Secondhand Drinking – Secondhand Smoking – a Powerful Connection for Change
Secondhand Drinking – Secondhand Smoking – a powerful connection for change. But How? Why?
Having coined the term “Secondhand Drinking” in 2009, I was thrilled to see today’s news covering a new study on alcohol’s secondhand harms to others published online June 30, 2019, in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs (click here for study/study findings.) The study’s authors report, “One in five adults experienced at least one of ten 12-month harms because of someone else’s drinking.”
Notice it was a study comprised of adult, ages 18 and older — an estimated 53 million Americans. When you take into account the children and others who are also affected by secondhand drinking, this figure rises to almost 80 million. That’s almost one-fourth the American population!
Why I Coined the Term, “Secondhand Drinking”
As I write in my latest book, 10th Anniversary Edition Edition If You Loved Me, You’d Stop! What You Really Need to Know When Your Loved One Drinks Too Much,
…after my years of research, personal recovery work, giving presentations, and consulting with individuals, families, professionals, treatment centers, and the like, I coined a new term to reframe the concepts behind codependency and enabling.
That term is Secondhand Drinking.
I coined this term to draw the connection with secondhand smoking in order to shed a very bright light on the fact that people who love / live with someone who drinks too much experience very real physical and emotional health and quality of life consequences. These consequences can last a lifetime or pass to the next generation if not treated or mitigated.
This is my latest book and will answer so many of the questions that readers of this post may have – especially those related to secondhand drinking – and is available in bookstores, libraries and online book retailers.
On January 11, 1964, Luther L. Terry, M.D., Surgeon General of the U.S. Public Health Service, released the first report of the Surgeon General’s Advisory Committee on Smoking and Health. His report linked cigarette smoking with dangerous health effects, including lung cancer and heart disease. Out of his report came the further study that showed a person’s cigarette smoke harmed the health of others within its proximity.
On November 17, 2016, Vivek H. Murthy, M.D., Surgeon General of the U.S. Public Health Service, released the first report of the Surgeon General’s Advisory Committee on Alcohol, Drugs, and Health. His report focuses on addiction as a brain disease and provides an in-depth look at the science of alcohol and other drug addictions, as well as the need for a cultural shift in how we talk about addiction and matters related to treatment and recovery. My hope is that out of his study will come further study, as we see in the Alcohol’s Harm to Others Study I mentioned above. But it’s not just naming the kinds of harm, “…to communities (such as noise, vandalism, and property damage), to families (such as spousal abuse and child neglect), in workplaces (such as absenteeism, coworker problems, and work-related accidents), and to friends, acquaintances, and others (such as victimization by physical and sexual assault, notably on college/university campuses, as well as in bars and public places),” it’s a study of the far deeper harms. These far deeper harms include those related to toxic stress and the toxic stress consequences a person experiences as a result of coping with the kinds of harms named in this study. Collectively, I refer to these kinds of harm to others as secondhand drinking.
Secondhand Drinking Explained
Secondhand drinking refers to the negative impacts of a person’s drinking behaviors on others. Those negative impacts can include anything from sleepless nights spent worrying about whether a loved one is in a car wreck to lost wages because of having to stay home to help an alcoholic sober up enough to function. It can include toxic stress consequences, such as: migraines, stomach ailments, sleep problems, anxiety, skin conditions, heart disease, and depression.
These negative impacts can also extend to those maimed or killed by drunk drivers, as well as to anyone affected by alcohol-involved sexual assault, domestic violence, suicide, or homicide. They can even extend to those who are worried about and trying to help someone experiencing secondhand drinking, such as the mother of a daughter who is married to an alcoholic.
As I explain in my upcoming book, I coined this term in order to reframe the concepts of codependency and enabling, writing…
…I was still conflicted with the idea of calling myself a codependent or an enabler. I found the terms were equally difficult for many of the people with whom I was working to grasp. Or at least, it was difficult for them to accept this terminology in a way that could lead to wanting to make changes themselves. A common reaction was, “What? Me? Codependent? An enabler? That’s like blaming the victim for a problem I did not cause!” And like myself, so many would give lip service to seeking some kind of help after their loved one got “fixed.” Of course, that logic was followed by some version of, “But, really, why do I need help? This isn’t my problem!”
At the same time, the dramatically expanding body of brain research and the neurobiology of addiction and toxic stress research I’d been studying since my first book’s publication, pushed me to ask a key question: “Why not a new way of understanding codependency?”
As usual, I dug deeper to answer that question. And it was in that research, I found the CDC-Kaiser ACE Study particularly helpful, as well as the research on toxic stress that I introduced in Chapter 6.
Against the backdrop of this new science, I believed it was possible to reframe the concepts behind codependency and enabling in a way that allows those affected to better understand what has happened to them. In my view, we needed to recognize that just as excessive drinking affects the brains of our loved ones, so does the toxic stress caused by repeatedly coping with their drinking behaviors affect our brains, too. (Note: you’ll get more details on toxic stress and what happens to our brains in the next chapter.)
So what is it actually like to experience secondhand drinking?
Below you’ll read a few examples readers and consulting clients have shared with me. Some may sound very familiar to you.
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- It is worse on the weekends. During the week, he is very functioning, and it doesn’t bother me. He works, helps with our son, pays the bills, seems fairly normal…But without fail, every single weekend there is an episode. I hate weekends. Hate them. We no longer do ANYTHING on the weekends – we can’t! He’s so belligerent and obnoxious and can barely stand up if he hasn’t passed out. I just can’t put my family and friends through spending time with him. Besides, they’ve basically quit inviting us. I don’t blame them.
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- He drinks and drives all the time. He’s going to get in a wreck and likely kill or seriously injure someone, which is horrible enough. But I’m also scared to death of what this would do to me and my children financially. We’d lose everything.
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- I want him to leave because his staying is killing me! But if I tell him to leave, is he going to fall apart? He always apologizes profusely (when he’s sober), he cries, says he needs me…I feel like my body is split. I need to stay strong to take care of my kids, but I feel like he’s grinding me to the ground.
Secondhand Drinking – Secondhand Smoking – Why Draw This Connection
As I highlight in this 10th Anniversary Edition,
When we, as a society, took the focus off the cigarette smoker and instead focused on the new science that explained what a person’s cigarette smoke did to the health of others in its proximity, we had a sea change. Finally, people could understand that someone else’s cigarette smoke was the reason for their severe asthma attacks, respiratory infections, ear infections, heart disease, or lung cancer.
As this understanding grew, more people gained the information and the confidence they needed to take a stand against a person’s cigarette smoke – not the smoker – and to do what they needed to do to protect and repair their own health, regardless of whether the smoker stopped smoking.
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New science is now available that can do similar things for people coping with a loved one’s drinking behaviors.
When we, as a society, take the focus off the drinker and instead focus on the new science that explains what coping with their drinking behaviors does to others – we can create another sea change.
Finally, people will understand that repeatedly coping with a person’s drinking behaviors is the likely cause of their migraines, anxiety, depression, sleep difficulties, stomach ailments, skin problems, heart disease, and similar health concerns. As you’ll soon learn in the next chapter, these conditions are the consequences of toxic stress.
With this understanding people can get the information and the confidence they need to take a stand against drinking behaviors – not the drinker – and to do what they need to do to protect and repair their own health, regardless of whether the drinker changes their drinking pattern and/or treats their alcoholism.
Additional Resources on Secondhand Drinking
I have been writing and speaking about secondhand drinking for ten+ years, now. In addition to scores of articles, I’ve written two other resources, as well:
Quick Series Secondhand Drinking Pocket Guide and eGuide (2014-15)
Quick Guide to Secondhand Drinking: A Phenomenon That Affects Millions (Kindle Edition) (2014)
For Questions and Information
If you feel you are experiencing secondhand drinking and want to learn more, please contact me via email at lisaf@breakingthecycles.com, or you may call me at 916-241-3288 (I’m in California on PST). There is no charge for these initial calls. After 40+ years of coping with various loved one’s drinking behaviors and 16+ years studying the research that explains why I did and what that had done to my own health and wellness, and why some could learn to “re-drink” and others could not, I’m passionate about sharing this research with others.
Lisa Frederiksen
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