Nightawk and his IDIOT cousin

[Nighthawk]

Sorry, Ron, that's not exactly what I ment, but I see what you are talking about now. I was thinking about people losing everything they have trying to pay for a drinker's problems. Which it seems kind of like what is going on with, Nighthawk's cousin's parents. Get um in treatment; you're right.

Ted, you're dead on. My aunt keeps sobbing that she didn't raise him like this, but the truth is, she's been bailing him out of trouble his whole life and letting him do as he pleases. The rules have never been made to apply to him. Again I have to say... It's amazing- this smiley actually sums up most of what's been going through my head lately.

[Bugbear]

Ted, you're dead on. My aunt keeps sobbing that she didn't raise him like this, but the truth is, she's been bailing him out of trouble his whole life and letting him do as he pleases. The rules have never been made to apply to him. Again I have to say... It's amazing- this smiley actually sums up most of what's been going through my head lately.

I understand, Nighthawk. Hang in there.

[Pleater]

I understand what you are saying Ron - but you are looking at the problem from places where treatment is being accepted, no matter how grudgingly.

So often relatives work really hard to disguise the problem - frequently the immediate family are terrified by the addict and can't risk asking for help because of the danger it puts them in.

The drinking goes on and on, and the drinker gets the notion that they can keep on behaving badly because they have got away with it so far.

I suspect that people die drunk because they are less trouble when in a stupour, and sucessfully rousing them would result in a screaming match or a fist fight.

A drinker when drunk is on top of the world, to see that they are in trouble they need to be sober - that is the rock bottom I want them to experience.

No money and no one to scrounge off, nowhere to steal anything, no place to hide from their situation.

Anne the Pleater.

[JamieKerr]

As a social worker, I also encounter alcoholism on a regular basis.

I just have to voice this, because I don't think I saw anyone else say anything like it. And I am not making excuses for his recurring behavior, just pointing out the other side of the coin.

The vast majority of people who are arrested for a DUI have never been in trouble with the law before. After they are arrested for DUI, many of these people start down a path of repeat arrests that leave family and friends saying "how much worse does it have to get before you get it?" Well, that's exactly the issue. To us on the outside it seems pretty simple. Stop the behavior and the problem goes away. The problem though is that after making a bad decision (or series of decisions) and being arrested for a DUI, that starts a whole chain of negative events. Being arrested, experiencing the stigma of arrest and alcoholism, probably losing your job, going to court, paying substantial fines, possible jail time. In the blink of an eye a person may have lost everything they've worked hard for, because of a bad decision. After this happens, many people start hitting the bottle even harder...because in reality how much is there left to lose? I really feel that having family distance themselves from such a person only serves to remind the person of one more thing they're losing, so why bother to try to fix things now? Again, not making excuses.

[Nighthawk]

As a social worker, I also encounter alcoholism on a regular basis.

I just have to voice this, because I don't think I saw anyone else say anything like it. And I am not making excuses for his recurring behavior, just pointing out the other side of the coin.

The vast majority of people who are arrested for a DUI have never been in trouble with the law before. After they are arrested for DUI, many of these people start down a path of repeat arrests that leave family and friends saying "how much worse does it have to get before you get it?" Well, that's exactly the issue. To us on the outside it seems pretty simple. Stop the behavior and the problem goes away. The problem though is that after making a bad decision (or series of decisions) and being arrested for a DUI, that starts a whole chain of negative events. Being arrested, experiencing the stigma of arrest and alcoholism, probably losing your job, going to court, paying substantial fines, possible jail time. In the blink of an eye a person may have lost everything they've worked hard for, because of a bad decision. After this happens, many people start hitting the bottle even harder...because in reality how much is there left to lose? I really feel that having family distance themselves from such a person only serves to remind the person of one more thing they're losing, so why bother to try to fix things now? Again, not making excuses.

That makes a lot of sense. On the other hand, as Anne has said, the drinker sometimes turns violent. The one and only time I had a fistfight with my cousing was about 2 years ago, when he was agnry at his girlfriend. I stepped in his way. I have been studying martial arts classes for a long time and am good with grappling techniques, so I was able to keep anyone from getting hurt... but my kids were there, sleeping upstairs. I have to worry about them first. That's yet another aspect, of course.

Ron and I have been having a PM conversation for the last 24 hours or so, and he has given quite a lot of good advice. I can't directly intervene because of my geographic location, but I can certainly pass all of his information on to my aunt.

[piperdbh]

I know horror stories won't help, but here's one anyway.
When my wife was 4 years old (we weren't married yet), her mother was taking her and her older brother (that's a lot of pronouns) to the beach for the day. As she drove along, a drunk driver coming the opposite way crossed the median and plowed into my mother-in-law's car, decapitating her, cutting my (now) brother-in-law's scalp nearly off, breaking several of his bones, and barely bruising my (now) wife. Both siblings were in the hospital for several weeks, and now 25 years later they still have not fully recovered emotionally. To make a long story short, my wife has no memory of the event, and, the really sad part, no memory of her mother. Think about all the times a little girl needs her mother while growing up. Instead, my wife had a wicked step-mother who ignored her most of the time.

Now, this doesn't solve the cousin's drinking problem, but stories (and pictures) like this might help him realize what he's capable of doing to someone else's family, even if the drinking takes priority over his own family.

[Bugbear]

Glad you're talking to Ron, Nighthawk. Hang in there.

[beloitpiper]

All states are tough on DUI drivers and Colorado is one of the toughest.

Unfortunately, not all states are tough against drunk driving. In Wisconsin, your first drunk driving offense is just a Civil Ordinance Violation and a $150 fine. It's only a felony after the fifth offense. Bear in mind, this is the state that had an extremely vigorous debate whether to accept federal highway money or raise the drinking age from 18 to 21. We weren't far off from turning I-90 into a tollway...