Treating Intimacy Dysfunctions in Dyadic Relationships Among Chemically Dependent and Codependent Clients

Intimacy means many things to different people, but there is little to be gained by being fussy, legalistic or too particular in definition. Intimacy embraces much and implies more. This chapter intimate that relationship which, with a satisfactory degree of mutuality. Intimate relationships are not absolutely necessary for survival. They are necessary for reasonably good mental health and for reasonably good social health. Intimacy always challenges us, love makes demands, and friendship obliges. Alcohol excuses us from obligation. Drunk we need not accommodate another’s needs, consider another’s longings. Alcohol is thus multiply attractive and a false friend. It is like pneumonia, another false friend of the aging population. It offers a totally unsatisfactory solution which at the same time makes all other solutions impossible. The lack of intimacy may be only one of the many causal and contributing factors in alcoholism in the aging population. The treatment of alcoholism at any age requires attention to each of its many causes.