The boundaries we keep and the kinds of boundaries we make can return our lives to sanity. That’s a bold statement to be sure. Yet it’s the only thing that can help someone coping with a loved one’s drinking take back their life — their physical and emotional health and the quality of life they deserve. Sounds simple enough. If only it were. This article shares suggestions for how you might do it.

Be Solid in Your Understanding of the Disease

Only when you are grounded in the facts about this disease can you be certain there is no amount of alcohol they can drink. Any amount of drinking kick-starts the alcoholism-related brain maps. There are no deals to be made for drinking only on holidays or Friday nights or reasons to believe they can keep it to one or two a night. Check out “Key Information About Alcoholism.”

Understand Your Health and Quality of Life is at Stake

You don’t have to stay physically and emotionally sick or have the very quality of your life destroyed so your loved one can keep drinking. To understand what coping with your loved one’s drinking is doing to your health is to understand toxic stress. Check out “Alcohol’s Harm to Others | Secondhand Drinking.”

How toxic stress – like that experienced with exposure to secondhand drinking – causes harm to the brain and body.

Hints About Setting Boundaries

Setting boundaries is hard, really hard – especially in the beginning. There is no doubt about it. It’s hard because it’s the opposite of what you’ve been doing for a long time. BUT, it’s also reasonable because your loved one has the choice to change their drinking pattern (as in the case of alcohol abuse) or get treatment for their alcoholism. And you absolutely have the right to choose to live a safe, healthy, peace-filled life.

You don’t have to stay physically and emotionally sick or have the very quality of your life destroyed so your loved one can keep drinking. You only have one life to live, too.

So, here are a few ideas to help you with setting boundaries:

• Only set boundaries you can and will keep.
  “You cannot simultaneously set a boundary and take care of another person’s feelings,” says Jim Hutt, Ph.D., MFT (think about this one for a minute…). Other people may not like the boundary, but it is one you must set for For example, if you say, “Drink again, and I’m leaving,” you must be prepared to leave. That means you’ll first have to take the time to figure out things like what you’ll need to bring with you, where you’ll go, and how you’ll leave. One woman I was working with kept giving her loved one this ultimatum. He knew she wouldn’t follow through because it was her house they were living in, so she couldn’t leave him! If you keep changing the boundaries you set, your loved one will know they can get you to change your mind the next time, which allows the dysfunction to continue.
• Saying what’s on your mind is setting a boundary.
  You don’t have to have the whole solution to a problem before speaking your mind. For example, instead of, “Drink again, and I’m leaving,” you might say, “Sometimes my fear that you will drink again, overwhelms me. It’s really hard for me to trust and believe that this time will be different than the times before.” And then use your other tools, like taking a moment to BREATHE, finding a yoga class, or taking a walk. You do not have to keep talking, if you don’t want to.

When you use a statement like the one just suggested – instead of stating a boundary you’re not ready to keep like, “Drink again, and I’m leaving,” – you stop the denial and make your health and welfare more important than their “right” to drink. It also allows you to share your feelings about a conflict, but not get into an argument.

Know the Red Flags That Indicate It’s Likely Time to Set a Boundary

• When you are feeling anxious or ashamed or afraid or inordinately angry, it is generally a signal that it’s time to set a boundary. That boundary could take the form of using one of your reaction stoppers to stop yourself from going further with your reaction until you figure out the real cause of your anxiety or other feelings or to come up with a better response.
• When you find yourself wanting to get someone to do something you think they should do, like go to the gym because you think they need the exercise, it’s likely you are “focusing over there” to avoid thinking about or addressing what’s really bothering you. Try to catch yourself and figure out what’s going on. And, it may be that you do have a good idea that might help that person – in which case you need to just say, “I have a suggestion, would you like to hear it?” And if they say, “No thanks,” you have to honor their boundary and not plow ahead with giving your suggestion, anyway. In other words, you have enough to do with taking care of your own boundaries – your own health and well-being.

Additional Red Flags

• When you keep trying to make your point in all sorts of different ways, you are probably trying to control the situation and its outcomes. Instead, set the boundary, say it once and then stop. Don’t worry, the other person heard you. And if you say it only once, just think, you’re free to do lots of other things! It keeps you from being their target and deflecting you with saying things like, “All you do is, nag, nag, nag.”
• When you are complaining or rehashing the same transgression over and over or you keep repeating the same scenario looking for validation of the “rightness” of your part in a situation, it is usually time to set a boundary. Quite possibly the boundary may be for you to apologize for your part in whatever recurring “conflict” or “argument” happens with your loved one. And if the situation calls for your apology, do so without the “but ___,” or “but you _____” as a way of getting the other person to recognize their part in the situation or to apologize back to you. That frees you to move on. Remember, don’t expect your loved one to apologize or to “hear” you. Boundaries are about taking care of your business and allowing other people to take care of theirs.

Examples of Healthy Boundaries

Below are various examples of healthy boundaries that you may decide to create for yourself.

• Do not talk about anything important with your loved one when they are drinking or hung over. Just don’t. And especially don’t engage in nagging or trying to shame your loved one about their drinking in hopes that this time they’ll do something about it. And to remind yourself why to keep this boundary: ask yourself, has it done any good so far?
• 

  How does a person “choose” to drink and drive?

  Do not drive with your loved one (they’re good at hiding how much they’ve had to drink). Check out my video, “DUI: Is it a Choice or an Accident?”

• Do cut back your volunteer hours or the times you do something to help others in your child’s classroom (or elsewhere) to just one afternoon a week instead of two or three to leave time for you to do something you want to do – like work on your own health and wellness recovery plan.
• Do not join in the slicing and dicing and mincing of words. If you “know” they’re not being truthful, you know. Let go of trying to get them to tell the truth and agree with you. They won’t; they can’t. Their brains have been hijacked by their alcohol use disorder.

More Examples of Healthy Boundaries

• STOP when you feel your frustration, fear, or anger rising. Then, breathe and calmly say, “I’m going to take a walk (or read, or call a friend, or pay some bills) – anything to stop you from getting sucked into the escalation of whatever typically happens next, whether it’s a dramatic shouting match or a tense session of the silent treatment.
• Decide not to engage in pointless arguments. Remember: you do not have to explain or get the other person to agree with your opinion to take on a situation. Period.
• Require other family members to help with chores, driving, shopping, and the like. Really, you don’t have to do it all; others really are capable of doing and helping. [Often, it’s guilt over what our children or other family members are going through that makes us want to make it up to them by “doing it all” so “at least they don’t have to do chores, too!” But doing it all is extremely stressful, and we know what stress does to us – it becomes toxic. It harms our physical and emotional health and ruins the quality of our lives.]
• Let the alcoholic or alcohol abuser take FULL responsibility for ALL the consequences of his or her actions and/or inaction.

For more help and information

I offer free phone and zoom calls to answer specific questions. Send an email to lisaf@BreakingThe Cycles.com to schedule. In the meantime, you may want to order 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. The first half explains alcohol use disorders (drinking problems) – how they’re developed and treated and what long-term recovery requires. In the case of alcohol abuse, for example, it’s possible to learn to “re-drink,” but in the case of alcoholism, it must be total abstinence from alcohol, yet in both cases, there are other brain healing aspects necessary in order to address “why” a person finds themselves drinking to these extents in the first place (e.g., trauma, anxiety, depression, social environment…). The second half explains what happens to family members and friends and what they can do to help their loved ones, as well as what they can do to take back control of their physical and emotional health and the quality of their lives. The book comes in both paperback and Kindle (or other eReader formats). With the eReader or Kindle formats, you’re able to get it immediately, which may be helpful for right now. Those formats allow you to read it without anyone knowing, which may also be helpful.

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Lisa Frederiksen

Author | Speaker | Consultant | Founder at BreakingTheCycles.com

Lisa Frederiksen is the author of hundreds of articles and 12 books, including her latest, "10th Anniversary Edition If You Loved Me, You'd Stop! What you really need to know when your loved one drinks too much,” and "Loved One In Treatment? Now What!” She is a national keynote speaker with over 30 years speaking experience, consultant and founder of BreakingTheCycles.com. Lisa has spent the last 19+ years studying and simplifying breakthrough research on the brain, substance use and other mental health disorders, secondhand drinking, toxic stress, trauma/ACEs and related topics.

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