We Codependent Men, We Mute Coyotes

By Ken P.

The coyote is a long, slim, sick and sorry-looking skeleton, with a gray wolf-skin stretched over it, a tolerably bushy tail that forever sags down, a furtive and evil eye, and a long, sharp face, with slightly lifted lip and exposed teeth. He has a general slinking expression all over. The coyote is a living, breathing allegory of Want. He is always hungry. He is always poor, out of luck, and friendless. The meanest creatures despise him, and even the fleas would desert him for a velocipede.

                                                              Taken from Mark Twain's Roughing It

   A codependent man is a man who is often a high functioning husband with a wife who has a physical, mental, and spiritual need for a mind-altering substance, such as alcohol or drugs. His wife's extreme need for her substance has caused her for years to manipulate this man by every means known to a woman who has stood up before institutions full of relatives, a respected preacher, and God pledging his total allegiance to her for life "...till death do them part."

  Almost all of the literature on codependency is written by women for women, leaving the codependent man basically unstudied. This is for a very simple reason. He is under everybody's radar screen because he has to be! Read on and learn a few of the reasons why such a man suffers like the retched coyote described by Mark Twain above...only he can't even howl; because of his disease, he is mute!

   Like the coyote, this man survives in a state of heightened diligence. He sees the other men as wolves running in their chosen packs. He sees the jocks, the golfers, the professional organizations, the fraternal clubs, the Little League Dads, and the men in his suburban neighborhood dressed in their crisp shorts.

   But the twin diseases of alcoholism and codependency have isolated him. He has no pack for protection. His preoccupation with an alcoholic wife has robbed him of the time and energy to form trusting relationships with other men, and he pays a tremendous internal price for that missing element. Here is why; because of hundreds of thousands of years surviving as the hunting half of "hunters and gatherers," somewhere down in his bones every man knows that isolation from the pack means death.

   It is not only his lack of time to develop relationships with other men that isolates this codependent man. His various defense mechanisms such as perfectionism and over-achievement serve to make other men shun him. There is also his underlying anger, mostly born of fear. Other men sense this. He is so obviously not at ease in his own skin. He over-reacts, especially to any slight criticism. Other men soon learn the basic truth summed up by a very wise counselor, who once told me, "It's hard to hug a porcupine!"

   So his ears are either perked in constant high alert, or flattened with anger and frustration. His frustration, though constant, cannot be voiced for an important reason; he cannot identify it!

   It is called denial. Denial is his most immediate and user-friendly shock absorber against the painful emotional shocks delivered at random from his first family during childhood. Studies show that most codependent men came from highly dysfunctional families that included at least one alcoholic or addicted parent.  All he ever knew was this existence, so that feels normal. He just went out and found a wife who would treat him the way the people who were supposed to love him unconditionally always did. A little boy can't win against big parents, and a beaten-down man can't win against an abusive addicted wife.

   So he becomes a mute coyote.

   He must remain silent like a mute coyote. Coyotes remain silent lest they draw attention to themselves. Attention, to a man married to an alcoholic wife is synonymous with pain, and avoidance of pain has gradually become his sole moment to moment purpose. His tail "that forever sags down" stays there between his legs because he is trying to make himself smaller. The wagging tail of his puppy hood...the spiked tail of high expectation, has been replaced. A wagging or spiked tail would destroy his "cover."

   If you can relate to this description, you may be another Codependent man. There is help.

   I am a man who has worked with codependent men for over thirty years as their "sponsor," helping them through the 12-step program called Al-Anon.  I am working with two other such men to reach out and help other men with this pitiful disease.  We are working through various means to establish men's Al-Anon meetings all over this nation, because they are so badly needed. As I write this, only 15% of those attending Al-Anon meetings are men, even though the current generation of women aged 14-22 are using alcohol, drugs, and tobacco at a rate that is higher than their male counterparts. Given this situation, along with the highest rate of alcoholism and addiction among the parents in our country's history, we see a future absolutely rife with codependency among its men.

   If you catch even a glimpse of yourself in this missive or if you suspect that you are enabling somebody close to you who has the disease of addiction, please...Call Al-Anon World Service Office to learn where the nearest men's Al-Anon meeting is in your area, or for information about how to start one!

Call 1-888-4AL-ANON.

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     We have been screaming at the world through this blog that women are using more alcohol, drugs, and tobacco in the current generation than are men. This is a profound shift in social habit. Now, in an incredibly short period of time, that drinking is showing up in our culture in our most vulnerable age group...our newborns.

     Today, as you read this, for the first time ever, fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) is the number one cause of retardation in America...and probably elsewhere in the world as well. The cost of FAS in human terms is incalculable. The spirits of women destroyed from guilt because " ...just a few drinks" were consumed have been crushed, their marriages have been destroyed, and many have had to drive away after leaving their child in some brick building surrounded by green tiled walls. Economically? Well, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome costs more private and government dollars than any other mental defect.

   This has gotten so serious, so quickly, that the American Academy of Pediatrics last year made raising the awareness of the problem among high school and college age women their top priority. The AAP is one of the most respected of medical specialties. These professionals work long hard hours on behalf of children with less pay than most medical specialties because they, like the authors, just love kids. This is why, within the last year, the AAP has focused its efforts on identifying and preventing fetal alcohol syndrome. They have made it a major purpose to increase awareness of this tragic condition to women in the nation's high schools and colleges.

• Four times as many pregnant women drank frequently (7 or more drinks per week or 5 or more drinks on at least one occasion) in 1995 (3.5%) as in 1991 (0.8%) (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "Alcohol Consumption Among Pregnant and Childbearing-Aged Women--United States, 1991 and 1995," Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 4/25/97, p. 345).

   Do you want one last mind numbing fact to ponder tonight before you go to sleep? Guess what the number one symptom of fetal alcohol syndrome is in children whose mothers drank during pregnancy; give up? It is ADD, ADHD, or whatever you want to call that 'ants in the pants' behavior that causes our grammar school kids to line up every morning at school. One by one they march through the school nurse's office, eyes glazed, minds bouncing like ping pong balls, to receive their Ritalin!

   How can we stop this insanity? Please, stop enabling alcoholic women, people. Get yourself to a meeting of Al-Anon, Nar-A-Non, or Adult Children of Alcoholics tonight! There is a meeting probably less than five miles from your front door, it is free, and there is plenty of help there.

Call 1-888-4AL-ANON or access www.al-anon.alateen.org to learn when and where that meeting is held.

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We have all heard that liars figure and figures lie, but when we started delving deeply into the data about women and alcoholism we found many figures that just didn't...well...figure!

   For example, when it comes to DUI's (or DWI's) the number of arrests never matches any data on the incidence of alcoholism among women as compared to men. The trends are certainly there;  in 1977 only 8% of DUI's were for women, and by 2007 that percentage had doubled to 15%.  But that still means that there are 85 DUI arrests for men for every 15 for women in a culture whose youngest generation (the ones proven to do most of the drinking) have a higher usage rate for alcohol among females than among males! We started digging to find out how this could happen.

   Here is what we found. The difference is not truly in the number of women who are stopped who could be arrested for DUI. The difference lies in factors involving the policeman making the decision about whether to arrest or not, and his personal biases!

   A study by the National Highway and Safety Administration (US DOT Report H5-801-230) shows clearly the real factors involved in Officer O'malley's decisions. Decisions like, does he put the cuffs on Grandma? How about that cute YUPPY on her way back from Happy Hour to her condo?

Here's the first quote from the DOT study.

   "The officer's personal use of alcohol is inversely related to his level of alcohol-related enforcement. Patrolmen who drink make significantly fewer arrests than those who do not, and those who drink frequently make significantly fewer arrests than those who use alcohol only occasionally."

 This says that all of us have a better chance of "skating" when stopped drunk if the officer himself is a drinker!

The study elaborates concerning women. It points out that most officers are male, and that they tend to decide not to arrest anybody who is less aggressive, also anybody who looks, acts, sounds, and smells like their wife, mother, grandmother, sister, or the girl next door!

Looking deeper into the stone, what is the most dangerous result of women not receiving the DUI's they clearly earn? It is this; dui's are red flags that alcoholism is a problem. Women, because they donnot receive them, are allowed to progress deeper into the disease of alcoholism before they show up on society's radar screen.

In future posts we will show the same denial among other professionals such as physicians, clergymen, judges and attorneys. When are we all going to stop denying and admit that our women are right now...in this generation...more often alcoholics and addicts than in any other gereration in the past? Put another way, do you really believe that the latest starlet with this problem is an exception?

 If you are a man living in denial about the alcoholism and/or addiction in a woman in your life, please get help. Call Al-Anon, a support group for family members of alcoholics at 1-888-4AL-ANON or visit www.al-anon.alateen.org right now!

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Ken P. and Bob T writing on The Codependent Man.

C:\Documents and Settings\Ken & Jody\My Documents\My Music\Unknown Artist\Unknown Album (10-15-2007 2-06-22 PM)

Men today represent only 15% of Al-Anons, that is, only 15% of the people attending Al-Anon meetings nationwide trying to get help for themselves with their enabling behaviors with various alcoholic people are men! And yet within the current generation of alcohol and drug users (14-22), the ladies are matching their male counterparts in addiction rates. Why this huge discrepancy? 

Here is what Ken P. says;

"When I came into Al-Anon in 1976 I was one of only about four men in all of the city of Houston who attended meetings regularly. Why?

Well, first, admitting I was powerless over anything was not even thinkable for me, given who I was and how I was raised. A real man does not just "accept" a bad situation...he DOES SOMETHING ABOUT IT! Second, when I actually did attend a meeting (after my sponsor...one of the four guys) just hounded me until I did, I found what looked to me at that time like a secretive little meeting room full of women...most of them much older than I was. Besides, all of the "real men" were across the hall in AA laughing boisterously. Hey, I didn't want to BE an Al-Anon anyway, and after that first experience...well, thank God for my sponsor, who just refused to give up on my recovery!

Another major block to my attending meetings was that Al-Anon was definitely the territory of the woman...even more so in 1976 than today. Most men come to their first Al Anon 12 step recovery meeting filled with fear but also with hope that they will find a step wise, logical solution to the problem of addiction. Instead what they find is room full of women who are talking about their feelings. Very few men return after such an encounter. Al Anon was formed in the early days of AA when women decided to get together while their men were at AA meetings and was almost exclusively for women until the mid 1970's."

Here is Bob T on the subject;

 "Men are different from women in many respects beyond their use of language and this is especially true in how they react when faced with someone else's addiction. This entire blog is intended to provide help specifically for men and to fill a gap in recovery literature which is for the most part written by and for women. For example, Scott B., Ken P., and I have all three experienced frustration when attempting to find recovery literature and meetings that focus on how men think, feel and react to the disease of addiction. We have also heard many other men, both new and experienced in the recovery process, express this same frustration.

   Most men do not know what they are feeling and when they do, anger is usually the only feeling that is expressed. In addition, unlike women, they are not willing to share feelings in any setting much less in front of a group of Al-Anon women. 

   Men just think and act differently when confronted with addiction. They are driven to take action immediately rather than to talk about the problem with others as women generally do first. When repeated attempts to fix the problem fail, men become angry and frustrated thinking they are a failure. They also become confused because what has worked in the past to solve problems does not work when dealing with addiction. Men are consummate problem solvers at their workplace...they have to be in order to succeed. After repeated failures to "solve" the "problem" of addiction, guilt sets in and they become even more motivated to "solve the problem." I once heard this cycle described as what happens when a big bear picks up a burning hot garbage can, gets burned, gets madder, and therefore squeezes harder!

   While men react by controlling, raging and taking action, women tend to try to be better wives or mothers, do more for the addict and redouble their efforts to use nurturing to solve the problem. Given these differences in how men and women feel, think and react when confronted with addiction, it follows that men also approach recovery differently than women.

   In addition, almost all the literature available on recovery for people living with addiction is written by women. As a result, men usually do not connect with the principles of the Al Anon 12 step program when they first encounter them at a meeting or in reading the available literature. They first need to be able to relate to a man who is or has been in their situation and learn they are not alone in how they feel and react to the disease of addiction.

   Every Monday night now we attend a Men's Al-Anon meeting in our hometown of about 80,000 people, and we are three of 20-25 men...laughing boisterously! We are in all levels of recovery, we have many different "qualifiers" (wives, sons, mothers, brothers, even bosses), but we are all there participating in our own recovery process. Yes, the flavor of the meeting is distinctively different from most meetings, but we have learned that resentful is resentful, and that it hurts the one doing the resenting regardless of sex...the same with fear, embarrassment, disgust and bankruptcy, none of which are any fun whether you call yourself John or Carol.

   We all three urge you. If you are a man reading this who suspects that you have a person addicted to anything...alcohol, drugs (hallucinogens, opiates, marijuana, or prescription drugs) food, sex, work...or shopping, please get some help. It's out there.

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Yes, it all fits. He is spending time away from both his family and his work during evenings, and when she learns that these meetings are mostly attended by lonely women, there is this gigantic "aha."

If there are no men-only meetings in the area, then a desperate Al-Anon man is forced to attend meetings made up mostly of women.

Somewhere deep inside she knows that neither she nor her husband have been capable of providing either the emotional or physical intimacy that they had before the disease progressed. He must be getting that elsewhere.

I remember one of those early-in-my-recovery Friday night meetings that ended in one of the worst battles we ever had over "my program."

After the meeting there was a tradition that those who didn't want the meeting to end would drive across the freeway to a Denny's for coffee. I had never attended one of these social meetings, but on this particular night I was invited.

I remember standing right outside the door of the meeting room in the parking lot talking to a small group of ladies the moment I was invited to join them. I gladly accepted, much preferring to continue interacting with healthy sober people...women or not, to what I knew by 9:15 would be a wife with four or five hours of cheap wine under her belt.

Unfortunately, the ladies all piled into their cars and left me alone with this newcomer. This lady proceeded to tell me that her alcoholic husband was not only violent, but insanely jealous! I remember imagining him sitting in the darkness across the street looking through a high-powered rife scope sight at the area just between my shoulder blades.

I still had those serious doubts about my masculinity that every male Al-Anon has in the early days of recovery, and I was wondering to myself what James Bond would do in this situation?  I decided that James Bond would calmly invite the newcomer to ride with him to Denny's. So that is exactly what I did.

But the eyes that I felt between my shoulder blades were not those of a jealous husband. They were those of two women. One was my wife, the other our neighbor, Evelyn Meyer, whom Deb had asked for a ride to the hospital. She had told Evelyn the whole sad tale. She suspected that her husband was having an affair with another woman, and that they had been meeting on Friday nights at a nearby hospital.

To make matters worse, I remember the newcomer doing some crying.

When I finally came home that night I walked in the front door to the words "...I SAW YOU! I SAW YOU drive away with that woman, and Evelyn is my witness! This went on, again, deep into the night. I remember thinking myself really clever at one point when I told her "...yes, yes, I am in love with that woman. I'm in love with her and with every other woman in there!

I'm in love with Betty, and Mary, and Gladys, and Pat. I love them all!

This "affair," which almost every alcoholic wife imagines, allows her to shift the shame from her disease to her husband. Tragically, sometimes what she suspects is true, but often, as it was in this situation, her accusations are just another flavor of her bluster. The most tragic outcome happens when she manages to threaten and bully him into abandoning his recovery process. That outcome perpetuates the disease in the family and dooms them all to continue downward in their elevator.

If this sounds familiar, call to find a meeting where you can start your own recovery process. Al-Anon people will help at 1-888-4-Al-ANON or check out www.al-anon.alateen.org

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   Denial is the favorite device for self-protection for everybody in an addicted household...the addict, the codependent spouse, the sick reactive children, even the enabling figures around the family like bosses and neighbors.

This is a special form of insanity. How can there be a problem, if we simply refuse to admit it? We enablers of addicts are just as self-deluding as our counterparts in the addiction dance. We know that "we are special", and that the laws of physics somehow do not apply to us.

   But here is the rub. Reality keeps intruding into our delusion. The cops show up. There are DUI's. We end up in the ER bleeding through our guts from perforated ulcers just like the addict. It isn't always as dramatic as this. More commonly there are many days of work lost. How many cases of "liquid flu" have been reported by anxious spouses to bosses who want to believe them when everybody knows somewhere deep inside that somebody who is not in this conversation got loaded last night!

As the enabler, on the surface you feel confused. "So what's the deal? I always tried to do my best, I was always the good kid, I kept my nose clean, I always kept a job and payed my taxes. Why is my life such a mess?"

 The second step used by the millions living by the 12-step programs so popular throughout the world today says;

"We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity."

   Until insanity is acknowledged, recovery is impossible. At meetings we admit our insane behavior and thinking out loud in a safe place. Other recovering people nod their heads as we describe raging at a person who isn't even mentally present. Other Al-Anons smile as we tell of sleeping fully clothed so that we can be ready to bound out of bed and head for the emergency that we just know is going to happen tonight while our addicted son is "out there" in harm's way.  

   Until you "suit up and show up" at a meeting, you will be doomed to living in your own head. That marble keeps rolling anround and around through the same insane groove until you ask for help. You may someday accept the fact that the only sane approach to living with an addict is to admit that you cannot handle it alone, then go out and ask for help from people who have been there.

 Anything else...anything after "yes but," is insanity!

If you are honestly searching for a better life in the face of these realities, PLEASE...contact Al-Anon and find a meeting. There is probably one within walking distance of your house as you read this that meets every week! 

Al-Anon QWorld Service Office, 1-888-4-AL-ANON, or see their web site at www.al-anon.alateen.org.

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My wife, (we'll call her Katy here) wrote her master's thesis on the subject of alcoholism among the elderly, and she identified this problem, especially for older women. For example, when an older woman "presents" to the physician with shaking hands, he diagnoses her with Parkinsonism. He is correct. Parkinsonism happens when the brain literally uses up all of the pleasure chemical, dopamine. Dopamine is nature's built-in morphine for pain relief, and we all need it occasionally. But decades of replacing dopamine with the other pain reliever (alcohol) can render a brain incapable of making its own pain reliever. From the physician's point of view, Parkinsonism is a lot more respectable as a diagnosis than "...sorry, looks like you are an old drunk."

To be fair to the physicians, the lady alcoholic is an expert at doctor shopping. She will haunt one physician's office after another until she receives an answer to her current medical problem, as long as that answer does not relate to her drinking.

One man I sponsored began laughing hysterically when I asked him how his alcoholic wife dealt with all of the medical problems she was experiencing while maintaining her denial about her alcoholism.

"Are you kidding, he said?" She has this favorite doctor now who tells her she has GAD."

When I asked him what that was, he said it meant "General Anxiety Disorder."

Wow! That is the perfect diagnosis for any alcoholic. Every one of them I ever met had general anxiety!

If you can relate to any of this, you probably need help. PLEASE!!! Call Al-Anon World Service Office to find a meeting near you at 1-888-4-AL-ANON or access www.al-anon.alateen.org

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But the following story illustrates how really important my drinking with her was to my now x-alcoholic wife. 

 "After about eight weeks in the program, working with my sponsor, I was wondering if my own drinking was offering a ready excuse for Deb. I discussed this with Scotty, and he said that this may be true. He remarked "...Why not just quit drinking with her and see if she responds?"

I really believed that she would not even notice. For example, I had started the process of stopping smoking earlier, and she didn't even seem to notice for weeks, so I really didn't know whether my drinking with her would be that important. So that weekend, while I did the yard work, I just left off the cold beer.

We had a fight that weekend, but I wasn't sure that the issue was whether or not I was drinking with her. We fought constantly anyway.

But to my amazement, when I started to leave early on Monday morning for a week of work in another city, I found a gift waiting for me on the kitchen counter. There, with a little note were six sparkling green bottles of Heineken beer, my favorite. The note said something like "a surprise for you!" There was even a little heart at the bottom!

I left the beer there, and when I returned the following Friday night I walked into a stinging hornet's nest. She had left the beer and the note there for five days, had looked at it every day, and had built up a rage that exploded in a well rehearsed verbal blast at me the moment I walked in the front door. We fought all weekend over whether or not I would drink with her. I guess my drinking with her was an issue after all.

Ken P.

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You meet a close friend in The Program later and share intellectual, political, and spiritual insights...or maybe you talk about last nights game. You know his whole life story and he knows yours. There is mutual respect and trust. You have each told the other personal aspects of your being that not one man in one thousand would share with another.

Now you go to a noon Al-Anon meeting at the church, where four women and two men hug you warmly just because you are you. All six tell you with their eyes and one with words that they love you, and they really mean it when they tell you how great it is to see you.

You leave the meeting so relaxed...so fulfilled. So much was said by so many on such a deep level that there is a great deal to ponder during your drive home.

You know that your life belongs to God, to yourself, and to many others. You know that it is going to be a long and interesting one. You have grown spiritually so that you realize that you have many terribly important purposes. You also know that you are capable of completing them, and that you are not alone. You have a supporting family, a Program family, close friends, and a loving God to cheer you throughout the process.

Get the picture? That is how I started my day yesterday. It was a Tuesday.

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   God showed me this principle one Tuesday when I attended two Al-Anon meetings in one day. I slipped out of the Medical Center where I was working and attended a noon meeting at an Episcopal Church. It was a typical meeting for that day (the late 70's)...about 25 women and me.

   I shared during the meeting, and as we all walked across the parking lot to the Luby's cafeteria for lunch a woman made it a point to walk up beside me. She just sort of "lit into me" in an accusatory tone, but what she said was "...You're the only man I ever heard who made any sense. All other men just want one thing, and they are not even capable of thinking about anybody else."

   That night I met a man I was sponsoring, and he began right away unloading his own brand of disgust for the opposite sex. "Women only want two things from a man...a d&$%*@ and a meal ticket!"

   Since that Tuesday I have viewed alcoholism as a disease. It is a disease of all human beings, and neither sex has a monopoly on the misery.

Quote from Winston Churchill; "The battle between the sexes would be over and done-with, there would be a clear-cut winner and a clear-cut loser...if there were not so much fraternization between the enemies!"

If you need help with your "stinkin' thinkin' " of ANY kind, find the nearest Al-Anon support group to your home. You can get details easily by checking out www.al-anonalateen.org or calling 1-888-4AL-ANON.

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