The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
to exchange
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level.
.......She has been for as long ascan remember. My father has always had the best intentions for me and my 3 brothers. Growing up was rough though. It has always been the big secret.... She was "sick" or "had a headache" but NEVER drunk. So during the week it was chaos at home..... The weekend would come, she'd sober up and we were expected to treat our mother(the same women who was abusing us while drunk) with respect. Now we're all adults. My mother stopped drinking for a little while a couple of years ago. The drinking is back now with the addition of pills. Pills for her fibro-mialgia..... And it's the same deal. She takes the car!!!!!! She has actually been caught drunk behind the wheel and gotten away with it because my father knew the officer. So then my Father will take the keys or disable the car........ Shell sober up for a day or two and it's like nothing ever happened. And god forbid you say anything to my father about this. He always takes it as a personal attack on how he handled the situation. "what am I supposed to do?!" He asks.
I learned a long time ago that I don't mean anything. I feel bad all the time for everything. I apologize more times in one day than most people do in a year. I know that no matter what I say or do I can't fix her or us. That I could talk till my lungs gave out and she wouldn't hear me.
I look into my beautiful Goddaughter's eyes and I can't imagine throwing her away. I am 29 years old and I am married to the best woman in the world. We are about to buy a house and god-willing have children. I have a good steady job. So Im ok. Why do I feel inside as if I stole something? Why am I always nervous..... My palms are constantly sweating.
I can really identify with some of the things you are feeling and have felt as a consequence of dealing with alcoholism. You mention in your post that you "don't mean anything". I know there are times where my son has felt that his acoholic father musn't love him enough to stay clear of alcohol for good - and it's very hurtful to my son (and me). But what we've learned, is that the addiction is stronger than love, that the caring and love is still within the affected person, it's just buried by something much stronger - the addiction. Someone posted earlier in this room that "if love cured alcoholism, there would be no more alcoholics". This really resonated for me.
I think you are right that there is nothing you can do to "fix" your mother, but you can focus on yourself. In Al-Anon, the focus is on working through your own responses to the addiction in your life, so that you can live life in as healthy way as possible. I'm relatively new to it, but I am relieved to know that my life doesn't have to permanently be held hostage to alcohol, and that whatever the state of my husband's drinking, that I can live life better for me and my son. It doesn't mean I don't love my husband, just that I'm not going to let alcohol claim me as well.
Lastly, I wanted to let you know that I can really relate to you being always nervous. I can recall long periods (years) where I left the home totally anxious about everything that might happen to my husband. Some of it even came true, which reinforced my anxiety. I once drew a picture of what alcohol meant in my life, and I drew a pitcure of my looking down on a world of carnage that my alcoholic husband had created. Clearly I was a nervous wreck. The other way I described it once (to a therapist) was that I feel like the airplane is going down and I'm reaching for the oxygen mask, and there's not one for me! I learned that for me, my anxiety came from me thinking there was something I should be doing to control the impact of alcohol in my husband's life. Once I realized that this isnt in my control, and I gave up that responsibility, I began to calm down (a bit).
I'm not sure if any of my experience is helpful to you, but I do hope you keep coming back to MIP to learn from others and maybe go to a face to face Al-Anon meeting. Both actions really helped me calm down a bit.
Welcome, you've found the right place. There are many many people here who have grown up in alcoholic homes.
I see you beating yourself up for not being "normal", and worrying about what is wrong with you. However, you grew up in insanity - the fact that you have a healthy marriage and some insight into the dynamics of your home show that you are a real survivor - you have already triumphed over your upbringing, and it can get even better, with the help of our program.
Patrick I agree with Linn, you are a success story not a person who "dosent mean anything"!!! Listen, this disease kills, you seem to have fared pretty well and seem relatively well-balanced.
My mom is an alcoholic although she no longer drinks and has not for many many years- she is also not in recovery. She still has "headaches" all the time and has all the behaviors, even the slurred speech, etc. To talk to her on the phone, you would think she was drunk but she isn't. Often, the presence or absence of alcohol really makes little difference, sadly.
I grew up in a highly dysfunctional home, my dad would have said the exact same thing as what your dad said! Precisely, to the very word (he is dead now).
I recommend that you find some face to face meetings and try to take your dad along. Keep coming back, you are in the right place! Hugs, J.
Well welcome home. You are pretty eleoquent about what it is to grow up in a dysfunctional home. I"m 52 and I have been in therapy and in some kind of recoveyr for the past 22 years. I know that acknowledging my codependency is a big big part of this. I find it really difficult to work on boundaries, self care and getting support. I worked through a lot of years of getting clear on what my childhood had done to me. I can p.m you with a list of authors who are really good on the topics you speak about. On the board here in this venue (outside of p.m.) I can only recommend al anon related authors. There are many of those too. For some of us recovery is multi faceted. I spent years working on my childhood in therapy. I spent a lot of time in ACA related groups, that helped. I did a lot of journalling and more. My childhood is not in the present in the same way it once was. For some of us there are certain triggers, preparing to have a family, marrying (huge for me), getting to a certain age (30 was huge for me) that brought a lot up.
These days for me the focus is on codependency for a long long time my focus was on what happened in my childhood. There are still certain issues I have not worked through, some things about my adolescence to begin with. I do know these days what is a present issue and what is a past issue.
There is a lot of work you can do on a board like this one. There is also an ACA board here. I have done so much work on myself in the short time I've been here. I have come so far with so much support, care and understanding.
My mother and fathe are both dead now. I am really glad I came to terms with them so much before they died. My two sisters did not and their vision of my parents is much different than mine. They are also both still out there drinking.
Gave me chills to read your post. I first read it because it said my mother. In answer to your question your symptoms could be the traits of an adult child of an alcoholic. My father was the alcoholic but my mother was the one that was most unbearable. I went to her house last week - drove 2 1/2 hours thru a snowstorm. I walk in and all she could say to me was you have mud on your shoes and it is getting all over the carpet (I live in a rural area). I am 58 years old and she had me on my knees literally (scrubbing the carpet) and figuratively. It hurt me to my core. The purpose of her life is to keep herself in her comfort zone at the expense of others. Not all her children but mostly me. I think that is her way of coping having grown up in an alcoholic home herself and then marry an alcoholic.
But I have a recovery program. I didn't hang on to the resentment and I asked my higher power to value me as an imperfect human being. Sometimes there is no answer to our "why" but an answer to how to live our lives thru the 12 step programs.
As you can see you are already loved and accepted. Your courage to come here and speak your pain and concern and share some of your family secrets with this family reveals how "filled up" with the past you are.
Because you are about to take part in a new adventure with a new person in your life; a new home and wife and children, I would like to give you a very serious suggestion. Find the hotline phone number for the Al-Anon Family Groups in your area and "First things first" call and get to as many of those meetings as you can. Take your chair there (there already is a chair for you as there was for me when I was where you are at right now) and listen, listen, listen to the others in the room. You will not feel alone or different (not saying that you do right now) and you just might start to feel at more ease than you have felt for a long time. The emotional and physical symptoms you have disclosed here are stress related and fear based. Those are typical for people raised within the disease of alcoholism. My palms no longer sweat and the constant agitation is almost totally gone. I am not on meds and no longer in therapy and haven't been on either of those for near as long as I have been in the Al-Anon Family Groups for my own personal change and recovery.
A good job is not an indication of being okay especially if you we born and raised in this disease. A good attitude, mental, emotional, physical and spiritual health are more necessary to being okay. Those of us who have been around for a while have gone beyond just being "okay". Happy joyous and free is more like it.
You are welcomed here. You are already loved here. Keep coming back often and take the suggestion above. It could save your life.
I didnt know how I was going to be recieved. I guess I just usually expect the negitive. My older brother's girlfriend goes to al-anon meetings(she knows the big family "secret"). I think I am ready to ask her about them. I also scheduled an appointment to see a theropist. It took nearly everything I had to make that phone call. It is strange...... Here I was crying and shaking..... so nervous. Nervous of what? I ask myself. Im 29 and I am seeking professional help for the 1st time. Thank you all again for your welcoming advice. Those two words don't seem like enough.
Your mother was my father. I could so relate to your "secret story." In my family, we were punished if we aired our dirty laundry in public. Taught me quick to shut up. Yet as an adult, I learned that everyone (or so it seemed) in my town knew that my father was the alcoholic. Though the embarassment stung a little, in Alanon I learned those embarassments were not mine.
I was also taught if "you live the sword, you die by the sword." Oh brother, die I almost did 38 years later. Then I marry a man who also came from an abusive alcoholic home much like mine. Now you have two badly damaged people trying to make a life together. Sheeeeesh.
Well 8 years later and many, many, many Alanon meetings under my belt, I can tell you there is HOPE! You are not alone. There is help. You've taken the first great step by coming here and posting. Please keep coming. Your family's disease will attempt to keep you in check by telling you you don't need Alanon, it's ok, blah blah blah. Your mother has the drinking disease but it teaches us children to have the thinking disease.
So welcome here, you are not alone. There is help. Keep an open mind and heart and the strength and hope of the people who came before you will help you to heal.
yours in recovery, Maria
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If I am not for me, who will be? If I am only for myself, then who am I? If not now, when?
