Q. My husband is a retired attorney who had a very successful legal career in spite of having a drinking problem for the past 30 years. He drinks, or, more accurately, sips a half quart of scotch a day, beginning at 11a.m. and continuing throughout the day until he goes to bed. He also drinks nearly a full bottle of wine at dinnertime. 

I’m just starting to realize that I may have lost my husband to alcohol many years ago. What has become unbearable is the isolation and loneliness I feel in my marriage. We have no children or siblings. We have not entertained at home for many years. He refuses to go on vacation with me. He hardly ever leaves the house. When I urge him to seek help, he just gets angry and denies there is anything wrong. I have read about intervention and believe it could be of help.

Unfortunately, I can’t think of anyone I can include in a possible intervention for my husband other than myself. Can it work when it is just one other person? He has no real friends or family to speak of at this point in his life. Is this situation hopeless? Alice, NYC

There is nothing hopeless about your situation even though it is very sad to hear you describe your marriage as one of unbearable isolation and loneliness. The fact that you describe yourself as “just starting to realize” how far your marriage has deteriorated is a positive and encouraging sign. This new awareness is an interior voice capable of guiding you to a sense of true happiness, and listening to this voice is crucial if you intend to free yourself from the progressive and destructive nature of addiction.

Our immediate recommendation is for you to call an addiction specialist who does invitational interventions for a consultation. As the interventionist reviews your husband’s drinking history with you, he or she may be able to suggest people who could participate in an intervention that are not obvious to you right now. For example, we have done interventions where old co-workers, distant cousins and even old drinking buddies have chosen to participate. There may be other people who would like to reestablish their relationship with your husband and this could be beneficial for you as well. At the very least the addiction specialist would invite you and your husband to come together for a motivational session.

In this session you and your husband would begin to discuss, with the help of an interventionist, the concerns you have about the role alcohol is playing in your lives. In this setting it will be much harder for your husband to deny everything and just hide behind his anger. In fact, he may surprise you by being more open to having the conversation once he understands that the interventionist views the situation as a family problem, not just his problem and that the session’s aim is not about making him the target he expected to be. You may be skeptical that your husband would attend such a meeting but there is a better than average chance he would join you if he believes you are serious about not living this way anymore and are ready to get the help you need to get your freedom back.

FIND YOUR OWN RECOVERY FIRST
We also recommend that you attend Al-Anon meetings on a regular basis. We believe Al-Anon membership over time can mimic the results of an intervention when it comes to the alcoholic’s willingness to accept help. Many alcoholics end up in AA or Chemical Dependency treatment because their spouses make major changes to how they address the alcoholic nightmare they have been caught up in. These changes occur naturally as a direct result of what they discover about themselves by listening to the experiences of other Al-Anon members in recovery.

When you sincerely practice “detachment with love” as encouraged in Al-Anon, your husband will notice the changes in you and your behavior. His feelings of being distant and separate from you will grow. His loneliness, along with his sense of losing control over you, can make him more amenable to joining you in the two hour session with a professional. All of this depends, of course, upon you prioritizing your own recovery. Explore Al-Anon earnestly. Find a genuine recovery for yourself regardless of what your husband decides to do. You won’t regret it.

Vincent Casolaro, LCSW, MAC, CASAC, and Robert Smith, LCSW, are addiction specialists in private practice in New York City. In 1999 they founded the Together Family Foundation (TFF), a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) corporation, now the parent organization of Together magazine and Together Warmline. Send your questions to: asktheinterventionists@casolaroandsmith.com.