Orenda Center, with Howard Vann

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nineties with your host, Rich McGlinchy. Hello, everyone. Welcome to this edition of Sonoma County in the nineties. It is a very interesting program for me because I will be talking to a gentleman who has been a friend of mine for the past few years and a

man I admire very much for what he does. It is, uh, how even the guest I'm speaking of alcohol services supervisor at Orender Center and he teaches a program or lectures. I'm not sure how you like me to phrase this on program called family and Friends,

and it's a series of six lectures or six programs over six weeks in which they try to help everybody who has alcoholics and family or friends or alcoholics deal with that very difficult subject. It's really nice to have you back. We had so many good comments

the last time you visited with his must mean a year or two ago. But we've heard so many people, including my dear wife, who thought that what you had to say was very important. And I might add, when I mentioned that my wife and I, uh,

we have had friends and family members who had alcohol related problems over the years and sometimes posed problems for us. So we attended how a series of lectures not once, but twice and truthfully, we gained a lot of insight into these things, and we feel that

we're a little bit more compassionate with you were also a little give these things a little more intelligently we than we did before. And for that, we both thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Um, hello. Jump right into the subject because it it is alcoholism. And

and, uh, God knows it's a It's a national problem. How does one know when there is an alcoholic or alcohol problem? Um, rich. If a person asked that question, I would automatically expect there be an alcohol problem simply because what? The question is being asked. So

I I tell people, If alcohol is causing a problem, then there is an alcohol problem. The first thing in the world one should do if they expect to our suspect an alcohol problem. Or there may be a problem within the family to get education, get some

information and education to find out what they're dealing with. Generally speaking, what most members of the family will do is remain silent and then try to collect evidence. How is there more than one type of an alcoholic? Rich? I think a lot of people think the

skit row y know, the Skid Row alcoholic is a typical alcoholic. Not necessarily. So, uh, say that they're primarily three classes, one being the maintenance drinker. This is the individual. The drinks, perhaps daily uh, may get up in the morning, have a drink in the evenings,

have a drink, there's alcohol aboard. This is the individual that sometimes I say I didn't know yet an alcohol problem. I've never seen him drunk when in fact they've never seen him sober. Uh, now that's the person is alcohol aboard what I call pretty much every

day. Then there's another type of alcoholic that may only drink during the weekends, and this is usually what I refer to as the Weekender, or I only drink beer and he starts off drinking beer early Friday afternoon and drink through the weekend. And we'll stop drinking

Sunday evening to get ready for work Monday and may not drink doing a week at all. Ah, he to maybe an alcoholic Dennis, 1/3 type, which I called the binge drinker. This is the individual may not drink for long periods of time, but we'll go out

on a binge, and when they go out, they go out. I mean, they go out. They may wake up in bypass Missouri and not have any idea how they got there and may not drink a game for another few months, six months or a year. So

it's not just that person and drinks 24 hours a day or every day. That's an alcoholic, so it's in anybody, really, that has a problem with alcohol in any of those faces, as you said, or anybody that thinks they have a problem probably has a problem.

Correct. If the question is asked, I would suspect there is a problem right now. Is it possible for an alcoholic to adjust to the disease of alcoholism in a manner that doesn't affect his family? No, I didn't think no and heard people talk about the fact

that they could do that. That's not true. No, no. Uh, there's a Chinese proverb that says The man takes the drink. The drink takes a drink. The drink takes the man. Oh, yeah, and that's one of the things we try to look at in the lecture.

Syriza's. When does that happen? How does it happen? And what does it look like? When it happens, the alcoholic will adjust it a disease of alcoholism, and most often the family will adjust to the alcoholic. Can the family adjust in a healthy manner to the alcoholic

and his drinking her drinking? No, no, uh, significant other may live with the practicing alcoholic for a short period of time without there being adjustment to the alcoholic. But if there's a pro long stay. I question the question that I do not believe that a family

member or family can live with a practicing alcoholic and remain healthy just as the alcoholic adjusted a disease of alcoholism. The family will shift and adjust to the alcoholic, you know, in your lecture series you mentioned co co so frequently. You know, at first I don't

think I really recognize the meaning of that. In the first lecture, we were there. Of course, I could ask pretty quickly after that. But here, the question I have to ask is what is co alcoholism? I think, to put it simply depression. But it quickly the

alcoholic is addicted to alcohol over the a period of time. The adjustment by the significant other, the significant other in that adjustment to the alcoholic becomes a co alcoholic. In other words, she or he is a is addicted to the alcoholic thing. Alcoholic is addicted to

the alcohol, the coast addicted to the alcoholic. So they're partners. All right, what are the stage of adjustment to the disease of alcoholism by an alcoholic? Um, there's stages that an alcoholic will go through in order, just as the Mantex drink, drink takes drink, drink takes

the man there certain stages. Uh, the alcoholic will go through these stages to in adjusting to the disease of alcoholism. And on a parallel and coolest, the family will go to some of the very same stages in the adjustment to the alcoholic. That first stage and

the most difficult one I think we have to deal with in terms of alcoholism is the denial. This is Ah, self, uh, the image of self is different. Then the behavior the person is self denial is lying to oneself. Uh, the way I like to look

at this stage is in God's alcoholism. When the behavior deviates from the value system and that deviation is based on the consumption of alcohol. We now have an alcohol problem. Very often, though, in that stage the person will lie to themselves and say, My behavior's not

changed. I'm fine. The world they have changed. I've not changed. That is the denial. My behavior have changed and that changes based on my consumption of alcohol. Yet I will lie to myself and say no. There have been no changes. A lot of people never get

past that stage correct. And this frustrates the the other, the co or the other members of family or anything like that. I've heard this from others. If they would only admit that they have a problem, I could live with this. I mean that we could maybe

get help. But this is the point. This is so profound and so ingrained that they find it almost impossible. Hard to admit that they have a drinking quote problem. This is part of the disease rich. It's barter disease denial. Alcoholism is has to qualities that I

have not seen in any other disease. Two unique qualities. One is that it requires the individual who have contracted disease to make the diagnoses. In any other disease I've known off, we go to a physician, we go to a psychologist, we go to someone and, uh,

some tests of run or something is done and it comes back positive. Yes, you have this ailment with with alcoholism. I'm the one wants to make the diagnoses. Yeah. Everyone in the world can think I'm an alcoholic until I make the diagnoses. There is no disease.

The second unique quality that alcoholism possesses, that it requires the individual who have contracted disease to take full responsibility for its treatment in our society were again used to something outside of us. Howie. If there are Children in the relationship, will they? I'm sure they will.

What will they be affected? And, if so, how they will be affected when there's alcoholism in the family? Uh, it it. Actually, two factors will determine the severity of the effect that will have on the Children. One factor will be was a child born into that

environment, Or did the alcohol problem develop around the child? If alcoholism developed around a child? I like to know what age if the child is 17 18 years old, then that child has 15 16 other years of experience to draw from. So that's one factor. The

second factor is, to what degree did the alcoholism disturb the family rituals? And I put family rituals into three categories I know with branching off. Yeah, the three categories. Let's let's say it's my drinking. Did my drink and Onley effect the family rituals doing holidays? The

only time I would really get drug get out of hand doing the holidays Christmas, New Year's Thanksgiving for the July second stage would be. Now is my drinking not only affecting family rituals doing holidays, but now doing what I call special family occasions, anniversaries, waiting, Sienna

rules. So now my drink and during the holidays, I'm now drinking during special family occasions. We're going to go to vacation while I'm taking my bottle. You can come if you want. The third stage is my drink and now affecting the family rituals on a daily

level every day. So that factor linked with WAAS, my alcoholism intact and the Children born into that environment. The worst possible condition is the child was born into that environment, and the drinking is disturbed. A family rituals. On a daily level, that child is under 24

hour stress everyday await. The best of the worst is that alcoholism developed around the jail at a very late age, and it only disturbed family rituals on holidays. That's the best of the worst. Yeah, and there's many degrees between those two points. It's the best of

the worst. Yes, it is the best of the worst. It's tragic in that it spoils all the holidays correct for people. Ah, water one of the conditions which determine the effects on the kids, the Children you touched on that you touched on it. Let's let's we

can look at it. Ah, little closer and again let's take the worst of the worst. That child is born into this situation and the drink, and it's affecting the child on a daily level, this is a child that we will see this on the 24 hours

a day stress. This is the child that if they're in school, the school bell rings. Their stomach does a flip flop because they have no idea what to expect. Now they have to go back home. This is a child that will go back home, open the

door and has no idea if Mom's going to be standing there with milk and cookies, saying how much I missed you. The child has no idea if they're gonna find Mom passed out in a bathrobe again in the kitchen, on the floor. That child has no

idea if they're gonna open a door and Mom is standing in a chair with a rope tied around her neck to the chandeliers, and I can't take it any longer. This is a child that will come home from school, invite Children over. And at 4 30

he gets everyone out of the house because he has no idea of what condition that's gonna come home in. I think when we look at that level of alcoholism and its effect on a family, if we look at the dinner hour, that is a telltale sign.

What does that family look like on a dinner hour? Who's Who? Who's head of the family was the stress doing at dinner hour? That tells a lot. All of these things were touched on so far, and the winds will touch on that. You gotta have my

program. Are vital importance to anyone out there who has a family member or a friend who has after held related problem. But, uh, just to say quickly that every one of these situations is individually tragic. Yeah, alright, we're gonna pause right here. Uh, and, uh, let's

station bring the audience a public service message, after which Holly Van and I would turn. We'll talk more about alcoholism and we're about his program of family and friends that are in the center. When I was 17 I found out I had a shady. Knowing I

could die has been scary. The West Wars is that all my friends are still doing what I did. They got me infected on. I don't mean drugs. I learned that anyone could get a Chevy. But when you're young, you think you're invisible. You don't think you

ever get it? Find out how you can prevent HIV. Call 1 803 4 to AIDS. Actually, growing up what they're going through only looks different from what you went through, and there's a lot you can share with them. So before your kids make important decisions like

smoking, talkto them, help them decide not to smoke. Everybody needs help talking to their kids. Sometimes. Call for your free booklet on how parents can talk to their teenagers about smoking and other tough issues. The Family course consortium believes smoking shouldn't be a part of growing

up. Welcome back to this edition of so we can in the nineties. You know, every so often, we've had the pleasure of having our president guest Howie Ban on Alcohol Services supervisor at Orender Center Come visit us. And each time we do, we hear from an

awful lot of you people out there telling us that you're not only enjoyed the program, enjoyed what he had to say, but benefited from it. So by all means stay with us and listen carefully. He's going to give us a lot more pearls of wisdom here,

Howie. What's the difference due to alcohol? Basically, I guess we talk. No drugs something. What's the difference between a disfunction ing family and a functioning family? Ah, that's a term I think that's being widely used. Disfunction ing family. Someone told me they're not dysfunctional family that

functioning very well under the circumstances. True S O K. Ah, primarily, Richard. Difference between ah, healthy, functioning family and what's gonna diss functioning family If I could use an analogy of, uh, what's ah, win wind chime type, um, mobile. If if lets look, look a mobile

in a sense of a healthy family, they're the weights are different levels. Yet the entire system is balance. A win comes along and it moves and it changes. This is this is symbolic of a healthy family. When something comes along, a disturbance comes along, the roles

air able to change. Uh, every person altars to deal with the situation once the situation is mellowed out or levels out that it finds this normal state of balance. Example of that is anyone in a healthy family. It can have power, can have an opinion entitled

to have feelings, can be angry, can be happy. Uh, in a dysfunctional family. That's not true. It's one person, generally speaking, that's authorized to be angry. Example again of the functioning family. Let's take, uh, example. Uh, there's open, open, open house at my son's school. Uh,

I'm the dad. I make the decision. We're gonna drive. I am the dad. I make the decision, how we get there, what roads we take. I'm in power. I'm in charge. I drive to school. I make the decision. Where we parked, we get out of the

school, we get out at the school, we go into this classroom all of a sudden and power changes hands. Now I'm on my son's turf now. He has power. He's one says Dad, Go sit over there. Okay, so so power can change hands in a funk

In a dysfunctional family. That's not so. Let's take the same thing. Look at the mobile and cut one of the weights. We're gonna clip one of the weights and it's off till now Win comes along. It doesn't matter if that outside disturbance comes along. It is

still off till, in other words, in a disfunction ing family. Generally speaking, there's one person that main stained the power regardless of the circumstances, we take the same setting open house in a disfunction ing family. I'm the dad. I drive. I decide where we go, where

we how we get there, where we mark we get to the school. I'm the one that says Matthew, You go sit over there. I maintain power at all times. No one else in that family can have any power. Well, our most of the Children we talked

about dysfunctional homes of dysfunctional families. Are they mostly whether is alcohol in whole ism involved? Uh, in our in our culture, the majority of disfunction ing families are not based on alcohol. No, with now we are, I think, very familiar of alcohol, drugs, incest, domestic violence

as being real severe factors and a dysfunctional family. But it is estimated that something of 85 to 90% of American families air disfunction ing to some degree when I have experienced the majority of people coming from dysfunctional families, it's not necessarily based on alcoholism as based

on emotional neglect. And that is that the Children may have gotten all of the things that they all the toys that they wanted. But yet and what I've seen in Siris that I, uh, offer it Theoren dissenter are people coming in and identify with some of

the symptoms of a disfunction ing family? And yet they said there was not alcoholism in my family. But what they're finding out is that there may have been emotional neglecting the family. What keeps the dysfunction intact is law that you hit it right on the head

rich. There are actually three laws that that the glue that holds the this disorder intact and the first law of a disfunction ing family would be, I think, the first thing that comes to person's mind when I say What do you think is the very first

thing that comes to mind? Very first Lord of comes to mind when there is incest. Silence. Let's not talk about it. We don't talk about it That's the first law. Let's not talk about it. I refer to the DYS, functioning as an elephant in the living

room and so very nonverbally. We agree not to talk about the elephant. The second law that keeps the dysfunction intact is don't trust. We're unable to trust anyone in that family system. And generally speaking, we will not trust anyone outside of that family system. If we

look at those two laws, the inability to communicate an inability to treasure external environment, it's produced the isolation we thereby brings about the third Law. And that is, the individual is not allowed to feel the pain of their isolation. What must a child do to survive

in an alcoholic family? That that's the key survived, strictly survived. Generally speaking, when we look at adult Children of alcoholics or no Children from dysfunctional families, the only thing they may be proud of is the fact that they did survive. I look a a C a

adult Children of alcoholics, and, uh, I say, Let's let's look at those three words and let's pause and adult child of an alcoholic, Does this mean that this is an adult who is a child. It's an adult, but a child don't body but a child of

an alcoholic Is this an adult who is the child of an alcoholic? Where we put the polls? Where, uh, we changed the meaning? What happened in that family? This is an adult that did not have a childhood as a result of alcoholism, and as a result

of that, then the child strictly had to survive. Uh, this is having to do with aid a ch whether if the child grows up in an alcoholic family, will it affect the child is an adult after this is all over forever? Forever. Oh, great. One of

the things that will happen with both most A c A s or no Children of alcoholics or no Children disfunction ing families is the belief that once I leave, I'll be OK. Once I get out of Looney Tunes, everything's gonna be fine. Ah, and they get

out of Looney Tunes. They become an adult there on their own, and there's that relief. But what in fact happens it's, ah, it as effective as adult. Usually it will show up clearly in their late twenties or thirties is when difficulty is really going to start

because everything that child learned in order to survive the dysfunction as a child, let's call that what that child learned or how that child learned how to survive. We will call that medicine that the child took in order to save their life. Now, as an adult

in the late twenties and thirties, the very same medicine they took to save their life is a child will now turn on him and start killing. So although the child grows up into adulthood, get away from the home, away from the family may think. OK, now

I'm safe now. I'm OK. It's not true. Generally speaking, the child's going to see major emotional problems arising in their late twenties and thirties, and that will manifest itself in the inability to have an intimate relationship. You know, we had a friend of mine who is

a a c a, the adult child of an alcoholic who was a job and and also a counselor on a program few months back, and we got a lot of response from that, too, because from people out there that recognized to realize the fact that they,

too, were a ch. So I I'm glad you touched on the subject. It's so very, very important. We've got a short while left here to listen, and I want to do two or three things. Um, one of them don't want you to talk a little bit

about family and friends, that you have a situation here you want to touch on news six. I know it's not 12 6 tips. So sure we have an ongoing Siri's Rich with Family and Friends is a series of six lectures. Ah, and is one per week

Wednesday evenings from 6 to 7 30 at the Orinda Center. The first lecture is alcoholism. The disease concept. The second lecture is a family's adjustment to disease. The third lecture is the laws of the alcoholic family. The fourth lectures are the rules that Children will take

on in order to survive the alcoholic family, the fifth electorate, what those Children looked like as adults that entitle adult Children of alcoholics and the six and Final Lecture is treatment and spirituality. What is treatment like? And how does that fit in with spirituality? And it's

a really re occurring program over and over. Two things, one of them is the phone number that they would call Teoh. Find out more about this. The Orender Centre telephone number is 5 to 84141 And we have many other free educational informational classes other than family

and friends given on other evenings. All right, now, another thing you know, you're a studio audience is a young fellow that you're acquainted with. What's his name? I think of thing happens to me. Matthew Logan van, a young man that I'm very proud of. And I

love dearly. And his sister and his mother wasn't able to be here way Thought we don't really have you up here like you have here. This is how his son gentlemen, and I know how you wanted one of the thing that we get a moment to

the left. Um co dependence are very, very afraid. The ones you discussed is that because they call it will die or something. How 11 of the things that's happening. This is one of the topics I try to cover in the lecture is the alcoholic is preoccupied

with trying to control his Alkalaj alcoholism. The co alcoholic is preoccupied with trying to control the alcoholic. The co alcoholic becomes addicted to you, alcoholic. So the greatest fear of a coat is being left. Howie is always run out of time too soon. So you're under

schedule for about six months back. I would love to. I would love to. Matthew. Nice to have you with us. You want to come back next time? Ladies and gentlemen, we've been talking to Howie Van, who is an alcohol services supervisor for under center. Gentlemen, conducts

the program called Family and Friends. And it's very, very worthwhile of you. Any problems in your family or with your friends who are or have related alcohol related problems? By all means, contact. 5 to 84141 Go through those courses that worthwhile. My name's rich McGinty. The

programs Sonoma County in the nineties be back with you next week when another member of the county government, family or related agency until then the night good luck and good health. They each and every one of you