Living With a Heavy Drinker Under Coronavirus Stay-at-Home Orders
I know a lot about what coping with (and in some cases living with) a heavy drinker is like. But I have absolutely no idea of what it’d be like if I were living under a statewide, Coronavirus “stay-at-home” order.
Living with a loved one’s drinking behaviors is hard enough – doing so under coronavirus stay-home-orders compounds that stress tremendously!
I try to image doing my full-time, out-side-the home job from home, while coordinating my children’s online schooling, homework and homework help. Doing this while carrying on the typical rhythms of family life (grocery shopping, meal preparation, laundry, cleaning, baths, teeth brushing…). And doing all of this with absolutely no ability to bring in outside help because they are under stay-at-home orders, too. Let alone trying to manage my own, my children’s, and my loved one’s fear and confusion over the pandemic, itself, and the dawning reality that eradicating the Coronavirus could take months. Months!
I can’t imagine.
But as I said, I do know a lot about what it’s like…
Living With/Loving a Heavy Drinker
You see, I’d spent some forty+ years coping with various loved ones whose drinking changed their behaviors (often drastically). Those changed behaviors are called drinking behaviors. They’re the things they said or didn’t say and the things they did or didn’t do when they drank too much. And it wasn’t just their behaviors while they were drinking. It was their behaviors before and after they’d had too much drink, as well. These drinking behaviors included things like:
- countless broken promises to stop or cut down
- driving under the influence (DUI), arrests for drunk driving
- health and financial problems
- blackouts
- being loving and friendly while drinking and then cold and distant the next day
- deflecting, minimizing, denying the problems caused by drinking
- lost friendships
- “disappearing acts”
- insane circular arguments about what constituted “drinking too much”
- passing out on the couch long before the children’s bedtime
- verbal abuse
- even physical intimidation and violence.
Consequences of Drinking Behaviors
For each item on the list above, I could recount dramatic scenes, countless tears, and sleepless nights. But I kept trying to make my loved ones stop their heavy drinking. I believed, like millions of Americans (yes, millions) — the wives, husbands, parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, children, and significant others — that I had the power to help my loved ones get a grip on their drinking. I believed I had the power to return our lives to normal. And so, I’d spent years trying to roll back the present to a time past – a time that had started out so happily – until I was consumed with anger and frustration, as each “last time” became the new next.
And “I” slowly disappeared. In the end, I was numb, scared, frustrated, depressed, anxious, confused, sad, resigned, angry, fed-up…just a shell of what had once been “Lisa.” The decades of secondhand drinking had taken their toll. [Secondhand drinking refers to the negative impacts of a person’s drinking behaviors on others.]
It wasn’t until the year of my 50th birthday that I started getting my own help – help solely for me, not to fix my loved ones but to “fix” myself. Fixes that truly changed my life and in time helped me effectively talk to my loved ones, while at the same time protecting myself.
So what did I do and how can knowing help you if you’re…
living with a heavy drinker under coronavirus stay-at-home orders?
What I did and learned and how it can help you will be two of the topics covered in two weekly, FREE, Zoom Group Calls I am hosting. These calls can help anyone with a loved one who drinks too much, as well – you don’t have to be living with them.
Each call will be limited to 10 people and anonymity will be maintained. During these calls, participants will be able to:
- ask questions
- talk about how they’re coping with a loved one’s drinking under the additional stress of stay-at-home orders (if that’s the case for them)
- share what’s worked for them
- learn about key online resources that can shed light on their situation
- learn ways to take care of themselves – even if it’s only 15-minutes a day divided into 5 minute intervals.
Living with a heavy drinker under coronavirus stay-at-home orders is one of the topics of FREE, bi-weekly Zoom calls being offered by Lisa Frederiksen. Anyone who loves or is coping with a heavy drinker – even if they don’t live with them – is invited to participate, as well.
If interest is such that additional Zoom Group Calls would be helpful, I will add them. I am also offering private calls. See schedules for both below.
Bi-weekly Zoom Group & Private Call Schedules
Zoom Group Calls
Tuesdays, 4:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. PST, 1st meeting is April 7
Fridays, 11:00 a.m. – Noon PST, 1st meeting is April 3rd
To attend: Send me an email at lisaf@breakingthecycles.com with “Zoom Group Call” in the subject line. I will send you the log-in information individually (vs. a group email). I will not store or use your email address for any other purpose.
Private Calls
I will also conduct free PRIVATE Zoom, Skype, phone, or What’sApp calls. Just send me an email at lisaf@BreakingTheCycles.com, with “Private Call” in the subject line, to schedule.
Why Am I Doing This?
Given this pandemic requires all gatherings be cancelled, I’m no longer giving talks. My other weekly/daily commitments are out of the question as my state hunkers down at home. My children are grown and on their own. So I have the time and flexibility to give my time in this manner.
As I explained in my opening, I can only imagine what living with a heavy drinker while under stay-at-home orders must be like. I do know, however, a great deal of what can be done to change some of the impacts based on my 16+ years work studying and simplifying the breakthrough research on the brain, alcohol (and other drug) use disorders, secondhand drinking, mental health, toxic stress, ACEs (adverse childhood experiences) and related topics.
My latest book offers help fo those living with a heavy drinker under coronavirus stay-at-home orders. It’s also helpful to those who aren’t but want answers to the scores of questions they have.
In the meantime, you might consider…
reading my latest book, 10th Anniversary Edition If You Loved Me, You’d Stop! What you really need to know when your loved one drinks too much. As its title implies, it’s filled with the latest information, which is then intertwined with my own personal story. This is not about selling books (FYI – my portion of the sale is only $1.32/book 
). It’s about trying to give family members and friends the key information they need to change their lives. Information that helps them understand alcohol use disorders, effective treatment, drinking patterns, toxic stress, secondhand drinking, brain rewiring for better health, techniques for staying sane in the midst of insane circumstances, etc. But it’s written with the layperson in mind. It’s the book I’d wished I could have found when I needed this kind of help.
Lisa Frederiksen
Latest posts by Lisa Frederiksen (see all)
- Does a Loved One Have to Hit Bottom? - November 20, 2022
- Resources for Parents of Children with Substance Use and Mental Disorders - October 18, 2022
- 4 Things to Support Brain Health and Function for Recovery - August 30, 2022
I am impressed Before I retired I was a Licensed Mental Health Counselor with over 40 years of counseling experience. Last week I celebrated 47 years of being clean and sober. I will read her book and then maybe have a chat with her if I think my input to her may be of some value. I will also try to have her help me in my latest project to educate children about the real dangers that ALL drugs present. A life of misery and too many overdose deaths.