the family goes on a spiritual basis or not, the alcoholic member has to if he would recover.

Seeing is believing to most families who have lived with a drinker.

Seeing this, and meaning to be helpful, his wife commenced to admonish him about it.

His wife is one of those persons who really feels there is something rather sinful about these commodities, so she nagged, and her intolerance finally threw him into a fit of anger.

Though he is now a most effective member of Alcoholics Anonymous, he still smokes and drinks coffee, but neither his wife nor anyone else stands in judgment.

She wanted to know if her husband’s company insurance was still in force.

We all had to place recovery above everything, for without recovery we would have lost both home and business.

If he speaks of his home situation, you can undoubtedly make helpful suggestions.

When his wife next calls saying he is sick, you might jump to the conclusion he is drunk.

Suppose now that through you several families have adopted this way of life.

But what about his responsibilities—his family and the men who would die because they would not know how to get well, ah—yes, those other alcoholics?

It was the usual situation: home in jeopardy, wife ill, children distracted, bills in arrears and standing damaged.

Why, he argued, should he lose the remainder of his business, only to bring still more suffering to his family by foolishly admitting his plight to people from whom he made his livelihood?

Being intrigued, however, he invited our friend to his home.

At midnight he came home exhausted, but very happy.

The last three times, I got drunk on the way home from here.

His wife came, scarcely daring to be hopeful, though she thought she saw something different about her husband already.

He proved to be a devil-may-care young fellow whose parents could not make out whether he wanted to stop drinking or not.

He now returned home, leaving behind his first acquaintance, the lawyer and the devil-may-care chap.

They experienced a few distressing failures, but in those cases they made an effort to bring the man’s family into a spiritual way of living, thus relieving much worry and suffering.

Seeing much of each other, scarce an evening passed that someone’s home did not shelter a little gathering of men and women, happy in their release, and constantly thinking how they might present their discovery to some newcomer.

One man and his wife placed their large home at the disposal of this strangely assorted crowd.

This couple has since become so fascinated that they have dedicated their home to the work.

Many a distracted wife has visited this house to find loving and understanding companionship among women who knew her problem, to hear from the lips of their husbands what had happened to them, to be advised how her own wayward mate might be hospitalized and approached when next he stumbled.

Many a man, yet dazed from his hospital experience, has stepped over the threshold of that home into freedom.

wife would leave elated by the thought of what they could now do for some stricken acquaintance and his family.

From surrounding towns, families drive long distances to be present.

Cleaning up old scrapes, helping to settle family differences, explaining the disinherited son to his irate parents, lending money and securing jobs for each other, when justified—these are everyday occurrences.