The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
to exchange
information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
level.
My therapist has suggested me using Al anon for awhile. I have surfed the web and read some post but never posted myself. Yesterday with seeing him he asked me to post. So here goes. I had alcoholic grandparents, my mother and father were alcoholics plus my mom overdosed many times for pills. My father let me start drinking when I was 12 years of age. I became an alcoholic and got sober in 2008 only to turn to drugs which led back to the drinking. I entered rehab 2 years ago and began to change my life around. Well then I became the guardian to my adult daughter who has alcohol/substance/selfharm/suicide tendencies. The stress and arguing led me to a relapse 2 months ago. I lost 6 days of my life, I can not remember a thing. The memories only start to come after the pills were took from me. Since then I am fighting to remain sober and live and watch over my daughter. She is literally driving me nuts. The ups and downs, the fussing and fighting. She continues to sneak out the house to be with an abusive boyfriend and come home high. She goes off with him and gets stuck after she escapes his abuse and she calls me to save her. Last week I had to pay a cab $200 just to bring her home so she could be safe only for her to sneak back out and be with him again. We went out of town to visit her daughter and family which by the way she doesn't have custody over only for her to sneak out once more with him. When it came time to leave after im waiting a hour for her to show she says she will get him to bring her home only to have her call me when I am an hour and a half away and ask can I turn around to get her. I turn around to go pick her up and once there she steps out his car shirt inside out and backwards crying and telling me she doesn't want to come with me. I get mad and leave after the boyfriend tells me I need show him some respect and calls me names. Once I arrive home she calls and ask can she still come back I say yes and she arrives only to sleep in the parking lot of our apartments with him in his car because he was to sleepy to drive. I am losing it. I am fighting to hold on and maintain my life. No matter what I do I can not help her. I have fought for years and years to save and help her but she only gets worse. I do not want to bury my child.
Welcome coral35. You certainly have an extremely difficult situation going on, but at the end of your post you may have the key to your daughter : No matter what I do I can not help her. I tried to help my alcoholic spouse for about 20 years to no avail. I just got sicker and sicker. Of course you don't want to bury your daughter , but if she doesn't want help, there isn't a whole lot you can do except help yourself. And Alanon can definitely help you with yourself. Feeling stronger and more stable, you will be better able to weather the storm with her. And it sounds like you are on a rocky road yourself, so taking care of yourself right now is the priority. I know it sounds strange, but it does work. Keep coming back. Help and healing is available , Lyne
Hello CoraL Welcome Alanon is a recovery program established to help families of alcoholics. We believe that alcoholism is a disease and as such we are powerless over it.
Face to face meetings are held in most communities and the support received from members is extraordinary. I have experienced the pain of a son who was k a victim of the disease and tried continually to "aave him". I found calling the police when i thought it was necessary helped greatly. please keep coming back. You are not alone
Hello Coral, sending hugs and a warm gentle welcome.
Congratulations on all that you have achieved in turning your life around and on continuing to work and fight for your self-care as well despite the crazy making behaviour of loved ones. You've come to a good place.
Thank you so much for your words. She has been committed to so many rehabs and mental institutions I can't count anymore. I really do not understand how to take care of myself. I call myself doing it but my therapist says "bull crap no your not". All I know is I feel I have to "save" my daughter and I lose myself in the process I guess. He says I try to jump in and be her savior. I just wanna get things right. Thanks again for the welcome. I will keep coming back:)
I too send a warm welcome Coral and am sorry that you're entrenched in this disease. I also have multi-generational alcoholism and addiction and landed in trouble and then sober a while back. By the grace of God, I've managed to keep my sobriety in lieu of 'life'. I also have 2 boys, both of whom are alcoholics. One is currently sober, one is active in his disease.
I can't second guess what you therapist is chasing for you, but suggesting Al-Anon is certainly a good start. What I found out about me by embracing Al-Anon is that I have much of my self-esteem, worth, emotions, actions, etc. tied up to the disease in another. I learned that there was nothing I could do, say, shout, plead, etc. that would change the course of life for another. I learned to put me first, even when it feels wrong, awkward, selfish, etc. Al-Anon helped me understand that even my children that I gave birth to had a higher power, and it's not me.
We've also experienced a large number of rehab centers + MH stays. It's a painful, confusing, heart-breaking path. I can so relate to the calls and requests for help and then the 'nevermind' and then another change. It was absolute crazy-making and was slowly killing me. Al-Anon helped greatly as I learned how to detach from the disease, as well as how to create healthy boundaries.
I too suggest seeking out and attending some face to face meetings. You truly are not alone and there is hope and help in recovery. Take good care of you and keep coming back!
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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
Aloha Coral, I read and re-read your post and get reminded of what it was and is like trying to get and maintain sanity and serenity while allowing myself to be consumed with and by alcoholism and drug addiction. It seemed like it took forever for me to "get it" and that being the belief and acceptance of the first part of the first step, "Admitted I was powerless over alcoholism (and drug addiction) and then to also realize I needed to admit to the second part also, "that my life had become unmanageable". My alcoholic/addict and the disease convinced me grudgingly that I was fighting the truth and I stopped. The second step is and was the relief step for me and what I had to do was get humble...teachable and receive the courage that is mentioned in the serenity prayer. Like you I lost it, my courage and sanity, often and raged like a wounded bear after and during the long trips to places I didn't know looking for her in strange neighborhoods amongst strange people. I needed to find her and didn't and then faced the long trips back again to where I knew she wouldn't be.
I didn't realize how necessary a power greater than Jerry F was and how direly I needed to believe in and with it. I was addicted to doing the wrong things, things that kept the disease winning and every one else like me loosing. Sick and very very dad.
I wasn't giving up hope I just had gave up sanity and serenity. There was and is nothing good about this and there is and was an end to it if I would only believe and find the courage to change .myself.
I read your post and remind myself I know how to scream and roar in frustration and break all of the rules to recovery just as my wife did. I convince myself again that there is no shame in the tears we shed in anger, frustration, shame and loss even when they fall with others who are going thru it as we have.
The suggesting to attend face to face Al-Anon meetings is a best suggestion; a very very best suggestion. Like you I was also in need to recover from alcohol addiction...alcohol-ism and became a double winner and so in reality a power greater than myself...using my failure to beat this life threatening disease myself, used my alcoholic/addict wife and her struggles to get us both. No I don't know where she is as the marriage ended 20+ years ago. I do know that looking at her and embracing her in sobriety just as I turned to come back home was the most awesome experience of a miracle I had ever had. I had to do it as everyone there and then and now suggested it to me and I remain open minded to and obedient in the program as suggested.
Read you post as if it was written by someone else. Bring to mind a picture of the person who wrote it and what they need to do to make it different and arrive at peace of mind and serenity and try what I said just after doing that myself; "Please God...help me" and then I listened and practiced...I still do. Keep coming back.
Hugs, ((((coral)))). I too welcome you to MIP. Its great you shared. I think I begun my journey towards sanity when I first came to Alanon although I didn't put much stock into it at first. I felt like desperately grasping at my last straws. While I don't have children I do have prolonged and painful experience with losing it, so I felt I should post a reply... I lived/survived feeling crazy for literally years and I still struggle, but the blessing and miracle is that I'm getting better... Really getting better, one day at a time... So this is my message of hope, that we can get better - like it says in our literature, "no situation is too difficult and no unhappiness too great to be lessened if we are willing to keep an open mind". I found this to be true. I don't know about mental health issues not connected with alcoholism, but all of mine certainly seem to be, as I grew up with an alcoholic father and proceeded to find an alcoholic partner at age 15-16... I also suggest you attend face to face Alanon meetings if possible, it is worth it absolutely. Keep coming back, you are not alone
Welcome, Coral, and I'm so sorry you're going through this. I know you have tried everything you can think of to save your daughter - I think many or all of us have been there. Here is one new thing that could make a difference. When we get recovery, the dynamic with the alcoholic/addict changes - and that change is the beginning of many changes. There are no guarantees that she will go into recovery, but this is the best shot there is. And if she sees you in recovery, she has a model for what it can do for a person. But paradoxically, going into recovery as a co-dependent means taking the focus off her and putting it on yourself. It means reading the threads on here, getting the literature and reading that, and finding a good meeting that is a good fit for you and eventually a sponsor. I mean an Al-Anon meeting - I assume you already have AA meetings or some other formal program of recovery for addiction. But Al-Anon meetings provide a whole toolbox of ways to stay sane when dealing with an addict. The folks here have a ton of wisdom too. But as you probably know, Al-Anon doesn't give direct advice, just Experience, Strength, and Hope. So you have to absorb the whole system, and the tools and answers start to emerge. And when you change, again, the whole situation changes. Hope you will take good care of yourself.
