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Post Info TOPIC: My first post and need serious advice


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My first post and need serious advice


I'm new to this message board and I'm in search of a nearby meeting for my wife and I to go to.  I recognize that we are powerless over this and we need help.

 

Our daughter is a recovering drug user and alcoholic.  She is about 75 days into sobriety.   She is on her first step.   She is a young adult, age 19 and living at home.  She's not currently in school although she took a couple of courses at the local college since high school.  I wish I could say life is better now that she is sober.  But I think it might even be a little worse.  I'm doing my best to have patience and understanding but she is playing a victim even harder.  Before, when she was drinking and doing drugs, she slept all day and wasn't an active partipant in the house because of the drugs and alcohol.  She was disruptive, unwilling to help out around the house and wasn't accepting of her actions.  At that time, she had a job and could pay her bills.  Since she started down to the road of recovery, she quit her job (which we were supportive of since it was in a restaurant that served alcohol, as long as she was willing to find another job because she has bills she has to pay for).  She promised to find one but has done very little to find a new job - she's still unemployed .  She says she needs to not work while going through this first stage.  But the problem is she still wants to sleep all day, spend lots of money hanging out with friends, stay out until 3 am every night, she's disruptive, unwilling to help out around the house, lies, plays victim, unaccepting and unapologetic of her distructive behavior, etc....she blew off doing some things around the house yesterday and promised my wife that she would do it today if I backed off of her.   She's been blowing off things several times a week and I finally said enough is enough.  But I backed off because she promised to do it today.  But she blew the things off again today and was once again unapologetic.  So, tonight, I turned her phone off (via parental controls) with the exception of texting me and her mom until she returned home to do what she promised to do.  She exploded.  She threatened her mom. her mom was breaking down in tears because she couldn't deal with it.  She spit and cursed and was down right mean.  She threatened to leave and never talk to us again if we didnt turn her phone back on.   I said it would be turned back on once she fulfilled her promise.  her mom is so afraid that we are going to lose her but I feel like we already lost the daughter that we knew to this disease and it's tearing us apart.  I just don't think giving in to this is the solution either.  I told my wife we needed to go to Alanon.  I have no idea if I'm doing the right thing or if wife's approach to allow our daughter to be a victim of this disease is the right approach (when I say that, I don't believe my wife wants her to be a victim, she just wants to do anything to make her happy even if that means giving in to her demands).  Thoughts?  Advice?  Should we allow her to sleep all day, not help out around the house, and stay out until 3 AM every night?  She does go to meetings every night - at least she says she does and I have to believe that   But I feel she has gone from one addiction to another   Certainly sobriety is not a bad addiction   But being a completely mean disruptive person in our home isn't a real solution either.   I've looked up house rules in half way homes for alcoholics and rug abusers, and the level of partipation and rules they are supposed to live there are way more strict than what I'm asking for.   I just don't know if I'm doing the right thing with a tough love approach.

 



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Senior Member

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Please do go to al anon. You are on the right track. Tough love /drawing boundaries helps you and your daughter. People at al anon understand--you will find tremendous relief. Hugs to you, I know how hard this is.

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Senior Member

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Man, welcome and I'm so sorry. I've been down the same road but I can't say with any certainty what the right course of action is, one, because I don't have the training or expertise other than my experience to draw from, and two, because it was my step daughter and her mother is an alcoholic so when it came down to it I could always be over-ridden. Ultimately, even though I had raised her since the age of 6, I had no say, and her addicted mother always made decisions based on an addict's view, not a healthy person's.

So take what I'm going to say for what it's worth and continue to search for more advice and answers from other people.

1. Get help. Al-Anon, whatever you can. Get yourself help because you have been led down a hole where you are going to constantly be trying to cure insanity by means of reason. It will drive you crazy and make you sick and al-anon is all about helping people who are dealing with that sickness.

2. I believe there is not tough-love and un-tough-love, there is only love. The rest is the logistics of how best to help a person in crisis. You will love her no matter what but she will try to convince you otherwise as a tool to manipulate you into feeding her addiction. Separate the two in your mind. This is for your own sanity.

3. Get her help. She has 75 days, and that is great. It's also just a baby step in the journey the three of you are taking. Get the most, best professional help and guidance you can get for her.

4. Be a team. Your wife and you MUST bond together like glue and provide a unified front. If your daughter can, she will divide and conquer. Never discuss consequences in front of her. One of you should NEVER lay down an edict without the other consenting. Unless you and your wife have already discussed an action, wait to discuss it first, even if it's as short as "She did this, I want to do that. You on board? Yes. Ok done." Make sure your daughter knows that the 2 of you cannot be divided, even if you are struggling between yourselves, do not do it in her presence. One of you should NEVER UNDO anything (like turn the phone back on) unless you are in agreement. No agreement - no action.

5. Get the paperwork for an eviction notice ready to go. If she is violent, you can only legally get her out of your house 3 ways. Eviction - 30 days, Jail if attacked, or TDO it's called here - Temporary Detainment Order, sometimes referred to as Psychiatric Hold. Unfortunately jail is the easiest of the three. I'm not saying anything like "just put her in jail, man", I'm saying that if you do not consider or educate yourself on the other two, then in a crisis, jail is all that's left.

6. Practice rendering yourself emotionless when imposing limits, actions and consequences. Be cool. Fonzy cool. There is no discussion. "Your mother and I decided, you knew the deal, and that's it." Do not take the bait. Name calling, spitting, throwing things - yes, all are reprehensible behavior, but DO YOUR BEST not to react WITHIN THE LIMITS THAT YOU SET. I cannot set them for you.
HER: "YOU'RE A F###ING A#SH##E!! I HATE YOU!!!"
YOU, CALMLY: "I understand. This is not about me."

Again, YOU and YOUR WIFE together must set your limits and it would be best to set them with the advice of a professional.

Now, I'm hoping the best for you, your wife and your daughter, but I'm going to tell you that it sounds to me like you have a long way to go. It sounds to me as if she is at that place in addiction for someone her age where maturity level and chronological age are about 5 years apart. She is an adult in the eyes of the law, but a child in her level of maturity. The reality that the world is a place with real consequences has not yet become real to her. That has to happen. It takes longer than you want it to and is dangerous for all of you. You are lucky in that she is of legal age, so there are actually consequences for her regarding violence to family members that can be imposed by the state regardless of what you want.

I'm going to stop short because I don't feel comfortable giving detailed advice in an area that I have no business giving it in.

I'm not a therapist, drug counselor or psych professional. Get to know all three. You cannot do this alone.

You will fall short of perfection. You will lose your cool. You will make mistakes. When you do, do not blame each other.
You and your wife need to take time and take turns loving, soothing, healing and protecting each other. You are on the same team.
Instead of "DON'T TALK TO YOUR MOTHER LIKE THAT!!!" (engaging) turn to your wife and say sincerely, not tauntingly, "I LOVE YOU and I'm glad you are here." (building and demonstrating).
Each of you have already taken a marriage vow. Take a vow now to work together. Not undercut each other. Not override each other. If you do those things you will at best, add lots of time that it takes you all to recover, and at worst lose EVERYTHING.

Good luck to you.

And again, if anyone feels that any of the above advice given only from the point of view of someone who had a heroin addicted daughter (and still does), is poor advice, please speak up.  I don't mean to overstep my bounds, and I am NOT an authority, these are opinions only.



-- Edited by almostThere on Wednesday 27th of May 2015 08:16:16 PM

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El infierno es la ausencia de la razón.


~*Service Worker*~

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Welcome Theruts-- glad that you connected here and shared with such honesty.
 
 It's a positive step that your daughter has sought recovery and is attending meetings--  as you have discovered, stopping the use of drugs or alcohol is only the first step towards actually recovering from the disease of alcoholism.
 
 Alcoholism is a chronic, progressive threefold disease that can be arrested and never cured. The disease affects the afflicted person and family members physically, mental/ emotionally and spiritually.
 
 AA as well as the  Al-Anon program  have been designed to address overall recovery. AA for the person who uses the substance and Al-Anon for the family members.
 
In alanon we do not give advise but suggest that each person attend meetings, develop new tools to live by and then look within  The answers  for each person's life  is within and we cannot hope to know what that truly is. 

The behavior you describe and are dealing with is unacceptable and you are wise to attempt to draw boundaries to protect yourself. Since alcoholism is a disease, we need to understand that we are powerless over it and over the alcoholic. The best we can do is to not react to the disease, develop positive coping tools that will help us to respond in a healthy fashion to the insanity. Face-to-face meetings held in most communities helped me to do this.

 

The hotline number is found in the white pages. So please keep coming back here as well


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Betty

THE HIGHEST FORM OF WISDOM IS KINDNESS

Talmud


~*Service Worker*~

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Welcome.  I'm glad you have found us. 

Situations like that are certainly about setting appropriate boundaries.  What those are can differ according to the situation.  Al-Anon provides the tools to think out what are the right boundaries and to have the follow-through to stay firm on them. Both of those are hard things.  Sometimes in the early stages our boundaries are too harsh, sometimes too lax, and it is very difficult to withstand the blow-back and our own second-guessing.  (And sometimes we're right to be second-guessing ourselves.)  So there's no one set of rules of how to do it, just learning and reading and trying.  That's why we can't lay out a series of Do's and Don't per se.  But in working the program (reading the literature, finding a meeting, reading these boards, looking out for a sponsor, etc.) the answers will start to come into focus.

I have found, when my own child was small (who is not an alcoholic, but who was a small child!) that the most effective boundaries were the ones where I laid out the consequences in advance without anger.  Levying the boundary that he didn't know about first caused a lot of turmoil and cries of unfairness, and operating out of anger meant that I often got the idea or the delivery a bit wrong and inspired anger in return.  Of course it's not easy not to be angry when the circumstances are beyond frustrating.

The early days of sobriety are famous for being tumultuous.  So glad you have decided to look for support.  No one should have to go through this alone.  I hope you'll keep coming back.



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Thank you so much for the replies. I would love to read more. AlmostThere, I felt like you knew exactly what I was going through. Technically, my daughter is my step daughter. I never call her that nor do I feel that she is. She is my daughter. I've been in her life she she was 18 months old. I think of her as one of my own children, no difference between her and my boys. I love her with all of a heart a dad could love their child. You are right about my wife and I need to be a team. We have opposing views and I don't know how we can come together as one common front. I understand my wife's point of view. She lost a brother to suicide a few years ago and believes in choosing battles and if it a battle that we could lose our child (aka, her leaving and never talking to us again), then it's not worth it. I get the idea of choosing battles. But I also believe we cannot allow boundries to be broken and for us to be manipulated. It's a vicious cycle. I stand my ground, my wife tells me she supports my decisions but I can tell she resents me. So, I back down. I allow more chances. But it doesn't change. It gets better for a day or two then back to the same old dance. I don't know if my wife has it in her to set boundries and stick to them. It frustrates me and I know I'm not as supportive when my wife struggles through this. It makes me feel even worse. Tomorrow will be a new tomorrow and I have hope. I'm looking for a group for us to attend. The worse part of this, our daughter wants my wife and I to go to alanon meetings. She believes we will have a better understanding of what she is going through and will be accepting of her behavior. I believe we will have a better understanding of what she is going through fellowship with others struggling like us. However, I don't think she understands that it might finally get my wife and I in the same page and finally set those boundries that cannot be broken. It is not the outcome that she thinks it will be. Maybe deep down inside, she wants us to set those boundries and keep them. I don't know. I will find a local meeting. There are many around here.

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~*Service Worker*~

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Theruts -

Welcome to MIP. So sorry for the anxiety, pain and fear you (and your wife) are experiencing. I have two boys and they both are addicts. One is in recovery and one is not.

They are also young - 23 and 21. We've been battling this disease for about 10 years, and it's been a long, long road.

My husband and I met in recovery - I have stayed sober; he has not. We were not aligned in our approach to handling our sons and I believe it has caused more chaos and pain in our battle.

My best advice is to seek Alanon and learn all that you can about detaching, boundaries and the program. You will find others who have been 'there' and done 'that'.

If at all possible, based on my own experience, it would be best if you and your wife can align on your approach. My sons were able to 'divide and conquer' because we were disjointed, and at times it seemed as if they were one step ahead.

Alanon will teach and explain the three Cs to you - Didn't cause it, can't cure it and can't control it. This was so 'needed' by me as I felt since I gave birth and raised them that I surely must have caused it and/or surely can help cure it. I learned I had to let go and let them hit their own bottoms, irregardless of what that might mean.

This disease sucks the life out of the addict as well as those who love the addict if left untreated. Going through recovery, I can attest that it's not easy to be sober and stay sober, but it is possible if the person truly wants sobriety. I was young when I got sober, but my parents left me to deal with the consequences of my choices and to clean up the wreckage I created. I would not have gotten sober when I did if they had bailed me out of jail, paid for the lawyers, etc. Their 'tough love' or boundaries is what 'woke me up' and made me take a hard look at the life I was living and how it was (not) working at all for me.

I wish you well and hope you keep coming back! There are online meetings here too - twice daily. Check the schedule up at the top left.

(((Hugs))) to you and your wife - there is hope always and Alanon will help you find peace in spite of what's going on around you.

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Practice the PAUSE...Pause before judging.  Pause before assuming.  Pause before accusing.  Pause whenever you are about to react harshly and you will avoid doing and saying things you will later regret.  ~~~~  Lori Deschene

 

 



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Welcome Theruts,

I am not saying this is the case, but I will tell you my experience: Addicts are the best liars on the planet. They are the most resourceful and manipulative people who will tell you what you want to hear, in order to make you continue to enable them.

My working field is accounting. Just because I did not SEE my stepsons use drugs, does not mean a thing to me. What I saw were the forged checks that my AH refused to do anything about. Thousands and thousands of dollars. I heard the "stories" of how they had "bills". I watched as they did not come to work and still came to get money.

What more do I need to know? There are thousands of dollars gone, two grown men begging for more, and they are being evicted from their homes, because they are clearly not paying their bills.

It can be one of three things: 1) drugs 2) gambling or 3) prostitutes

It is common knowledge that they are on heroin. But every week, they say they stopped doing it, and claim that they had hair sample drug tests, that some phantom future employer gave them. (insert eyeroll) (Seriously, I wanted to pluck their hair out myself). Jobs that are always going to "start in 2 weeks". They have been saying this since January and neither of them have a job, they just lie about it.

But numbers do not lie.

So, logic says they are still on drugs. Otherwise, they would 1) Go to work 2) Stop spending between $300-$375 per day.

Now, I am not saying your daughter is still on drugs and tricking you, but you may be asking yourself what the heck she is doing out until 3:00 in the morning, what kind of friends she is hanging out with that can stay up all hours of the night and do not have to go to sleep so they can get up and go to work, and why she is so tired that she sleeps all day.

I am also very, very new here. I hope I am not out of line, because I do not know your daughter and maybe she is being honest. For your sake, I wish it is true and she really is clean for 75 days.

(((HUG)))



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Carrie



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Eloquently said, exceedingly helpful advice (and I thought your caveats were perfectly put). 



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No one is over stepping. I appreciate and I am open to all replies. She could be really fooling me this time about being sober, but if she is, she's done an amazing job at doing it. Everytime she falls back into using, I've known it right away. I never show all of my cards to her on how I know. I usually try to stay one step ahead of her. I know all of her "secret" on line social identities and social sites where in the past, she never censored herself from "showing off" her activities. I've never told her that I know about those accounts she has. I check them often to see to what she is up to in order to make sure she is not in real danger. Like protection from afar. I am totally aware that this is not healthy for me and is an issue that I need to figure out how to just let go. I'm such a tough nut on the outside but I'm such a softy on the inside. Like my wife, I truly don't want to see her really fall hard. About a month or so before getting sober this last time, I was persistent with her. I kept telling her I loved her and that I think she needs to go back to NA/AA meetings. It angered her. She said she wasn't doing drugs. I knew otherwise. I saw her secret social media sites and the party pictures. She had somehow justified that alcohol and marijuana were not drugs. They were legal in many states, etc....but I was persistent and kept asking her to return to meetings and that I loved her so much. I finally had to tell her that I was signing the car she was driving over to her and she needed to get her own car insurance plan because I could not accept the liability of her lifestyle choices. Then a friend of hers got in trouble and she decided to go back to a support group and get clean again. I check now and then and I see that she is going to meetings nightly. She ends up hanging out with other kids her age from these meetings. It's these kids that she hangs out with until 3 AM. We live in a very wealthy metropolitan area. One of the wealthiest in the nation. My wife and I both grew up in a lower middle class homes and we had to work very hard to get ourselves through school and our professions. We both have sorta a blue collar mentality in a white collar world. I guess my point is, there are many kids our daughters age that have the means to be able stay out late, live on their own and not have to work for it. One thing my wife and I agree on is we insist on our kids earning their own way.

With that said, I think this weekend, my wife and I need to draft up a living agreement/contract with her. Clearly spelling out the boundries and consequences of breaking those boundries. I don't think we should present it to our daughter until my wife is fully prepared to enforce it and deal with the decisions our daughter makes. I've been talking about this for awhile with my wife. We have come up with an agreement that as long as she is living at home, she cannot treat our house like its a hotel or a storage locker for her belongings. That she can't just come and go as she pleases. We have a no more than 2 nights a week rule for spending the night. She has to sleep at home at least 5 days a week. She's pushed the limits on how late she can stay out. She tells us that if she comes home early, she will feel the need to use. That she has to stay out with her AA friends that late so she can come home and be so tired that she crashes. She tells us if we go to alanon, we will understand why she has to do that. I don't buy it. Because staying out late is preventing her from getting up and looking for that day job. Anyway...thanks for all the post and I appreciate more coming



-- Edited by Theruts on Wednesday 27th of May 2015 11:02:40 PM

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Senior Member

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Lots of good advice from people who are going through it. Another Two cents.

Like most everything I can think of, the key to the best chance of success is preparation. It sounds as if your daughter is stably unstable for the moment. Definitely put the first, best effort into developing the nuts and bolts of how you and your wife are going to work together. Definitely go to Al-Anon meetings and find one that fits you. Search out any other support you think will be helpful to YOU and YOUR WIFE. If you two are healthy, you can probably build a support structure for yourselves faster than you can establish any effective plans for her. The reason I stress this is because a broken partnership with no support system will be decimated and rendered ineffective by this disease. Simply put, without both of you strong, healthy, confident and unified, you cannot help her. She will only manipulate the two of you into fighting between yourselves and there will be 3 sick people all trying to manipulate each other. Sounds crazy because it is. And by the time you realize you're crazy it's too late.

Glad you are here.

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El infierno es la ausencia de la razón.


~*Service Worker*~

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Your daughter sounds like she is mentally and emotionally at where she probably started drinking and using. My guess would be about 15 years old. She sounds like a bratty 15 year old. Alanon will help you guys set boundaries that she might not like, but you will be able to do it in a detached and loving way that hopefully makes sense to all. She probably does need to be on her own and take on some adult responsibilities....I'm not sure if she has a sponsor, but I have a hard time believing any sponsor would endorse her treating her parents like crap and doing nothing all day. I don't buy it. She's either 1. Lying about her sobriety and meeting attendance, or 2. Taking what she wants from the program and completely ignoring all the parts about being responsible, making amends...(so much else). Anyhow, I do think Alanon will help you and your wife....together and/or separately. Both you and your wife will have your own programs.

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Face to face alanon meetings will really help you and your wife set boundaries and find out more about the disease of addiction. You also don't have to act right away and can see how things go when you start to apply the tools that they will teach you at meetings. She is pushing limits because she knows that she can get away with it. You and your wife have to decide what your boundaries will be, verbalize them to your daughter and act on them if they are crossed. 19 is a tough age as they are technically adults but really kids at this age are still so immature. Good luck and keep coming back.

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You nailed her age when she started using. And I belive it is the later on what she takes away from these meetings. She uses that against us. When she fails to do something we ask, lately the excuse is something like "I had a prior commitment to one of my AA friends". So she is using the AA and that as a get out of jail card. its such a slippery slope because we encourage her to be around AA people her age. But we don't want it to be something thrown in our face for not taking any responsibility in life (no job, sleeps all day, stays out late, etc...). She also has a history of manipulating stories in such a way that she villianizes people and victimizes herself. I'm often the villian she tells everyone about. Perception is reality and I honestly don't know if it is really a perception she has or down right manipulation. It's scary. I will seek out a group.

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