But behind this exterior, Sarah hid a secret.
Beginning when the children were young, Mark increasingly spent his spare time in the basement, drinking. Then he began drinking earlier and earlier in the day, and if he was asked to go somewhere with the kids, Mark would stop first for a couple glasses of wine. He also started to rage. When the twins were about 16, he walked in drunk while they were helping to repaint the living room. He yelled, "You don't know what you're doing!" The pair dropped their paintbrushes and refused to help their dad around the house again.
Trying to help
Shortly after, in an attempt to get his father to see the scale of his drinking, Sarah's son took all the wine bottles in the home and hid them. Mark bellowed when he discovered his son's ruse: "Keep the bottles, but you owe me the money for them." Then he simply went out and bought more.
Sarah knows the desperation felt by family members who will do anything to get their loved ones to quit gambling, or using drugs or alcohol. In the early days, she kept tabs on her husband's drinking, pulling the bottles out of the garbage to show him how much he was consuming. She also pleaded with him. "I said, 'You're an alcoholic and your drinking is fracturing our family.'"
But nothing sunk in. "He said I had the problem," says Sarah, and she then confesses, "I did. I became addicted myself, to trying to change his behaviour."
Does this scenario sound familiar? If you talk with friends, family and coworkers, it doesn't take long to find someone who is struggling with how to help a loved one who has an addiction, and just won't get the help that they need. You or a friend may even be thinking about organizing an intervention.
Page 1 of 4 - On page 2: Find out how tough interventions can be.
This story was originally titled "Loved One in Trouble? Should You Call an Intervention?" in the October 2009 issue. Subscribe to Canadian Living today and never miss an issue!
