Empathy is defined as 'the power of understanding and imaginatively entering into another person's feelings'. Professional therapists will all try to achieve an empathic understanding of their client's feelings. If they fail to do so, this will soon become clear to the client, and the therapeutic relationship will break down - the therapy will fail. There is a very important distinction to make between empathy and sympathy. Just because you have empathically understood a person's feelings, does not automatically mean that you will demonstrate sympathy for those feelings. Equally it does not mean that you will criticise those feelings. It simply means that you have understood and no more. In fact you should in most cases avoid both sympathising and criticising your drinker. So if this is the case, why should you try to empathise - why bother trying to understand their feelings?
If you do manage to accurately empathise with someone, then this will become clear to that person in due course - they will come to sense that you have an understanding of them. If that person is to trust you to help them, if they are to let their pride down, and reveal their fears and desires, they will have to believe that you are likely to understand these and relate to them on an intuitive level. If they sense that you will not understand them as a person, their guard will remain up - the risks of opening up will seem to outweigh the potential benefits of doing so.
As you care enough about this person to be reading this now, it is likely that at least at some point in the past you have shared an empathic understanding of some kind. If the drinker in your life is to sense that it may be worth the risk of dropping their guard and admitting to you that they might have a problem, then they will have to trust that you still have some kind of an empathic understanding of their feelings. It may well be the case that you have been so bruised and battered (metaphorically or otherwise) over the years that you no longer feel an understanding or connection with this person. You will need to re-establish this if you are to succeed in your aim. As a starting point in re-discovering a sense of empathy, you will need to understand in the first instance that your drinker is suffering from a disease, a disease of the central nervous system, and to view them as such.
Most people happily lead their lives imagining that they are personally in control of all their thoughts and actions, and that when they do something it's because they have thought about it and made a decision to do it. In fact, at many times in life nothing could be further from the truth. Think about this - you can control the rate of your breathing by saying to yourself "I'm going to take a few deep breaths in rapid succession", or "I'm going to hold my breath for one minute". Does that mean that you are totally in control of your breathing? Do you breathe by thinking about it? No - you don't - you probably haven't thought about your breathing all day until you read this. Moreover, if you did breathe by thinking about it what would happen when you go to sleep? - well, none of us would have made it past our first night on this earth. Can you hold your breath for five minutes? I very much doubt it. After a period of minutes an automatic mechanism kicks in whereby you simply have to take a breath whether you like it or not. This is one simple demonstration of the power of the subconscious to overcome your conscious thoughts.
I was told about another example by a colleague of mine who works as a psychiatrist. His work at that time was on a general psychiatric ward looking after many seriously suicidal patients. His patients had all recently made serious attempts on their lives, and some of them were being held in padded rooms due their continuing attempts to kill themselves. One such patient managed to start a small fire in the corner of his room. As the fire caught hold and grew he started to panic and banged on the door of his room to be let out. As the door was opened the rush of air into the room fanned the fire, and smoke started to fill the whole ward.
Not a single patient attempted to stay in the building as the smoke spread. Not a single patient attempted to harm themselves in any way as they left the ward. All patients gathered outside the building to wait for the fire brigade to arrive. Some of them rushed there in panic. No patient took the opportunity to 'escape' from the hospital grounds once outside even though many were held there against their will under the Mental Health Act.
What is the explanation for this? Simply that the rudimentary, ingrained fear of fire caused the subconscious to take over and cause all the patients to save themselves, including the one that started the fire in the first place. For this short period of time the intensely depressive thoughts that led these patients to try to take their lives were overcome by a more primal need to escape and survive. If any of them had been able to think through the situation and control their behaviour by their thoughts, then some of them would have died that day. None did.
Now my point here is that the subconscious can be very powerful, and is quite capable of overcoming rational, conscious thought. So how is this related to alcoholism?
It is these same subconscious, primeval parts of the brain that have become all powerful in people who are addicted to alcohol (and other drugs). In particular there is one area of the brain that acts as a 'reward centre'. When you are healthy, this part of the brain provides you with feelings of satisfaction and pleasure when you do things that are necessary for survival, such as eating, or having sex (necessary for survival of the human race). In the process of addiction, the brain's reward centre literally gets hijacked by the addictive drug (alcohol in this case). Use of alcohol (or any other addictive drug) causes the release of the same chemicals in the same part of the brain, as does survival activity such as sex and eating. After years of heavy drinking, the reward centre no longer responds well to activities such as eating, and sex; it increasingly responds only to drinking alcohol.
The problem experienced by an alcoholic on cessation of drinking is that the brain has by now become convinced that it needs a continued supply of alcohol in order to survive. Messages are sent to consciousness telling the person to find alcohol at all costs. Imagine yourself without water in the desert for several days - how strong would your desire for water be? Is there anything that you would not do in order to get just one glass of pure, cold water? You may be prepared to do things that you would never do in any other situation. You may even be prepared to kill to get that glass of water. This is the power of the survival instinct. This is my final example and for good reason. The craving that the dying person in the desert feels when thinking of water is the same sensation that is experienced by the alcoholic when craving for alcohol. Exactly the same brain mechanisms are involved in both responses. If you were that person in the desert and I placed a glass of water in front of you, could you refuse it?
At this point in time, continued drinking really is largely beyond your drinker's personal, conscious control. As such, they should not be blamed for this. In order to help them to a position whereby they can start to establish a degree of conscious control over this behaviour you will need to modify your own behaviour as described in this booklet. Through the processes of feedback and allowing the drinker to experience the consequences of their actions, as described above, they will hopefully slowly become ready to admit that they may have a problem. They are highly unlikely to admit this to anyone, unless they sense that person has a degree of empathic understanding for them. If you never had this understanding for the person, then it is highly unlikely that you will develop it now. However, as you are driven to help them, it seems likely to me that at least at some point in the past that understanding was there. Try to remember what your drinker used to be like. Understand that they are suffering from a disease. Bear these things in mind when interacting with the person.
Next page .. Stage Two: Empathy And Self-Efficacy - Self-Efficac
Motivate Someone To Seek Help For Alcoholism index
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