“For awhile, I thought that was love.” -Gaara

                                            Masashi Kishimoto

            Have you ever fallen in love?

            If so, how was that landing?

Beautiful, wonderful, amazing, life giving, amorous, tender, joyful, painful, miserable, awful, wretched love.

That…that pretty much explains it, don’t you think?

I am five and a half decades into this journey and, in that time, there is one thing that I know for sure about love, and that is…I know nothing about love. I gave up pretending to know anything about it and you know what? I feel better! I once thought I was a fairly smart guy, however, regarding love and many of life’s other mysteries, I’ve found that I am not that smart after all. Oh, I don’t mean to take off on a self deprecating, pity seeking rant. I once truly thought I knew what love was.

I was wrong.

Most of us who have been married, stood before our friend’s, our family and our God and proclaimed “forever love” for each other on our wedding day. In as much as we knew about life and love at the time, it’s safe to say that we really believed the vows we gave on this special day.

Under normal circumstances, marriage is difficult. Learning how to work together on managing money, developing careers, buying a home and eventually, having children, are all quite challenging. Compromises are made, often reluctantly, but you “love” this person so you compromise. With each new step comes the weight of the responsibility to manage those developments.

Minor disagreements about who does laundry, who cooks, what day is best for house cleaning and who will take out the garbage, tend to get worked out easily enough. The more difficult disagreements generally revolve around money, who manages the budget, who pays the bills and who generates the income necessary to do so and, what to do when there isn’t enough.

Who will get up in the middle of the night?

The next level of compromise and working together begins with the addition of children to the family. Who will get the toddler dressed and packed for day care? Many of you may remember these days. I do.

There are so many more issues that can arise in a reasonably healthy, normally functioning home, but “love” for each other lights the way and everything works out in the end. Right?

  “Hello, my name is Tony and I am an enabler.”

The addendum to that statement is “because, like so many, I didn’t know the difference between love and enabling.”

For many of us it takes a long time to come to terms with the fact that we are indeed encouraging or supporting some really bad choices that our partner is making. It’s so easy to be confused about recognizing when casual alcohol use becomes addiction.  

 Alcohol use is so deeply rooted and so pervasive in our culture. Your friends don’t call you up and say “Come on over and we’ve made a pitcher of lemonade.” Right? “Let’s get together and have some of beers”, is more accurate.

“This is just the normal stuff we all do at this age.”

“She is so much fun when she’s tipsy.”

It seems that more social gatherings include alcohol than those without. These “get togethers” make it difficult as time moves along, to even notice if a spouse or significant other has a problem. New Years Eve, Memorial Day, The Fourth of July, Labor Day, birthdays of family and friends are days that most Americans celebrate.

Celebrations that almost always include alcohol. So, we celebrate, right? Once in a while we celebrate a little too much. Normal, right? Years pass, celebrations come and go and you notice your spouse is having a glass of wine while she cooks dinner or a few beers when he gets home from work. Just to knock the edge off, right? No big deal. We all need to unwind bit after a stressful day. Unwittingly, these are some of the first excuses we make for our loved one.

            The new “normal”.

Even as the drink or three becomes an everyday routine.

The new “normal” brings with it some clues. Some are physical, such as slurred speech, slow, heavy eyes and some deliberate, side-winding steps or, simply falling into bed really early. Seems obvious enough, doesn’t it? Other clues might be missing an appointment, forgetting a commitment to a friend or family member or a little “fender bender” in the car.

“She’s just having a rough time right now. It’ll pass soon.”

“He has really been stressed about work lately. He just needs some time.”

Can you hear it…the beginning of enabling?

How many definitions of love and marriage have you heard in your lifetime? You’ve probably heard your parents or grandparents say something like “when you love someone you give 110% and expect nothing” or “marriage takes work.” Funny thing is nobody has a cute little phrase for how a marriage should work when your spouse becomes addicted to drugs or alcohol.

Now, I have to admit that I may be a little bit slow, but the thing is I made a commitment. I made a commitment to be married one time, to one person. For better or for worse. Until death do us part.

My threshold for “normal” was filtered through what I thought was “love”.

I thought making excuses for my wife’s choices was what I was supposed to do and that she needed understanding from me, until she would be able to get this under control.

I thought trying to calm her during emotional meltdowns would help defuse difficult situations from becoming worse and deepening the need for alcohol.

I thought trying to create some space between her and our children would lighten the stress load, so to speak, and take some of the strains of the 24/7 job of raising children off of her. After all, that’s why she drank, right?

Sadly, I began to believe that I might be responsible for her drinking and that I should make some changes so she would feel better about our situation and not drink too much.

After all, this is love, isn’t it? Or, could it be enabling?

            If this is love, it isn’t working for me; if it’s enabling, it isn’t working for her.

Often times your friends and family see the truth before you can, but what do they really know? You’ve kept so much from them. The details of nights at the ER. The reason there’s been a dent or ding in nearly every car you’ve owned.

So, when they ask questions and say things like, “I think she’s had a little too much to drink, is everything okay?” The enabler replies, “She’s fine, just been a little stressed lately.”

After all, you don’t want to alienate your spouse, or even yourself, from friends and family. Still they ask questions and eventually begin to offer you unsolicited advice on what you should do about this obvious problem.

            Everybody means well and some of the advice they give has merit.

Some of the more benign suggestions are, “just pour it out before she has chance to drink it”, or “hide his car keys, so he can’t drive to the liquor store.”

Yes, I’ve actually heard these.

Some of the better suggestions have to do with starting AA and getting a sponsor, getting some professional counseling or even a stint in an inpatient facility. Until any of us, who have struggled with this situation can see it for what it really is, we will continue to confuse enabling for love.

We will make excuses for it and go out of our way to protect her, or him from embarrassment, from legal trouble or from harming themselves. We try to stay away from events, that might be fun under normal circumstances, where alcohol flows freely with a built-in excuse to drink, because these situations are far too tempting.

Until we see it for what it is, we will continue to confuse enabling for love.

We will put on a happy face with friends and family, then privately, with tears and some righteous anger, we’ll beg them to get help. Often times, after these emotional pleas, they will admit the problem is real and say they’re going to get help. Sometimes they’ll even take action and start AA meetings, counseling or rehab, making you believe that this time they’re really going to do this!

And then…disappointment. Admitting that there is a very real problem is extremely difficult for both the enabler and the addicted.

It can take a long time, often with multiple attempts, to get to that admission. Lying under the influence of alcohol or drugs seems to have no boundaries. And, until that admission comes, hang on tight, this ride is likely going to get crazy.

In truth, admitting that there is a problem is much easier than submitting to the problem.

As mentioned before, admission can happen many times, after all, admission is often nothing more than words. Submission is more likely to take the form of full surrender to any means or method to get this addiction under control, once and for all.

Sadly, submission often comes too late to avoid legal troubles, broken relationships or even death. Leaving a spouse, a parent, a friend, a child or a significant other to try and figure out what love really is.

I claim no expertise on how to properly manage living with an addicted spouse. I won’t pretend to understand how to help with managing the issues involved with a drug or alcohol addicted child. However, I have learned a few things along the way that likely apply to both.

            Be brutally honest with yourself, once and for all.

What have you done to create this behavior? What can you do to change it? Also, be brutally honest with your loved one about their choices and where you see it going.

Understand that you may have to make some of the most difficult decisions you’ve ever made. Your faith, counseling and the patient ear of a supportive loved one can help guide you through these insanely tough times.

Understand that the truth is your only hope.

Finally, learn to love your self. Nobody is capable of doing this as well as you, but you have to do it on purpose. Make some small decisions to be physically healthy. Move a bit more, eat a little less. Go for walks. Find a way to express yourself; writing, art classes, music or some other ways to add experiences your life, intentionally, once and for all. You’ve been putting these things off in the name of love.

Or, at least what you thought was love.

Crazy, drunken love has confused me, but I’m still learning and, most importantly, I’m still hopeful.