As a carpenter he finished work at about 4pm. Until he was 30 he had been a heavy drinker but only at social functions. Then he started going to the pub after work . By the time he was 31 years old, he was drinking everyday after work including Saturday, then he started bringing cans home after the pub and by the time he was 35 he was drinking the equivalent of 16 schooners (1 schooner = 375ml) a day. As his drinking increased his behaviour at home became more and more unpleasant.

When he came home for dinner, often late, he would be verbally aggressive or insist on telling dirty jokes in front of the children, or just collapse in front of the TV and go to sleep. Whenever Jill mentioned his drinking he became verbally aggressive and she became intimidated. The children learned to keep out of his way and Tom became very withdrawn and Margaret began to behave rebelliously. 

Jill became more and more stressed. His drinking took a large portion of his wages, and so the family could not afford to buy their own house. The worse things got, the more Arthur clung to his image of being a father, husband and breadwinner. On the rare occasions when he did spend time with his children he was convinced that he had something special to offer them. Until Jill finally got some help for herself , she had endured nights when Arthur was very insistent on having sex, and she had to hold down her nausea as she was overwhelmed with the smell of stale alcohol. 

When Jill finally told Arthur's parents and brother about the situation, they were very supportive of her, and Arthur ended up reluctantly in detox. The first thing he did as he unpacked was to put a photo of his wife and children on the bedside table to announce to all and sundry what a caring family man he was. Arthur experienced himself as that family man. Through the addictive process he locked into the self image, and combined with a good deal of self-deceit he was able to ignore his aggressive, foolish, destructive and irresponsible behaviour toward his family. In therapy he was very resistant to looking at what he was actually like, and was quite resentful that Jill had spoken to his parents. It was only when he directly connected with his 'wonderful family man' self that he started to change.