When dad drinks
Winter sets in outside in a single gust of wet wind. But Beat and Margrit* are over it, over the cold, the heaviness, the confusion, the noise, the depression. Instead, they have to work on themselves, their relationship and their family. Beat and Margrit have three children. «We've finally arrived,» says Margrit. «In our mid-30s, we first had to find out who we are without the alcohol.»
Beat has been sober for more than ten years. Before that, he never was. «I was born this way,» he says. Beat could never drink without getting drunk, without losing control. The first time was as an altar boy. Beat tasted the mass wine when he was twelve. And then stumbled down the church steps. «I can still remember the feeling well,» he says and laughs, «I had rubbery knees.»
When Beat fell in love for the first time, he bought himself a bottle of whisky. «To stop feeling it,» he says. He didn't know such a feeling, he couldn't stand it. It was a strategy that he soon began to use consciously. For example, when he visited his depressed mother as a young man. «I could hardly bear to sit at the table with her. Until I was given a glass of white wine. Then the feeling became bearable.» Beat drank when he needed to cope with emotions, both good and bad. There is no compelling reason for Beat's alcoholism in his biography. It was quite simply a destructive survival strategy that took on a life of its own.
Nobody noticed anything
«He told me right from the start that he couldn't control himself,» Margrit recalls. «But as a naive twenty-year-old, I thought: if he knows, then it's not a problem. Then he can change it.» She didn't realise at the time that he couldn't do that at all, that it wasn't even possible for an alcoholic. At that time, the student and the trained baker were at the beginning of their relationship.
Margrit was 25 when she wrote her dissertation. The topic: alcoholism. Beat secretly fills out one of the questionnaires lying around. «It just interested me.» The result shocked him: «You're an alcoholic, get help.»
Beat wasn't a bum. He was never aggressive. Beat was a successful entrepreneur, family man and colleague. That's how it looked to outsiders. The family lived in a small community in the canton of Aargau. With a population of 7,000, people know each other and know Beat because of his business. Despite this, the couple say that no one realised they had a problem. To this day, there are still people who think his withdrawal was completely exaggerated. «They think that a little alcohol doesn't make you an alcoholic. But that's not true,» says Beat. «It's not the amount, it's the loss of control.» As soon as he had a glass, it started. His good intentions were washed away. By the end, he was completely drunk, philosophising at the top of his voice, being the biggest.
When the parents were in their mid-30s, the family first had to find out who they were without the alcohol.
The day after, Beat was always sane again. At least partially. «I always shaved, showered and always went to work on time,» he says. At some point, he swapped the schnapps for beer and wine. «I was able to dose the quantity a little better.»
Beat and Margrit were not the neglected cliché alcoholic family - they are the rule, not the exception. Alcoholism is a widespread disease in Switzerland: around 250,000 people in this country are addicted to alcohol. And one in five people drink alcohol abusively: at the wrong time, too much, too often. Every twelfth death in Switzerland is caused by alcohol. These are figures from the Federal Office of Public Health from 2016.
The children were no longer important
«If we had a row in our relationship, it was because of the alcohol,» Margrit remembers. But worse than the staggering and slurring of words was the constant breach of trust when Beat was responsible for the children in the evening while Margrit was out. «Of course I'll put them to bed on time,» Beat promised, «of course everything will work out fine.» But when the friends came round and Beat had drunk the first and then the second bottle of wine, it was no longer important. «Then the children just fell asleep somewhere when they were tired,» says Beat. They never noticed his knockout. Although: as an alcoholic, you can take a lot. «People didn't realise that I'd drunk two bottles of wine or five to ten beers in one evening,» says Beat today. «As an alcoholic, you're in a different league.»
An articulated lorry as a way out
Alcoholism became the centre of the family's life. And Margrit experienced what the experts call co-dependency: the insecurity, the helplessness, the inability to change anything. She became depressed.
Margrit puts her coffee on the table and sighs. Today she marvels at her own past. She sits in the living room, looks out of the window, fog. «I often sat in the flat and didn't dare go out,» she remembers. «I was afraid they would take the children away from me. Because there was obviously something wrong with me.» After years of insecurity, at some point she was convinced that she was mentally ill.
At the time, Margrit was seen by those around her as the angry mum, the over-stressed one, the one who kept her husband in line, the one who kept the family on their toes. The one with whom something was wrong. Even though she has such a husband: One who lets her do everything, who is so kind, who she doesn't deserve. Margrit says: «At some point, I'd heard it so often that I started to believe it: I'm sick, not Beat.» She didn't realise at the time that this was typical of the wives of alcoholics.
At some point, Margrit had heard it so often that she believed it: she was ill, not her husband.
Margrit took over the problem. He had the addiction, she had the symptoms. «I wasn't there at all,» says Margrit, «always somehow absent. My biggest regret today is that I wasn't emotionally present for the children. They tell me that they didn't realise it. But I notice it.» Beat did too. He was outwardly charming, fun-loving and well organised. Inwardly, however, he was numb, unhappy and suicidal. «That articulated lorry there, it could be enough,» he sometimes thought on his way to the office in the morning.
Beat used to get drunk at every opportunity. In other words: not always. But in such a way that everything continued to work. «I knew something was wrong. That's why I started to pace my drinking. I didn't drink on Mondays and Tuesdays and only on Wednesdays when I had visitors. So I had to organise visitors.» Beat laughs, today he has a different outlook on life. Today he looks in the mirror and knows that he likes himself. He used to despise himself. And had a guilty conscience. Always. «That was also nice for me,» says Margrit, «because of his guilty conscience, I was allowed to do anything I wanted. I escaped: by going out, for example. It flattered me when men approached me. And then something happened.» The third son in the family is not Beat's. And again: he was the understanding one, she was the one who went over the top. «Nobody asked me how I felt about it,» says Margrit. Pregnant, by another man. «They only asked him how he could accept it so well.»
The rescue - and a new threat
And then comes the end. «You have to hit rock bottom to get out,» says Beat. «You have to be at the bottom.» Beat was now drinking every day. And if he didn't drink once, he would wake up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat - because of the short withdrawal. That was the low point. The end: he met another woman on a business trip. «She completely shook me up,» says Beat. «He came home and wanted to get sober,» recalls Margrit. «That was extremely threatening for me, that another woman could trigger in him what I hadn't managed to do.»
Beat wanted to feel something again. «That same week, we went to the first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous.» And every week since then. Parting was out of the question. «You love the person behind it,» says Margrit. «The person he could be. He sees the person behind my depression and I see the person behind his alcohol.»
«You love the person behind it,» says Margrit. «The one he could be.»
Beat went through physical withdrawal at home. At the time, the eldest son was twelve years old, the middle son eight and the youngest three. «In my arrogance at the time, I thought I could do it. That was perhaps the worst thing of all for Margrit and the children,» says Beat. «I'm still incredibly sorry about it today.» Beat was beside himself for three weeks. «I was Jesus and the devil at the same time,» he remembers. He told Margrit and the children things like: «I don't know if anything I've ever said to you is true. I don't know if I ever really loved you. All I know is that I don't feel anything at the moment.» In hindsight, he realises: «That was incredibly hurtful for Margrit and the children.»
Margrit: «We were no longer at all predictable for the children, we only just functioned as a family. That was certainly the most traumatic phase for us.»
Beat now sees the fact that he withdrew at home, in front of Margrit and the children, as a big mistake.
What is the first thing you learn from Alcoholics Anonymous? «That all families with alcoholics experience what happened to us,» says Margrit. Their symptoms, the attempts to change something, the impossibility of escaping. «With Alcoholics Anonymous, they've heard it all before.» That is a relief. With the help of the self-help group, the family was able to get rid of their addiction. That is a gift for them. And the children? Beat and Margrit can't say whether they have suffered any damage. «My alcohol addiction has certainly affected all family members,» says Beat. But dealing with the addiction and working through it together has also strengthened the family. It's impossible to know to what extent the children's current life situation would be different without the drinking, says Beat, «but all three of them are independent and secure in life today.»
* All names changed by the editors.
Falco Meyer
Help is available here
Switzerland has a wide range of support centres for families with an alcoholic member. If you are looking for help, you are in good hands here:
- Anonyme Alkoholiker: anonyme-alkoholiker.ch
Die Anonymen Alkoholiker sind eine Selbsthilfegruppe für Alkoholkranke. Sie steht allen offen. Die einzige Bedingung ist der Wunsch, mit dem Trinken aufzuhören. Ein erster Kontakt erfolgt über die 24-h-Hotline: 0848 848 885 oder per Mail an info@anonyme-alkoholiker.ch
- Al-Anon: www.al-anon.ch
Al-Anon dagegen ist für Angehörige und Freunde von Alkoholkranken. Al-Anon verfügt über ein 24-h-Hotline: 0848 848 843.
- Blaues Kreuz: www.blaueskreuz.ch
Das Blaue Kreuz ist eine Fachorganisation für Alkohol- und Suchtfragen. Es bietet kostenlose Beratung für Betroffene und Familienmitglieder an. In den meisten grösseren Städten der Deutschschweiz gibt es eine Sektion.
- Safezone: www.safezone.ch
Safezone ist eine Online-Beratung für Suchtfragen. Das Portal wird vom Bundesamt für Gesundheit in Zusammenarbeit mit kantonalen Fachstellen und Fachorganisationen betrieben. Hier können Betroffene und Angehörige auf verschiedene Arten Online zu einer Beratung kommen, zum Beispiel per Mail. Die Beratung ist anonym.
- Kantonale Stellen für Suchtberatung: suchtindex.infodrog.ch
Die meisten Kantone bieten eine eigene Suchtberatung an. Betroffene erhalten da eine kostenlose, persönliche Beratung. Über das Portal suchtindex.infodrog.ch können lokale Angebote schnell gefunden werden.
- Alcohol-Facts: www.alcohol-facts.ch
Auch über dieses Portal können lokale Beratungsstellen gefunden werden. Zudem bietet das Portal eine grosse Auswahl von Inhalten zum Umgang mit Alkohol an, darunter ein interaktives Quiz zum Thema.
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