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.
i need someone that has gone thru this to tell me what i am doing wrong or if what i have been doing is right i don't have clue and i have no family to help me and my husband is almost just gave up and my 19 yr old daughter has just had it with him.
You didn't cause it, You can't control it, You can't cure it.
This is your sons problem, and he has to want to accept help.
What you can do is take you and your daughter to Al-Anon meetings and learn how to live with it, and learn about the addiction process. We sometimes become as sick as they are when we become consumed with their problems.
Josey
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Julianne - It's best to move on. You cannot look back in anger in life. It's too short
Well, you certainly are not alone. I am sorry for what you are going through...I know it is rough. I don't have experience with older children just yet but it is very possible I will in a few years. One thing I did learn early in the program was, when the dust settles, I want to be the one left standing to help pick up the pieces for others. I knew that if they couldn't get healthy then I had to. I also knew it was up to the other people in my life to jump on the band wagon with me. The three C's that Josey just mentioned are very true. Anything past the end of my nose is none of my business. I still love and support the A's in my life. I can do it in a healthy way though. Good luck in your recovery. Ziggy
Remember the Serenity Prayer. It helps me through every single day. You didn't cause the disease that has your son in it's grips, and there is nothing you can do to cure it.
Step back and try to take care of you. If only for a minute, think about only you.
Watching someone we love (your own child, it must be the worst pain, I'm so sorry!) go down into addiction is so absolutely awful that we need support from others, and Al Anon is about the only group of people like us.
Taking the focus off of the alcoholic/drug addict and putting on yourself is just exactly what NONE of us wanted to do at first. It didn't seem even possible, and it doesn't even make sense, I mean, my husband/child needs help, and I'm going to help them, dang it! If someone (me) isn't cleaning up their mess, who will, and what will happen to them? Funny how WE can see all the risks and dangers so much more clearly than they can, and at the same time, NOT see how run down, depressed, bitter, and hopeless we ourselves are getting.
It is a very, very hard thing to go through what you are going through, so get as much support as you can get from us, go to Al Anon meetings, and meet people who are living with your same problems to see how they've managed. You'll see you are not alone, and that sure was a big comfort to me.
The only advice I can give you is to call 1-888-4alanon for meetings in your area . You are not the reason your son is drinking , nothing u do can make him drink or stop. Stopping is his choice has nothing to do with you . Your not powerful enough to make anyone drink if you were u could make him stop. It has nothing to do with him not loving you , love will not cure alcoholism . He drinks because he has a problem . period. Al-Anon will help u understand what it is your dealing with , u will meet people like yourself to help u walk thru this with dignity and grace as u allow him to do what he has to do. Hate the disease Love the man. As long as we continue to enable they will continue to drink, I enabled by lying for my husb to cover up his crappy attitude made excuses for his behavior . pushed my family away because I thought that I was somehow to blame for the mess we were in . I took on the shame of this disease and it was not mine to carry . please find meetings for yourself and get you life back on track so that u can help your son when he asks . good luck Louise
Helpless - I remember when my mother said pretty much these same words. When my brother's addiction became apparent, we were all terrified. We felt helpless, angry, confused, desperate... and living in a rural area, we had basically no resources and didn't know where to go for help. We just wanted to find someone who could fix this.
At that point, we didn't know a lot about the disease of addiction. Most of my family, especially my father, did not see the person and the disease as 2 separate entities, which kept my Dad angry a lot.
Another problem we had was in expecting my brother to think logically and to make rational decisions. So often confused by my brother's ridiculous thoughts and actions, we would ask "why, why, why?", until we learned that the disease overrides rational thinking.
My mother reacted by becoming excessively controlling. Her every thought and action was determined by my brother's addiction.
Live day by day, people say? I remember living hour by hour. Our stress levels were beyond what any of us thought we could endure. In focusing on my brother, we lost site of ourselves. We became sick.
While trying to help my brother, we became educated in the disease. While we learned that we could not control the disease, we also learned how to behave so that we do not strengthen or support the disease. We have learned to set boundaries, and are still working on this one. We learned what tough love is. We learned to love the person and hate the disease. My father learned that his son has a disease, but the disease is not his son, and their relationship has improved.
I believe that helping ourselves has also helped my brother. His recovery is his recovery, but it's important that the people around him understand what he is going through.
I can't make decisions for you, but I can listen to your concerns and questions, help you consider your options, and tell you how my family has handled things. So feel free to post or email me personally. I do encourage you and your family to get educated about the disease and to get support through meetings, family counseling, and any other resources you have. You have my support.
I can totally relate to what you are dealing with. I also have a son, 20, who has been struggling with addiction. This disease affects the entire family. I have two younger kids living at home, and it has been just as hard on them as my husband and me. In the midst of this dark disease, there is hope. Our deep faith in God and this group has seen us through some very tough times. Fortunatley, our son came to a place in his life where he wanted to get help, and did. His life is far from perfect, but then none of us are perfect.....we are works in progress. We, as a family had to set some very clear boundaries and as hard as it was at times, we stuck to those boundaries. Ultimately, our son decided to get the help he needed. He still struggles and has had a couple slips, but we see his heart has changed. He wants to follow God and what He wants for his life. Is your son living with you? We had to ask our son to leave when he was 19, one of the most difficult things we had to do as parents. He had no job, no money, no car, no phone etc. Things are slowly beginning to heal. Our 17 year old daughter has had the hardest time trying to forgive, but with God's help, she is working on it. I believe my son has grown up a lot, but still understands he needs to contiue to seek out help and support to follow the path of recovery. I will keep you and your family in my prayers. Feel free to contact me if you need a listening ear.
I have and still am walking in the same shoes you are.
My son is 38 an A/Da. One thing I have said all along about him is that he does not discriminate when it comes to alcohol or drugs, he has taken them all.
When we drove him to his first rehab (only because he was avoiding arrest for robbing our house) I knew I had to do something for myself because I was slowly but surely going insane. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results. The doctor that saw him in the VA ER pulled hubby and I aside and said "I want the two of you to remember this forever...This is not your fault, you did not cause this. Your son has the only disease that the world will yell at him for having. Go home and start taking care of yourselves and let him take care of himself." When he got kicked out of rehab for using I left him on the streets. That was HARD but I knew I had to let him fall as far as he needed to and my rescuing him again was only going to hurt him.
This is what I did.... I went to Al-Anon as fast as my feeble little feet would carry me. I closed the "Bank of Mom" I learned to say "NO" and stick with it. I learned to "mind my own business"...no more calling to see if he made his utility payments, showed up for his court dates...etc These were all none of my business. I had to give him the dignity he deserved and the space to grow up. I started working my steps and still am. I got a sponsor I told him if he ended up in jail to plan on staying there because I would not bail him out and stuck to it. I learned to say what I mean, mean what I say but not to say it mean. I set boundaries and stuck to them...I knew if I didn't he would never respect them. I learned to detach myself not from him but from the problems he created for himself. I learned to focus on me and my recovery and leave his up to him
The first speaker tape I listened to put everything into perspective. June C of Ok was the speaker and she is one awesome lady. Towards the last of her talk she shared that she had spent many a year, time and money chasing her children around the country, dragging them out of whatever hole they had managed to fall in, cleaning them up and fixing them. She said that she had attended many an AA convention and heard a lot of speakers but she has yet to hear one get up and say "I was saved by my momma". I knew then that I had to turn loose of my son because he was never going to find sobriety with me riding on his back and I was never going to find mine dragging him along behind me.
Today, I have more good days than bad ones but one thing I have learned to do is relish the good times while you can. I am working my steps with my sponsor and still today I attend more meetings than he ever did or does. I am involved in service work not only with my Al-Anon and NA groups but also with the AA groups in their conventions and big dinners etc. I so appreciate and value my serenity and if I don't share it and give it away I will loose it.
Take care of yourself, find f2f meetings, start working your steps and find your recovery. Once you do he may or may not start working his but bottom line he will see the change in you and that alone will help him.
Feel free to pm me if you want, I'll be glad to listen as long as you want me to. HUGGS
-- Edited by Mobirdie at 13:34, 2007-03-07
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Everything I have ever let go of has claw marks all over it.
You are certainly not alone. I have been there with an A boyfriend of 7 years. I have a younger sister who is an active A as well. I hope you will find great solace here.
