sutton041

Thank you to Sandy Jones founder of Synergy Breakthroughs for today's guest blog post. Sandy created Synergy Breakthroughs in 2010 to"assist individual, groups and organizations in developing the kind of creativity and resilience that would optimize the experience of navigating through change."  http://synergybreakthroughs.com/background/ By Sandy Jones As the loved ones of someone who is an alcoholic (or drug user, or polydrug user), our situations may vary widely; but one thing we all share is the heartache of seeing someone decline – sometimes over a very long period of time – due to the effects of a substance. Sometimes, that trajectory is reversed; other times, it isn’t. In 2009, I was stunned when my nephew, Ray, died of alcoholism. How could we (the family) have let this happen? Of course, not knowing anything, I was posing a question that flew in the face of what was supposed to be common knowledge – that this was not something that we let happen, it was somethin...

I have a follower who is the divorced wife of a very end-stage alcoholic. He is currently in the hospital. He had never signed a Medical Power of Attorney, so no one is legally in charge of his care. Yes, the closet living relative will be asked to take on the responsibility which would be his children. However, the children have become estranged over the years because they did not want to suffer the heart break of watching their father slowly kill himself. There are no other relatives. As often happens in alcoholic marriages, the couple divorced because of the outfall of the alcoholic’s actions. The wife/husband will often separate themselves, so they do not have the unfortunate financial burden if the alcoholic should get himself into financial trouble. It doesn’t mean they no longer have feelings one for another. It’s often a greater act of love. If the divorced couple do not have in place the legal paperwork that allows the sober partner to “watch over” the drunk partner, the drunk...