If you are feeling suicidal, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at (800) 273-8255, or call 911. There is always a way out!
When you have an alcoholic friend or family member blaming you, it can be very difficult to know what to do. You might feel angry, frustrated, and even scared. You could also feel like everything you’ve done to help, just isn’t working. Even with all of your help and support, the alcoholic may still blame you. Thankfully, our many years of experience with alcoholics and their close relationships have taught us what to do when an alcoholic blames you for their problems. We have compiled a few steps that we believe are helpful when dealing with this situation. With these steps, the goal is to diffuse the situation, to let the alcoholic know you are there for them, and to keep yourself safe and sane throughout the process.
- Your Feelings Are Valid – Dealing with an alcoholic blaming you for their struggles can create anger, fear, and confusion. Many times, you may even feel like you are going insane, but you are not. It is very difficult to deal with an active alcoholic and coping can feel impossible at times. However, there are many tools and support groups, such as Al-Anon, available to help you. Furthermore, with someone so close to you in turmoil, it can be difficult to acknowledge your own feelings and hurt. They are not the only ones dealing with pain. Your feelings are valid too.
- Lean On Al-Anon’s 3 C’s – Remember the 3 C’s from Al-Anon if you are ever in a situation where an alcoholic is casting blame on you. The 3 C’s are “You didn’t cause it”; “You can’t cure it”; and “You can’t control it”. Taking these statements to heart will help you detach from any negative feelings the alcoholic may try to place on you.
- Create Empathy – While it is important to stop any enabling behavior, it is also important to create a space of empathy for the alcoholic. They are sick and are suffering from a disease. Be supportive and empathetic, without enabling alcoholic behavior. Offer supportive statements, such as, “I know this is difficult for you.” or “I understand that this is a struggle.”
- Learn More About Alcoholism – If you don’t know much about alcoholism, there are many available support groups for friends and family members of alcoholics. Attending support meetings will teach you more about alcoholism, which will help you better understand why the alcoholic behaves the way he or she does. It can help you utilize healthy tools and stop enabling behavior.
- Stay Safe – If you are in a situation where an alcoholic threatens to hurt you, themselves, or someone else, the best thing you can do is leave. Stay with a safe friend or family member if the alcoholic becomes violent. If you are worried that the alcoholic may do something to hurt themselves if you leave, you should still find another place to stay. The alcoholic could still hurt themselves with you there, and having yourself and your family around to witness that helps no one. Basically, you can not control the situation by staying. Remember the third “C”, “You can’t control it”.
- Don’t Carry The Blame – The alcoholic is sick because they have a disease, not because you caused it. The alcoholic may try to place blame on you and say that if it weren’t for you, they wouldn’t be sick. But that is not true. Alcoholism is a disease and no one can cause alcoholism.
- Don’t Buy Into The Manipulation – Alcoholics are great manipulators and often times they are able to convince other people that they are the problem, not the alcoholic or the alcohol. Really, the alcoholic’s relationship with alcohol is what is the problem. Remind yourself of this if the alcoholic says that you are the crazy one, and remember that the disease is the bad guy, not anyone else in the room.
If you find yourself in a situation where an alcoholic is blaming you, remember that you are not to blame. The disease is to blame. Create empathy with the alcoholic and protect yourself and your feelings. Your feelings are valid and dealing with an active alcoholic can be a painful one. Seek more support and education through meetings and groups. And always stay safe. If the alcoholic becomes violent, remove yourself from the situation, find a safe place to stay, and contact the appropriate authorities for help. The best thing you can do for the alcoholic is to receive the support you need to deal with the situation in a sane and healthy way.
I need someone to lean on
Susan, many people enter into counseling to get the support they need when an alcoholic is in their lives. https://www.caffertyclinic.com is the private practice tied to True north and could be an option for you.
Its like you read my mind! You seem to know a lot about this, like
you wrote the book in it or something. I think that you could do
with some pics to drive the message home a little bit, but instead of that, this is magnificent blog.
An excellent read. I’ll certainly be back.
Im struggling with my boyfriend of almost 6 years hes an alcoholic. He always feels bad the next day for all the mean things he says but its so old now. It always happens again and again. He says he drinks because of me and its my fault. Im so stressed out and angry he just says so many mean things to me. I dont know how to help him he doesn’t think its that bad.
Erica,
No one gets to decide what feels pleasant or unpleasant for you. Your feelings are valid and true feelings. If you are not comfortable with how he speaks to you, it is valid. Emotional safety is also important. You have emotional rights. We can only forefiet them ourselves.
I hope you find your way. If you need help feel free to call us or consider attending our weekly family support group.
You are so right. A lot of times when you try to talk to these people also they’re like really really hard to talk to you like with my situation I feel like I need someone to talk to you when I go to my boyfriend to talk to him he takes it wrong and then we end up getting in an argument all the time and all I’m trying to do is tell him nicely but I guess you just can’t talk to these people nicely because as soon as you say something they say you’re picking on them it’s very hard and then hard words are said to each other is so unhealthy to be in a relationship like that because really I’m not perfect but if he was not a drinker we would have an awesome relationship because I truly love him and I know he loves me
Please help
I spent 3 hours last night being told to shut, listen whilst he went on a tirade of how nasty, horrible, evil I am. If I tried to say anything he just screams at me telling me everything is my fault.
My partner is an alcoholic but won’t admit it at all. To everyone else he is nice as pie my family think he is great but they don’t see the staggering around abusive person he has become.
I can’t tell them they won’t understand but I’m now just wondering what the point of being here is. I feel so so low and worthless. Just can’t carry on much more.
Sarah this is a really difficult set of circumstances. We recommend family counseling (with or without your significant other). I also often recommend regular attendance at Al-Anon Family Group meetings. They are free of charge and very helpful. Pro-tip: Attend longer than it feels like you should. Al-anon “seeps” in in my experience. It doesn’t always seem to make sense at first but eventually it makes a ton of sense and is very helpful. You just have to keep coming back long enough to find out why they all keep coming.
Don’t let people who are intoxicated tell you you are crazy.
Sarah, I feel your pain. I hear hours of how awful I am, how evil I am and many more horrid things. I just have to walk away and not respond. Because by responding even if it is in defense of what is being told to me only escalates into worse. He does wake the next morning either not remembering or being really sorry. This has been going on 4 years. The empty promises etc. He may not want to accept the mean things he says but I will never forget them and it is getting really old. I am in AlAnon and it does help with not taking the mean words hurt so much. I know I will get to a point where I have had enough. Just know you are not alone.
I am with somebody I love so much I’m very much in love with and just finding out throughout the months that he is an alcoholic he’s always blaming me or somebody at his work for belittling him he seems like everybody belittles him I just got out of a relationship with my son that was on drugs I miss him so much he’s going to be out of jail pretty soon I’m dealing with that as well I’m a very nice person and I put up with a lot I want to know how to live with this and maybe possibly even help people myself that have this problem I have my own personal problems but it is an alcoholism or drugs it’s depression that I know by helping others it will help me I can never comprehend an addiction it’s very sad thank you
Please tell me where I can take a class near me I live in Phelan California by Victorville I do like Apple Valley much cleaner is there anything there
Dear Joyce,
We are so far from Apple Valley that I am unable to point you into a good direction specifically. You could start with a local counselor by contacting your insurance provider for a referral or by looking on psychology today’s directory of therapists. This is often the first step. Someone to listen to our stories. From there the therapist should be able to start narrowing down what will help you.
Abuse causes addiction, and most people are abused by their significant – and powerful – “others”. Abusers ARE responsible for their victim’s addictions, and your article LIES about that life-saving fact. Intoxicated people are discredited and vulnerable people, and strong abuse victims are liabilities to their perpetrators. It’s in the interests of these families to keep their scapegoats “using”. If these scapegoats reject their families’ abuse, they’ll be FAR more likely to abstain from narcotics. That’s why you’re trying to gag abused addicts by calling them “sick” and “manipulative”. You can’t afford to let them do ANYTHING but “use”, and certainly not anything which addresses the origin of their addiction – their family relationships. You’re, literally, going nuclear on addicts who rebel against their abusive families. As you know, they’ll have no future, if they have no ACCURATE account of their past. Your lies are their Armageddon.
When is it enough? Enough lies, enough betrayal,enough empty promises? Enough deflecting the blame? I can feel like a crazy person talking with him, as he so cleverly manipulates the issue around and suddenly I am being called out on things? I am on the defensive about how I harp on him, I never let things go, I am the angry one, I lie, I manipulate him….. When is it enough? He says he is going to treatment, and he does, sometimes. He drinks and binge drinks and then says that he drinks far less than he use to. When I call him on it, it becomes how he can’t put up with much more from me. When is it enough? I can’t change him, I know. I fear he will die or get more and more destructive so I stay involved. He is so hurtful…..especially when I need some support or understanding, it quickly becomes how he needs the support. What is there left to do? Thanks for listening
It can be very frustrating. Look to sane people to help you stay sane. Do not disconnect from them as much as you may want to to hide the issues happening with him. Isolation never cures loneliness and this scenario can be very lonely.
I’m feeling suicidal , no way out, he says it’s all my fault maybe it is and I have no where to go
https://www.up2sd.org/hotline/
Debra, above is the website for the suicide and crisis hotline. Please call it immediately and get in front of someone. If you would like to call our facility for a referral you can as well at 760-517-6544.
There is always a way out. I promise. It doesn’t need to be this way.
If you are looking at suicide as an option, which is more serious that passing thoughts, you can also call 911 and they will come out and talk to you right now. There is a mental health team that can help you access the support you need immediately.
I didn’t know it was alcohol, I thought he was crazy and he made me believe it was me, worst seven years of my life, intense pain, I feel covered in cuts caused by his words, he has also assaulted me a few times and thrown me out of the house barefoot in my pyjamas, when I tried to call friends he smashed my phone, when I had nowhere to go I turned up at his brother’s, I have been castigated for this, he feels humiliated and exposed and rages at me for it, he has been raging while binging for seven years and he wakes up the next day as if nothing happened or says sorry and does it all over again every couple of days, he won’t remember what he does but he remembers the retaliatory nasty things I say to him during years of being worn down and cut up by him, now after everything I struggled to put into this, he finally blames me for it all, telling me I am the reason he drinks and that I cut him up for years, but it was the other way around, he cut me up for years, when he blames me I feel worthless, I feel like I am going around in circles trying to help him break this cycle, if I stay he torments me and if I go he says I’m absuive, there is no winning with the alcoholic, the alcohol poisons everything good, he mutates from wonderful to a horrible bastard, I can’t take it anymore, but I know if I go he will get lonely and screw some strumpets therefore making an irreversible decision and sabotaging any chance we had, he sabotages himself and me, I’ve been crying got seven years, I was just 22 and I had no clue, no experience with alcohol, my family doesn’t drink, now I feel like I can write a book about it, but I don’t have the strength to do anything, I feel drainers, nothing I did feels good enough, he criticises me and tears me apart, when he is sober he says in an angel for putting up with him, when drunk he says all the nice things he says to me are made up, he also tells me that he only pretends to want anything more than companionship with me, and that I’m stupid, typical, and that he doesn’t have to be betrothed to me he could have better, I have told him a thousand times I could do better than him so maybe he is projecting, every nasty thing I have said has almost always been in retaliation, he doesn’t understand this, he uses it as yet another excuse to drink, I’ve been trying so hard to deal with it but it doesn’t matter as he still criticises and condemns, I do my best but don’t feel good enough, I feel do broken, but if I try to talk about my pain he makes it about himself, I feel like I have nobody who gets it, dealing with an alcoholic if like being on a different utterly dark planet, isolated, his mother understands as his father was an alcoholic, she says I should leave him, I have tried and failed a thousand times, I don’t believe in my own abilities anymore, I feel depleted and my depression has gotten much worse since meeting him, everything has gotten much worse, he acknowledges his alcoholism is the problem and that he has destroyed me and that it is destroying our magic, but then he will rapidly contradict his statements and blame me, I don’t know what to believe anymore, the sober him or the drunk him, sober he is mostly beautiful and drunk he is always ugly, the ugliest person, filled with acid, anger, hate, nastiness, and destruction, yet he projects all these things into me telling me I leave destruction no matter where I go, I almost started to believe him before writing this, but then felt relieved to be rescued by this website. The fact that google suggests “when the alcoholic blames you” must mean it’s happening to more than just one person, I have felt so alone in this, but now I feel stronger knowing there are many others, I will find a support group here in London, I can’t go back to him because when I do I get sucked into the cycle, I don’t know what to do, if I stay his mother’s says I’m enabling him, if I go I miss him and feel that I am further damaging him, i get suicidal ideation because of this, I attempted to do it for the first time on a trip to see him, he said it was fake, sometimes I really feel like showing him a real one, mayce then he will stop, the comments sections on alcoholic related websites help me, for the first time I feel like I know people who understand and who are telling my story, I wonder if he will ever bother to read this if I sent him a link, and if he would bother to believe it, he probably wouldn’t and if he did he would just offer more empty promises, him blsming me for the alcoholism saying I wrecked him instead of him wrecking me really is the last straw, I feel like I am at my wits end, I have had evough, I just need the strength and support to stay away, I cave in easily because I love him and miss him, I wonder if he loves me or simple has me there as he has nobody, I feel small, I wish I was invisible, I wish I could sleep and not awake, yet I will try?because I was alive before him and will be alive after him, god took care of me yesterday, he is today, and he will tomorrow. I am fortunate to have faith. I know I could have spent these seven years with a kind, gentle, loving person, who made us both better, but somehow I stumbled about this man when I was 22 and trying to get away from my absuive father, and he pushed me to the edge with no remorse, I wonder if I will ever meet anyone to love me or if I am loveable as he told me I am not but he also says nice things about me, i wonder which he thinks is true, I wonder if he will ever realise the truth and wake up and become dry and we will conjure all the magic we know we had, I feel lost but strangely secure knowing god will take care of me, but where is god when six year olds are being raped? I suppose I will never understand the pain and purpose of this world: what is the point anyway? The belief in something incomprehensible and above all the paltry offerings of the world is the only thing which makes this entire exhausting existential enterprise worthwhile, without it, there is nothing.
What a powerful comment. Your pain is real and it’s valid. I strongly encourage you to follow up on joining a family support group like AlAnon. You don’t have to be isolated anymore. If he gets angry about it tell yourself that he is angry with you anyway so take care of yourself anyway.
Wow!!!
This is surreal. I can’t believe that I an not the only one going through this nightmare. I don’t know exactly when my ordeal started. I think it was since 1994 but not sure. Humiliation and extreme verbal and even physical abuse have been part of my life. The worst thing is that my children witnessed it. ALCOHOL is evil and I just don’t know if I can continue living this way. My my children are married and they have very little contact with us. They say it is because they feel like they have to walk on eggshells around us. I have prayed too many times ( for years) and at times I simply feel like God just does not listen to me anymore. I have had alcohol thrown at me, he has spit on my face,broke my arm, thrown me on the floor and tried to hit me with a chair. He also hit my face with a plastic bottle of diet Cooke, left me stranded at a groceries store with out a phone just because I did not wanted to buy alcohol; so many more evil things that he has done to me that I do not want to think about it anymore. I can’t control my tears just thinking about all of this; however I am ashamed to let anyone that knows me know about this things because I feel stupid, crazy and I truly don’t think that people would believe me. He is so nice to me when he does not drink. He is also a great father when he is sober but I don’t even know when the last time this was. He drinks and drives and has gotten stopped by police even was in an accident but has never been charged for DUI. I have called the police about his abuse but has never been put in jail( just removed from the house and he returns the next day) I don’t know how to help because he says I am the reason he drinks. Then, he tells me he needs me in his life. I am so tired of this situation BUT I AM A COWARD !!!! And don’t have to guts to move out since I know he will never move out. I feel so helpless, stupid, worthless and lonely since I do not share this things. Right now he is laying next to me drunk. I have not open my mouth because I know I will be in trouble. I just feel like another piece of furniture at home, used when needed. I used to pray to be the wife he needed now I just pray for discernment because I feel so lost and have no clue what to do.
Hello Sola,
Getting up the courage to leave can be one of the most difficult experiences any of us ever have. As horrible as a lot of this has been, I couldn’t help but notice your reference to domestic violence. This is perhaps my quickest concern as DV can sometimes end fatally. In fact I lost an immediate family member at the hands of her abuser.
Often when I hear this I will encourage the person being abused (not always a woman), to prepare a “go bag.” A go bag is a place where you keep all of your primary documents such as social security card, duplicate drivers licenses, evidence of ownership of the home, medical insurance cards, and equivalent information for your children. Consider taking out a credit card that you carry no balance on that can be left in it as well. If this is too risky a prepaid visa card can be a good idea as well. This should be kept out of the home at a safe place. The reason for the go bag is that if the day ever comes when you have to leave to save your life of the lives of your children, you are able to. You aren’t trapped. You do have a choice. You can leave when he is passed out or when he goes to work.
Having a go bag isn’t a plan to leave. It isn’t abandoning him. It is an emergency exit. Frankly, by the sounds of it, you are in an emergency now but I understand if you are not ready to leave. No one else is in your shoes, me included. I just want to make sure you know it is possible and that you have a way out should you ever decide to use it.