We Become Sicker Than They Are. Episode 5

There is a saying in Al-Anon, we become sicker than they are. What that means is that often when dealing with an alcoholic and/or drug addict we can become so involved in their life, taking care of them, watching over them, enabling them, that before we know it our own lives have begun to unravel. This scenario does not just have to pertain to alcoholics or drug addicts, but toxic relationships in general. To an alcoholic or drug addict substance is their obsession and compulsion. To many in a toxic relationship, a person becomes their substance. An alcoholic tries to resist having a drink, we try to resist meeting up, or making a call. The addict can at least blame their thinking and behavior on their addiction to substance. What is our excuse?  

Transcript

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Hello. Welcome to Shrink Unleashed. I am your host, James Stein. I am a licensed psychotherapist based in Los Angeles, California. There is a saying in Al-Anon, we become sicker than they are. What that means is that often when dealing with an alcoholic and or drug addict, we can become so involved in their life, taking care of them, watching over them, enabling them, that before we know it, our own lives have begun to unravel. This scenario does not just have to pertain to alcoholics or drug addicts, but toxic relationships in general. To an alcoholic or drug addict, substance is their obsession and compulsion. To many in a toxic relationship, a person becomes their substance. An alcoholic tries to resist having a drink. We try to resist meeting up or making a call. The addict can at least blame their thinking and behavior on their addiction to substance. What is our excuse? Prior to becoming a therapist, I was working in a customer service environment. There was a woman who I worked with that you might consider a workfriend. For privacy's sake, I will refer to her as Sarah. Sarah and I were close but rarely saw each other outside of work unless a group was getting together after work. I knew Sarah drank but had no idea how much. One afternoon I received a call from her. She tells me that she is in the hospital and can really use my help. I go down to the hospital having no idea why she is even in there. I walk into the room and she looks terrible. Sarah tells me that she has been really sick and the doctors are trying to figure out what is wrong with her. The doctor asks her if she can speak to me, and Sarah gives the doctor permission. The doctor pulls me aside and asks me how what my relationship is to her. I tell her that we are friends. She asks if I am aware how much Sarah drinks. I said, I know she drinks, but I do not know to what extent. The doctor tells me that Sarah is dealing with alcohol poisoning, and that after scanning her, we can see that all of her vital organs are inflamed. The doctor states that I have looked at enough insides to identify an alcoholic. I can tell you this, if she does not get control of her drinking, she will die. After the hospital released Sarah, I took her back to her apartment, where Sarah opened up about her drinking and just how much of her life was in disarray. I was in shock. How could I work five days a week with someone and know so little about their life? The first thought that came to my mind was, I must help this woman. A huge dose of me is exactly what is called for in this situation. And so my sickness began. Sarah was in darkness and I would be her light. At least she and I both bought into that notion. I helped her with her finances, I found AA meetings for her to go to, I helped her to start living a healthier, happier life. At least that is what I told myself. Sarah was so appreciative of me. I could actually be somebody's hero. As you can see, I was not exactly the healthiest person at this time. Here I am dealing with someone whose life is a complete mess, so of course, being somewhat lost myself, I began to fall in love with her. How could I not? The drama of the relationship became intoxicating. As long as I have Sarah's problems to deal with, I could take the focus off of my own. As you might figure, she was also having legal troubles. I took care of that as well. Now one thing I can say in my defense is that I honestly believed that the easier her life, the better chance she had to get better. Not an uncommon misconception. The truth was that the easier I made life for her, the easier it was for her to drink. It was not long before Sarah relapsed. She only wanted me around if I would drink with her. So I did. I could not keep up with her drinking, but I could not take the chance of losing her. She was my project that needed to be fixed. I became so entrenched in this toxic relationship that I would take shots of water and pretend to be drinking with her. One night Sarah asked me if she could contact the attorney I hired for her to hand her legal issues. I told her there was no need to. I have taken care of everything with him. She paused and said to me, I hope you are not turning me into a cripple. I thought, oh my God, could I be hurting instead of helping? I went home feeling totally distraught. I so wanted to help her, to be there for her, to make her pain go away. I was completely unaware that this was way beyond my reach, and most crucial, I did not want to give up my grandiose feelings of importance. I went home and plumped plopped myself in my big black easy chair, feeling hopeless and despondent. I reached for the telephone and called a friend who has many years of recovery to ask for advice. He was glad that I called. I started to tell him my sad, pitiful story, when it cut me right off. You need to go to an alonine meeting. I said, wait, I haven't finished you my story. He said, After you go to an Al-Anon meeting, I will be glad to talk to you as long as you want. But before we continue, you need to go to a meeting. I got off the phone and all I could think of was what a jerk. Here I call him in my time of need, and all he can say to me is go to an Al Anon meeting? What a waste of time that phone call was. What the heck is even Al Anon? I went to my computer to look it up. It's a twelve step support group for the friends and family of alcoholics slash addicts. I thought, I don't need this. I did notice, however, that in a half an hour there was a meeting ten minutes away from where I live. What do I have to lose? I might as well go. I sat down in the meeting with great hesitation, having no idea what to expect. One by one people would share their story. It did not take long for the sad realization to hit me. Oh my god, have I been doing everything wrong? I was not a helper, I was an enabler. Before this meeting the term meant nothing to me, but now it had a life of its own. The thought that much I was doing could actually be hurting her rather than helping was startling. One night while I was caught up in my own craziness, I reached out to a man who had many years in Al Anon. As I started to ramble on about Sarah, he abruptly stopped me and said, Hey, if you want to talk about Sarah, you need to call someone sicker than you are. When you are ready to talk about recovery and moving forward, give me a call. What is it with all these jerks telling me to call them back when I am sane? Don't they know how bad I want to talk about Sarah? Couldn't he at least point at me in the right direction? How do I even find somebody sicker than me anyway? But the hardest aspect for me to have dealt with was to learn that much of what I was doing for her was really about me. I came into that meeting to learn how to deal with a crazy person, only to learn that the crazy person was me. I attended the first meeting and to continue to go on a regular basis. It has literally changed my life. Sarah unknowingly gave me a gift. Who knew that her behavior would force me to have to take such a cold hard look at my own behavior and my own life. As I said previously, toxic relationships are not only reserved for addicts and alcoholics. There is a helping. There is helping and there is enabling. The key is being able to distinguish the difference between the two. One simple way to tell the difference is to explore our feelings. Helping feels good. Enabling does not. During the time I was involved with Sarah, I had a neighbor who lived in my apartment complex. She had been moping around the building for over a month. One day she tells me that she has been dating somebody she has not heard from in over six weeks. She was not worried that something bad had happened to him, but rather he had found himself a new woman, since he had done this twice before. Then one day I run into her and she is beaming. I say, Hi, how are you? Great, she replies. I said, Wow, good for you. She then starts to tell me, Remember how I told you that I had not heard from my boyfriend all month and I thought that he found another woman? Well he finally called me with fantastic news. He has not been with another woman. He is in jail. As it turns out, he was arrested for assault and violating a restraining order. He told me that he called me as soon as he could scrape up the change to make a call. He told me that I am the first person he plans to visit upon his release. We already made plans to go to Disneyland. Not exactly knowing what to say, I said, sounds great. I am very happy for you. As I am listening to this complete insanity, it suddenly occurs to me how not too long ago this could have been me. Oath how thrilled I would have been to find out that Sarah had not found another man, but instead was in jail. It is very easy to lose yourself in a toxic relationship. They can be dramatic and exciting. It is a nonstop roller coaster ride. Before you know it, you are totally drawn in. Your life has wholly become theirs. You may have begun the relationship truly wanting to help, but before you know it, you are sicker than they are. I once was sitting with a longtime friend who was engaged. I asked him if I could ask him a personal question. He said, Of course. I asked him if he was in love with his fiancee. He replied in a shocked tone, Yes, I am in love with her. Why do you ask? I said because in all the time that I have known you, whenever there was a woman in your life, you talked about her nonstop, and you hardly ever bring up your fiance. He thought about it and said I had to think about that a few minutes. You know why I don't talk about her as much? Because the relationship is good. So many of those other relationships were bad, but they came with good stories. We yelled, we screamed, we argued, there were constant highs and lows, mostly lows. It was a continuous roller coaster, and with my fiance I discovered that life can still be exciting without all the drama. I was just ready to get off that roller coaster. So for any of you that may be riding that toxic roller coaster, are you ready to get off? On a side note, during our time together, Sarah entered into a rehab program. I visited her and met her therapist. As he was talking to me, all I could think of is I'd rather be on the other side of the desk asking these questions rather than answering them. Between that experience and Al-Anon, it led me to becoming a psychotherapist. You never know where life is going to take you. Unhealthy experiences can have a healthy outcome if you take the time to learn from them. Thank you for listening to Shrink Unleashed. There is still much to come. Please follow or subscribe. Please feel free to leave comments or you can email Dream directly at shrinkunleashed at gmail.com.