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When one partner has a drinking problem it inevitably impacts their partner, and working together to overcome the problem, can often be the best chance for success. In Overcoming Alcohol Problems: Workbook For Couples Barbara S. McCrady and Elizabeth E. Epstein provide a 12 week program that involves a couple to participate in their professional treatment. Below is an excerpt that shows a common pitfall of supportive partners.

Partners often try to protect the drinker from the consequences of drinking.

The result is that the drinker does not experience negative consequences that would help motivate him or her to quite.  The protection helps maintain drinking.  For example, you may shield the drinker from the embarrassment of having the children see him or her in a drunken condition.  You may call your partner’s boss and make excuses for absences.  You may lie to family and friends to hide the drinking problems.

One common type of protection is to give comfort to the drinker who is suffering from the effects of a drinking episode.  Many partners will care for the “sick” person.  Instead of suffering the full consequences of the drinking, the drinker gets special attention.

Partners protect the drinker for many reasons.  Out of love, they do not want the drinker to suffer.  They also do not want the drinking to affect other family members, particularly children.  In many situations, the partner wishes to protect the drinker’s job because it is an important source of income for the family.

The partner who protects the problem drinker is denying the drinker a full and true knowledge of his or her own problem.  When you protect the drinker, you are not giving these powerful negative consequences a chance to work.  The protection unintentionally helps keep the drinking going.

You should agree together as a couple not to protect the drinker.  If your partner has a future slip, you should refuse to do any special favors for him or her when he or she has been drinking.  This means no hiding, making excuses, or caring for the sickly drinker.  It was your partner’s responsibility for drinking and it is also your partner’s responsibility to cope with the consequences.

Make an agreement about what you will do if the drinker has a slip.  The agreement should say that your partner is responsible for the consequences if he or she drinks.  You should not try to make the consequences any easier.

Plan and practice for the possibility of a slip.  Thin of possible situations that may occur between you.  Talk about how you will act.

You should imagine how you will handle the situation.  Think of a likely situation.  Go over in your imagination all the things that would happen.  Imagine how you will firmly tell your partner that you will not make things easier.  Rehearsing will make it easier to act at the right time.

Not protecting the drinker shows you care by getting your partner to face his or her drinking and the problems that result.  Protecting your partner may lead to continued trouble.

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Ammon Shea recently spent a year of his life reading the OED from start to finish. Over the next few months he will be posting weekly blogs about the insights, gems, and thoughts on language that came from this experience. His book, Reading the OED, will be published by Perigee in July. In the post below Ammon, an expert dictionary reader, ponders Mayor Bloomberg’s dislike of the word “maintain”.

Michael Bloomberg does not like to hear the word ‘Maintain’

Earlier today I read a short article in the New York Times about the unfortunate reaction that the mayor of New York City had when a reporter asked a question that began with the four words “Mayor, you maintain that…”

The offending reporter did not get much further in his query, as Michael Bloomberg (the offended mayor) cut him off. The Times quotes the mayor as saying “’Maintain’ is a word I don’t think is appropriate, sir. Next time you have a question, you want to insinuate that I lie, just talk to the press secretary.”

As a native New Yorker, I was delighted when I read this; Mr. Bloomberg does high dudgeon quite well, and it’s always a pleasure to see him vent some spleen at a press conference. Also, it was mystifying to me why he took such umbrage as the use of this word, and now I could occupy the rest of my evening trying to figure out if there are current pejorative meanings of ‘maintain’ of which I am unaware, or if Bloomberg is touched in the head.

Slightly later in the exchange between mayor and reporter, Bloomberg is quoted thusly: “’Maintain’ is a word that has an implication-“, but as he does not finish this sentence it is not clear what this implication is. So I began trolling through dictionaries, to see if I could discover just what made him so testy.

None of the dictionaries that I looked in had any current meanings for ‘maintain’ that seemed to be negative, nor did any describe it as having an implication of any kind. The most recent use of ‘maintain’ used in a negative fashion that I saw was in the OED, sense 1b. (‘With infinitive: to assist, encourage, incite (a person) to do something, esp. something evil; to support or uphold (a person) in doing it’), and the most recent citation that is listed for this is from 1626, so I do not think that this is what twisted the mayor’s knickers.

Sometimes when a word or a meaning is missing from the dictionary it is due to the fact that its usage is too recent to have been included. But I do not think that is the case with ‘maintain’, especially as this particular entry was revised in March of 2008, which in lexicography is about as fresh as it gets.

I suppose that there is always the chance that the reporter enunciated the word in a way that gave it added meaning; perhaps on the second syllable there was that slight elongation and raised tone that can add a layer of implication to the most innocent of words.

Maybe there is a negative connotation to the word ‘maintain’; one of which I am unaware, and the dictionaries do not record. Maybe it’s too slight a shade of innuendo for them to record as a definition.

Or it could also simply be that Mayor Bloomberg does not like to hear the word ‘maintain’, and chose to interrupt this reporter as a way of expressing his displeasure. I think that’s perfectly acceptable – I don’t like it when I hear people use the word ‘defenestrate’. And if I were the mayor of New York I would immediately cut off any reporter that I heard using that word.

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Taking a tip from janni who recently created azkidwriters for Arizona children's authors as well as remembering that kidlit_kim did the same thing with kidlit_central I created a community for California authors & illustrators at cakidlit
I'm not trying to take folks away from their regular blogging. California is a big state (we have 3 SCBWI regions) filled with children's authors and illustrators blogging all over the kidlitosphere. I wanted to give us a gathering place that was not affiiliated with any orgnaization. Published and unpublished writers are both welcome. Authors, illustrators, local booksellers, reviewers, anyone with an interest in California authors of chidlren's literature. So check out cakidlit and let us know who you are and what you're up to lately. Ack - edited to fix a misdirected link. My apologies if I sent some of you off on a wild goose chase. Unless of course you caught the goose and it was golden. Then cheers!