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Post Info TOPIC: 34 yr old A daughter keeps us on an emotional roller coaster and we want to get off


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34 yr old A daughter keeps us on an emotional roller coaster and we want to get off


Our unemployed, divorced, alcoholic, past (we think) cocaine abusing, presently prescription drug abusing daughter lives a hundred miles away.  She has a roomate who is A and a drug addict.  A married older man supports her financially.

To give you an idea of the emotional roller coaster we have been through for the past 15-20 years:  She started sneaking out of our home as a teen, lying about1 where she was staying at night, etc., but graduated from high school and started college.  She seemed unable to manage money, and was repeatedly getting parking tickets, being towed, etc, but was working part time as a waittress and always paid her bills and fines.  

She left home in her sophomore year of college to move in with an older guy.  Then she dropped out of college at age 20, after having surgery to enhance her physicall attributes,  and moved to a big city with this drug addicted (we later learned) boyfriend to become a stripper (we learned this later too).  She probably had started using cocaine at this point.

After a violent incident with him where police were involved, she got her own place and we thought was working in a restaurant (but she was really abusing drugs and working as a stripper still).  

A few years later, she married a very emotionally abusive, also physically abusive, drug addicted older man (we learned this recently, too).  On the positive side, at this point she wanted to go back to college so we paid for her college (she attended part time for several years and we believe got her degree-though she never invited us to graduation so we don't know if she really graduated-we learned later that she sometimes dropped out for a semester and got her tuition refunded and kept the money).  

While in college she continued to work (supposedly waittressing) and her husband and she had a violent breakup due to her infidelity and we helped her get her own place and paid her rent until she (supposedly) graduated from college.  At graduation time, we gave her money for "interviewing" clothes.. ...provided her with a 3 yr old car (which she totaled about a year later)....there never was any interviewing...she never got a "real job" after finishing college, in fact hasn't worked for at least 2 years.  We had gradually stopped paying her bills ( in college, we gave her a credit card for "emergencies"....everything was an emergency!).  Her life began deteriorating, but the slip was so gradual it's hard to know when it became completely jnsupportable for us.

Periodically she would beg us to help her move when one roomate situation after another became impossible for her to deal with (we paid for moving vans, we supplied the labor...one time she was still so drunk from the night before she didnt assist at all with the move.  She trashes the places she lives and they look lime flophouses due to her incredible slovenliness).  She ruined her credit, so no longer can get her own place, so moves in with others who need a roomate.

Her life became more chaotic.  The drugs and alcohol added to her depression and anxiety.  A few years ago, she started not keeping agreements to come home for holidays or would come home smelling of alcohol or looking pretty rough and would sleep here til she could drive back home.  We didn't see her as often but started communicating by text which was better because hearing her slurring voice late at night, listening to her rambling, incoherancies was tearing me up.  

Two years ago this coming January I found this site and it has given me so many tools to help get myself to a calmer mental state.  I started turning my phones to silent at 7 pm, so I could begin to sleep at night.  A year ago, my husband (for the first time) got a cell phone, and she realized his phone isn't on silent so she will try to reach me "after hours" that way.

Just to interject here, about a year or two ago, I began talking about her need for AA or recovery, but she denies any problem.  I even offered to pay for a place that a friend's daughter had used with excellent results (it was surprisingly inexpensive......she rebuffed this offer stating if she ever went to a rehab place, she would only go to one that cost 15-20,000 a month).  Btw, the men she hangs out with wre extremely well to do and for them to drop a $1,000 a night at a bar is no big deal.  Her present "boyfriend" gives her/buys her things worth thousands each month and pays all her bills.

Last night, my husband's phone rang at 7 30 and he said it was her and did I want to take a call.   We were watching a program, and I didn't, but as she had been sober the last time I talked with her 2 days ago, and as we had been discussing plans for family Thanksgiving, I decided to take what I hoped would be a quick call.

In retrospect I realize I shouldn't have picked up, because she was incoherant: first crying, trying to tell me something about her passed out drunk roomate's dog (I think) making a mess of the place, and he refused to do anything about it, etc (she has "problems" getting along with almost everyone, has moved again and again due to poor roomate selection), but I couldn't understand her rambling story and told her so (she also was extremely hoarse, due she said to having been in a smoky bar all day watching games on TV with friends).  She couldn't seem to hear me, and I could barely get a word in  edgewise, then I put her on speakerphone thinking I could understand her better if the volume was up.  Her dad could overhear her, and he said that he was sick of being subjected to this, and took the phone and told her to quit calling us after she had been drinking and using drugs, and he was sick of the emotional turmoil.  

I took the phone and told her to call me tomorrow at noon when she was calm and sober as I couldn't understand her. She told me she wasn't going to come home for Thanksgiving after all (her way of pnishing me as she knows family get togethrs mean a lot to me) and I said that as she hadnt been home the last 2, I wasn't surprised, and hung up.  She then proceeded to call and text both our phones, leaving long voice mails and texts about how horrible and mentally ill we were, related an incident from her childhood where we were not there for her emotionally, how she was never speaking to her father again, and that she had blocked our numbers forever so we cannot contact her. She told me she wouldn't be calling me at noon.   But that she wanted us to write her by mail and I was to document her not having been home for Thanksgiving and her father was to document her drugging and drinking, and she was giving us 10 days to send these letters (?).  

Then later last night she left me another voice mail saying she had decided to unblock MY phone number only because she was so angry that I had mistakenly said she hadn't been home for Thanksgiving, etc, that she wanted to talk to me about that and that she WILL be calling me at noon after all.

To tell the truth, I actually felt a sense of relief that she was cutting herself off from us because her chaotic life/ever changing emotional state (usually angry) has drained both her father and myself.  Btw, just as I am finishing writing this, the phone has rung.....she is calling....I didn't answer.  She also is texting me about padt woes where I did stupid things, didn't pay for an attorney when she divorced her husband so she could have gotten a settlement from him, etc.

Please give me some AlAnon guidance.  

 

 



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~*Service Worker*~

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She is grown. You don't have to have any of this involvement with her if you don't want. It is okay to practice detachment in a more firm manner. It doesn't mean you are a bad or unloving parent. It's just boundaries.

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~*Service Worker*~

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Ignutah, I am so very sorry that you are experiencing this painful connection with your child. It is important to know that you are powerless over her and cannot control, cure her and did not cause this disease.
Taking care of yourself, by not engaging, detaching and praying for her as you refuse to abandon your serenity is important.
I would increase alanon meetings and keep coming back here as well.

Positive thoughts on the way

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Betty

THE HIGHEST FORM OF WISDOM IS KINDNESS

Talmud


~*Service Worker*~

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hotrod wrote:

Ignutah, I am so very sorry that you are experiencing this painful connection with your child. It is important to know that you are powerless over her and cannot control, cure her and did not cause this disease.
Taking care of yourself, by not engaging, detaching and praying for her as you refuse to abandon your serenity is important.
I would increase alanon meetings and keep coming back here as well.

Positive thoughts on the way


 I agree with hotrod, I am sorry, too, this is happening to you...time for letting her to her own devices...she will continue to use and abuse you until you put a stop to it....shes an active addict...you can't do anything about that but take care of you.....i would find some alanon meetings and go to one every day until you get practiced in detachment and taking are of you...tough love is the only hope you have gaining your peace and letting her learn the hard lessons of not being in recovery.....trying to "deal" with an active drinker/user is a lesson in futility.....you can love her and you can also take your hands off her life's lessons....it does not mean you don't love her..quite the opposite...it means you love her so much you are willing to let her go to the care of her maker and when she is forced into recovery b/c nobody is enabling her anymore MAYBE she can find her footing...

I empathize with the parents of a drinker or user....can't imagine the pain...but you and only you can end the rollar coaster she is causing......please give alanon a chance to help you ....don't engage her...don't help her with stuff that is her responsibility.....detach from her behaviour......she can and wll get help from other sources...addicts are real resourceful in getting their needs met.........its time to stop letting her run your life.....she is adult........i know other parents of addicted childen will weigh in on your post.....sendng you support....



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~*Service Worker*~

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I suggest attending alanon, learn aboht detaching with love. This is a power struggle and shes behaving like a spoiled brat acting out for attention. Until you stop giving her attention when she gets this way she will continue. Tell her straight, every time she calls in this state then you will hang up, then do it, every single time. Your giving her attention by listening to her nonsense and actually trying to talk to her in this state. She has no right to treat you this way, you and your husband have the right to have peace and as for her bringing up past events when you didnt behave how she wanted you to, this is classic abuse and power stealing nonsense. Tell her your only human and did the best you could if she cant accept that then its her problem. Shes using guilt to get what she wants like a stroppy teenager uses guilt.
I learned that I was hurting my son by entering into his strange little stunted menatlity. I entered into it for years through fear. Now I have detached, he is getting on with his life now and actually has a private life where he doesnt share his mistakes anymore or his drama. We have a much heakthier relationship. Unless you fully let her go this will get worse and worse.
Its not alanon but theres a book called, dont let you kids kill you, its very alanonish and helped me.

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I read, Don't let your kids kill you, right about the time when I first came to this site, when I truly felt I had lost control of my life due to my enabling and trying to "change" my As. I am working so hard on detaching (just got off the phone with A daughter, who said she was "out too late" last night, had plans with friends this morning and tonight so she can't make Thanksgiving dinner today. I was able to just say "ok" and leave it at that.

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~*Service Worker*~

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Happy Thanksgiving, I. Your daughter is doing what she wants to do today and you get to do that as well. I'm glad you chose to let go and celebrate the day with those who are choosing to be there with you. It may very well be a much more pleasant and serene holiday celebration for all of you than it might have been with her there?

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Igntuh I certainly can relate to your struggles, many of us can. I still have trouble accepting the fact that I may never be able to help my son salvage his life, and I have sacrificed the last 5 years of my life trying.

The child you raised is gone, that is the sad reality of long term addiction, it changes a persons chemistry and gets to a point where the person you knew and loved is no more. As a parent we keep hoping and praying for that child to return, but it just doesn't happen, even if the persons gets clean it's never the same.

It sounds like your daughter has been pushing you away for years, just let it happen. Stop reaching out to her, stop any enabling behavior, stop letting her use emotional blackmail to make you feel guilty. She is a grown woman choosing her path, you can't stop her and frankly probably can't help her. Let her drift out of your life, if she ever circles back the relationship has to be on your terms, not based on the highs and lows of addiction.

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YOU GOT IT IGNUTAH, JUST SAY "OK"!!, " or as they say just say "NO". Reread Cooper's response it is excellent....

Keep it up, "One day at a time"

lsc



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~*Service Worker*~

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Cooper that was a good one for me to hear. The thought of letting my son drift out of my life seems impossible, but it is a series of highs and lows and I crave balance at times. For me its a state of mind, his lows dont have to be my lows, they beling to him, not me and thats where detachment comes in. I do feel like pulling away further and my motives are about me, I dont want to be on the merrygoround. I know im powerless over him but I dont need to live with the consequences of his actions.

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~*Service Worker*~

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hotrod wrote:

Ignutah, I am so very sorry that you are experiencing this painful connection with your child. It is important to know that you are powerless over her and cannot control, cure her and did not cause this disease.
Taking care of yourself, by not engaging, detaching and praying for her as you refuse to abandon your serenity is important.
I would increase alanon meetings and keep coming back here as well.

Positive thoughts on the way


 ((((((((((((Ignutah))))))))))))))  I so echo what Betty and Pinkchip say.....I, too, am so so sorry for your pain, but the title of your post says  "we want to get off"  You can get off the rollar coaster by detaching......tell her you love her, care for her, will pray for her, but she must manage her own affairs.....its one thing to give one who is helping themselves a boost, but to "tote anothers life responsibilities" is quite another.....addicts are resourceful...they will find a way to get their needs met....the ones who make it into recovery are the ones whose spouses or parents, leave them to their own consequences and they fall hard enough, they will get help....MAYBE

I would get into as many meetings as there are days until you can get really grooved in the program and then steady meetings still, with the 12 steps work w/a sponsor or recovery mate and the literature and slogans.....alanon will help you, I promise if you hang on to alanon , it will help you live your life, be at peace, and let daughter learn her own lessons.....when we enable our sick/addicted loved ones, we really do them a dis-service....we rob them of the lessons they need to learn in life to grow spiritually.....rescuing them just does not work...we prevent them from seeing how bad their problems are, so they don't think they need recovery......

I know this is a re-post of what i said above, but with holidays coming, I was thinking of all of us and our not in recovery loved ones and just everything in general and it gets tough during the holidays......folks can really tug at your heart and manipulate during these holiday times, but we must stand strong.....you can do it....

Bless your heart....I am sending you hugs of support...



-- Edited by neshema2 on Thursday 27th of November 2014 02:19:15 PM

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