Timothy Conley, Ph.D.

The victim's story started on the front page of the City/Region section of the news. It had become numbingly familiar in the past few months. A good Catholic boy from a good Catholic family with every reason in the world to trust the church that he had been baptized in, that his parents and grand-parents had been raised in, a boy from a family with a faith that worked, sustaining them in times of uncertainty, loss and success... He described the nightmare of having his awakening adolescent sexuality seduced into in a lurid ritual of genital manipulation, fondling and oral sex by a trusted priest of that same church. The impact on his psychological, emotional and social development was devastating. Confusion, pain, pleasure, sadness all devolved inward to a secret world of self blaming, guilt, shame - always the shame - fear and numbness.

Of course he drank. There was no way at the time to cope with the trauma through interpersonal communication: it could not be heard - those who would hear it simply could not, and besides, it could not be said - he would have said it but could not; he was silenced by the overwhelming feelings and the specter of the perpetrator's power over seemingly everything. Shame. Pain.

Of course he drank. From his first encounter with alcohol he was free from the emotions he was sure were going to some day kill him. In some regards he considered that they already had, inside. He all too quickly learned that when he was numb to everything alcohol could thaw him out and when he felt sure the world could see his dirty little secret on his face, alcohol would numb that feeling and give him the courage to go about the business of life.

Social science statistics concerning the link between sexual abuse and alcoholism vary somewhat depending on how you define the terms, but no matter how you look at it the abused are at higher risk. I have seen less people with this history in my addiction practice over the years than one might expect largely because I am an adult male authority figure: characteristics I share with most perpetrators and which make it less likely that a victim is going to form a trusting, healing relationship with me.

Those I have had the privilege of working with in many cases echo exactly what the writer of the newspaper account had to say. That they suffered inside for years, that they felt trapped in a secret world of shameful pain and that alcohol helped a lot over the years, even after they knew they had become alcoholics. They were glad they had learned to drink. In coming to me however they were coming to grips with the fact that alcohol would not longer do it, that it was causing a whole separate set of problems and that they needed to find another way of coping with the aftermath of the sexual abuse. First came abstinence from alcohol, and then came the pain: waves of it. Treatment of the stress caused by past sexual/emotional trauma is a specialty in and of itself and I knew when to make a referral to a respected colleague. Addiction counselors are usually best at treating addiction and I have found that when the underlying causes go too far afield it is best to rely on professionals with other expertise to help with the treatment.

Do sexual abuse survivors recover from alcoholism? Absolutely they do. The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous indicates in chapter 5 that "There are those, too, who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest." Unraveling the exceedingly complex web of self deception woven through years of coping on ones own with a horrid past requires a disciplined and sustained effort at truth seeking. Undoing the lies told first by the perpetrator and then to ones self is a long process - but so necessary if one is going to recover from alcohol dependence. Honesty and recovery go hand in hand as people with all sorts of past histories walk out of the dark and into the light of recovery from alcoholism.

The boy in the article - now a man - had been sober for several years. I agree with his feeling that all the recent press is a good thing for many survivors. It gives a broader social context to the experiences suffered and heightened social awareness of the problem may lead to more honest disclosure, more recovery and ultimately less abuse. There is more hope now than ever.

Dr. Timothy Conley holds the degree of Masters in Social Work (MSW) and is Certified as an Addiction Specialist (CAS) with the American Academy of Healthcare Providers in the Addictive Disorders. For the past 15 years, Dr. Conley has been a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker (LICSW) and a practicing social work clinician.
In 2001, Dr. Conley received his Ph.D. (Philosophy Doctorate) from Boston College in social work.