All alcoholics share a few common characteristics. Of course drinking too much alcohol and being dependent on the poison is one thing. Lies and excuses are two other things they all share as well.
As a counselor for both in class and online alcohol awareness classes I hear the lies and excuses people with alcohol problems tell themselves and those they love every day. They even try out those same lies on me and their classmates.
Just last night I had one of my students who is in one of the more progressive stages of alcoholism lie to us. Martin is a truly sad story. His story is one of how casual use turned into horrific abuse and now all he has are smoke, mirrors, lies and excuses.
Martin’s Story
Martin is a 36-year-old small business owner. Martin was born in Bosnia and was one of the few members of his family to survive severe oppression. Two of his siblings and his father never made it to America. Immigrating to the United States at the age of 10 he never had it easy. Learning a new culture was difficult. Learning an entirely new language was something few of us can say we have had to experience.
While other kids were outside and playing, Martin was taking English classes, becoming fluent before he had been in the country 2 years. Martin’s father had been an alcoholic before he disappeared during the Serbian-Bosnian conflict. Upon arriving in America he doesn’t remember his mother sober.
When his mother failed to show up for one of his gymnastics meet in high school, he swore he would never drink alcohol. That was the first real lie he remembers telling himself. Since that day more than 15 years ago, the lies have piled up to where he doesn’t even know who he truly is anymore.
Big Lie #1 – “I will only drink socially”
By his senior year of high school all of his friends were drinking at parties. He remembers the logic behind his taking his first drink – a shot of Smirnoff vodka. Before his first drink he tried to reinforce his negative attitude toward alcohol – “I hate the taste of alcohol and it has ruined my mother.”
Numerous drinks later, passed out in one of the bedrooms of the house, all he remembered were the drinking games and how much fun he’d had. Now the rationale became, “That wasn’t so bad. I don’t even remember it tasting bad after a couple. That was fun.” That was probably the last truthful thing he said to himself about alcohol.
The First Wake Up Call
Like most drinkers, Martin did not have a truly negative experience with booze for quite some time. It was almost four years later, as a college senior that his first “real” trouble with booze surfaced. Martin went to a university with a zero-tolerance policy for breaking the law. Martin and a few of his roommates had been out drinking and were relieving themselves outside of their fraternity house when the police arrived.
Zero tolerance meant he and his mates were expelled. He not only lost his gymnastics scholarship but found himself with no career path. His drinking continued despite the lack of parties to go to.
The Second Wake Up call
After working for a landscaping company for a few years he decided to start his own business. Martin swears it was totally “BS” that he was busted and blamed everyone from his roommates, to fraternity brothers to the rent-a-cops in his college town that got him kicked out of school.
At the age of 29 he received his first offense for driving under the influence (DUI). Of course there were lies and excuses for that as well. He “kicked ass” on the sobriety test. He did not fall to the side, followed the police officer’s finger and even recited the alphabet backwards (he memorized it in college).
Unfortunately he felt so confident after the field sobriety test he took the breathalyzer and blew a.10. His excuse of course was he’d only had a couple of beers.
Of course there was a third and fourth wake up call, another DUI and a domestic violence charge where alcohol was involved, which finally had him in my classroom. He still complains that all of these problems are unrelated to his drinking. He continues to believe the lies he tells himself even as his business has begun to crumble.
Martin is a perfect example of how alcoholics can lie and blame anyone and everything except alcohol on their problems. It seems to be the premise that if you continue to do things the same way and they don’t work, keep trying the same method.
