Ok,  you finally stopped drinking or drugging... maybe gone to treatment... hopefully have become active in a recovery program. But you and your spouse just can't seem to move beyond the hurt.

Or perhaps you have finally seen the day you had begun to think would never happen. Your spouse has finally done some of those things mentioned above... Most importantly they aren't using anymore, but why are things between you still filled with all that pain?

The best outcomes in the recovery process are often seen in families who recognize that all of it's members are in recovery, not just the addict. What this means is that everyone becomes committed to the process of identifying and attempting to change their own patterns of  self-defeating behaviors that have developed in response to the addiction. 

One of the most common problems in alcoholic homes is the tendency to avoid conflict at any cost. This is often a result of the effect of drunken rages

Sometimes this is explained as:

• "The Elephant Game"  

There is an elephant sleeping in the living room, but every one avoids it because it might be a whole lot of work to deal with it, if it wakes up.  Usually one person assumes the job of cleaning up after it, because it occasionally does wake up and makes a pretty big mess, but this is once again much easier than everyone having to figuring out what to do with it all the time. The elephant continues to grow, creating bigger and bigger messes and requiring more elaborate ways to avoid it. 

Please understand; when the elephant awakes it is very scary so this coping style makes a lot of sense. Unfortunately, in the long run this style of conflict management significantly undermines a marriage.

Many alcoholics and their partners have grown up in alcoholic homes and this style of conflict management is the only one they have ever known.  Others come upon it through trial and error. Either way once established it requires conscious effort on everyone's part to find new more effective ways of relating.

The  COUPLES IN RECOVERY WORKSHOP  is an adaptation of the conflict management and other relational skills taught in the Prevention and Recovery Program (PREP) for couples who are reestablishing themselves following the "stampeding elephant"  of Chemical Dependency. 

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Copyright © 2000 James P. Cooney, LCSW
Last modified: November 12, 2003