Drinking Alcohol Destroys Families, Relationships and Lives




I never realized who my drinking problem was affecting so many people. Alcoholism destroys families daily. Relationships are ruined regularly and lives sometimes are taken into eternity before their time. It’s a much more serious problem than many users really understand. As I now look back over all of the wreckage that I and many friends and family members have suffered, I realize more than ever how serious this disease is.

A Mother’s Drinking Problem
My mom started drinking heavily after dad died. As a teenager I recall her and my step father fighting when she would go on binges that would leave her relentless when it came to getting, hiding and drinking a bottle of booze. She was not nice at all when anyone would try to interrupt her plans for getting plastered in a day. Finally, after going in and out of treatment several times, she latched onto the AA message and stayed clean and sober for over thirty years. During her drinking days everyone in the family was heavily affected in a negative way because of her choice to drink.

A Homeless Man Dies From Sclerosis of the Liver
This occurred at a young age. I believe that Bill was in his early thirties. Of all of the alcoholic homeless people that we were trying to get off of the streets and into a rehab program, Bill was the one I was most hopeful for. He never received our message of how Jesus could give him a new life until just moments before he passed away in his hospital bed. He had literally drank so much alcohol in so few years that his liver failed. His was the first death I’d ever witnessed.

A Nurse Addicted to Pain Killers, Alcohol and the Party Life
She destroyed her family because of her disease.
The constant roller coaster of intense emotions that she lived on kept the entire family always on eggshells. Her attitude and behavior were so unpredictable. At times she would never come home to her husband and children after work for several days. Her husband tried to endure the mental and intensifying physical abuse that she would inflect, but eventually it was too much for him or the children. The family split at the seams with a nasty divorce.

Stories of how drinking alcohol destroys people’s goals, dreams, carriers, families and physical bodies are told by thousands every day in twelve step programs. Alcoholics Anonymous, Ala-non and many other Christ based group therapy meetings are held all over the world twenty four seven. Most alcoholic/addicts do not realize the damage that has been done until they get sober and look back at the wreckage of their past. Broken marriages, relationships and families are scattered all over the globe as a result of people’s choices to drink alcohol.Even my brother is an alcoholic.

The media paints such a glamorous fun picture of how drinking will affect our lives. It’s a total lie. There was nothing glamorous about how I used to yell at my young children when I was intoxicated. My mom looked horrible as she lay on the floor so plastered that she could not get up. My homeless friends stomach was the ugliest thing I’d ever seen in my life just before the fluids overtook his lungs and he took his last breath.

My prayer for you today is that God would show himself strong in your life healing the brokenness that has occurred from people drinking alcohol.

2 comments to Drinking Alcohol Destroys Families, Relationships and Lives

  • Sally

    This article really touched home to me. My family is now dealing with consequences of when family members enable their loved ones and how it impacts the other memberts (non-enablers). My brother is an alcoholic who has spent 30 years of his life being enabled by Dad and Mom. The situation got so worse that they have decided that HE must live with them and decided to live far away from their grandchildren because of it. I do believe in the power of prayer and I also believe that enabling an alcoholic when he refuses to repent and accept that he is one is wrong. What is worse is that they fail to realize that others, because of their choices, are feeling the pain too. We have been trying to get his professional help for years and they believe now that they just need to ride it with him and help him the best they can. What is worse is that Mom feels she cannot go anywhere unless she takes him with her so she can make sure he doesn’t drink when she is not there. Not only is my brother in bondage with alcohol but my mother is in bondage in being a slave. We have since decided that we will not be visiting them if he is drinking nor going to visit them on vacation. In the meantime, we are praying that he will be sincere that HE can finally get off alcohol on his own this time however after 30 years of failed attempts it is so hard to see if he is telling the truth. To those who enable their loved ones, you are doing more harm than good.

  • Pamela

    Sally, thanks for sharing. One thing I learned about the power of prayer is that God always does His part. There have been times when the alcoholic in my life told me about total strangers who were sent across her path that ministered to her. In one instance, she said she thought they were angles. She said this because they working in the gift of knowledge and told her things about her that only she knew about.

    My pastor always says: “it’s our responsibility to pray and leave the rest to God.” The other thing he always says is that people have their own will. God is faithful to do all He can and the people then have choices to make.

    Hang in there and above all express love to your family. Alcoholism may create additional stress in our relationships, but we are still commanded to love. Learning how to love an alcoholic unconditionally takes interacting with people who have done it.

    It gets really frustrating when people are enablers. The best we can do is make sure that we are not enablers and let the actions of others go. The only person we have any control over is our self.

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