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 have only just come across Al-anon this last week when my mums key worker suggested I look into local meetings, which I am doing. I have been doing lots of reading recently and have come across lots of info regarding Adult Children of Alcoholics, their personality traits and how future relationships can be effected etc.
My confusion lies here though, my alcoholic is my mother and I have only realised and accepted this in the last 12 months, I am 35 and my mother 63. Looking back I can see how she has always been an alcoholic but has passed it off saying she uses it as a crutch through stressful times. I can remember as far back as being 15 and drink being a major issue when she divorced my dad but I cannot remember any drink related issues before then.
My question is, that if my mother hid her drinking from us so well how can I be affected by these personality traits?
My husband is also an alcoholic, and not surprisingly reading the info on adult children of alcoholics that I have married an alcoholic. How can I break the cycle of my children being affected in the same way that I have been?
It's not seeing them downing the alcohol that affects us. The compulsion goes along with a whole host of other behaviors, attitudes, and values. Dishonesty and deceit - hiding the drinking, pretending it's normal, sneaking away under false pretenses to go drink or to buy drink, pretending that putting alcohol over all else does not affect others. Alcoholics base their decisions on how easily they can get alcohol, not on what's best for their children. Their responses are dulled and abnormal. They can often feel distant to their children, or "off" somehow. They're rarely full present in mind as well as in body. Their methods for coping with pain and difficulty are drinking, therefore they can't teach healthy coping methods to others.
Those of us raised in alcoholic families get so used to the patterns and behaviors that we have a hard time seeing that they're abnormal. They seem familiar, sometimes even fine. The fact that you can't really see how it was different from a non-drinking healthy family is a suggestion that it's affected your sense of "normal." So much so that when you met an alcoholic, he didn't signal "sick person" to you, he signalled "familiar, fine." I hope this doesn't sound harsh, because all of us affected by alcoholism have been through the same difficulties. My own family was non-alcoholic but sick in so many ways that alcoholics seemed no sicker to me. So when I met a sick man, I thought "Familiar, fine." With the results you might expect.
The way we avoid passing it down to our children is to go through our own program of recovery. Al-Anon offers many tools that help us regain perspective, cope with alcoholism, regain our serenity, and deal with everyday life. Meetings are invaluable; so is the literature. You can get a good sense of the program by reading through the threads here. There is a seat for you in the circle. You have great awareness and you have already begun your journey. I hope you'll keep coming back.
A drink does not even need to be taken to pass the disease down. Often times the actual drinking skips entire generations, sometimes two but without recovery it always rears its ugly head again and some family member will drink. You just don't know who it will be until it happens. It shows itself in the behaviors, people pleasing, control, self pity,martyrdom, fear or abandonment/ fear of attachments, feeling guilt or shame, making others feel guilt or shame, perfectionism, resentments, black and white thinking, codendency...to name a few. The various addictions are just a part of the entire picture..alcohol does not need to be in the picture at all for the disease to be passed. A honest self inventory with a sponsor is a good way to get to the bottom of the disease and root out defects of character and then set out to correct them in self. The only thing one can do for a child is model sanity and the program to them...meaning work a good program and teach children self love and respect, set boundaries with love...etc. children learn what they see and experience.Thats what I'm doing with my grandchild...that and praying a lot :)
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I needed these behaviors in my past they helped me survive I'm finding new and better ways to not just survive but thrive
M3lle, you are breaking the cycle right now! Welcome to MIP and glad you found us and had the courage to ask and share. Please follow through with locating and attending Al-anon face to face meetings, the support and knowledge you will get at those meetings are immearsurable. Working the steps, learning the slogans, saying the prayers and meditations, etc. will guide to the answers you seek for yourself and your children. Please keep coming back!
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"Forgiveness doesn't excuse bad behavior, but it
does prevent bad behavior from destroying your heart". ~ unknown
I too welcome you to MIP. So very glad you are here and glad you shared!
I agree with Debb - you are the change that can/will break the cycle. My parents are both offspring of alcoholics, and neither of them drank too much when we were growing up. I say too much as I'm from an Irish Catholic family and the family events are surrounding the booze vs. the booze is a by-product of the event.
So, the 'isms' were what was passed down, or the opposite. We were expected to be a certain way, act a certain way, etc. I could go on and on and on, but the disease is stronger than we even think we know.
Please join us and you will find a new way to be, process, and do.
Glad you are here!
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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
Hello mich3lle - I just wanted to say hello as I have a similar experience. i came to this board and to al anon because I was on my knees with my situation with my partner. However, i now know that my mother is an alcoholic too. I always knew that my grandmother was - everyone always talked about that, but never about my mum. I have found it very difficult to reach the realization through the fog of denial and confusing messages. I know she would be very ashamed to have succumbed to the same disease but she's never sought treatment. I feel very sad and ashamed of myself for even referencing it here. My mother's drinking has always been hidden, with the glass on a high shelf or behind a plant pot. it's the elephant in the room, never mentioned, but it affects and affected many things. I know that when I brought my first boyfriend home from college 25 years ago and he lightly said 'your mum likes a drink doesn't she' that I burst into tears from the pent up emotion and worry I'd felt about it through my teens. I was with that boyfriend for 9 years and we never talked about it again. I trained him well.
I'm learning a lot about alcoholism but it is challenging to think properly about it in my head when my partner doesn't drink and my mum says she doesn't. And yet so many of the behaviours and experiences Are the same. For me I find it useful to take the focus off the alcohol and think about the isms instead. This is an emotional illness. It's an illness that affects the way people relate to people, react to events, manage their moods etc. When you think of it that way you can see that we're all affected, drinking or not. What I'm trying to learn now is to get a new tool set of ways of relating, reacting, thinking, etc that serve me better. The al anon tools are just that and I'm really trying to embrace the program so I can do my best to get healthier and have a 'new normal' for my 4 year old son.
Aloha Mich3lle and welcome to the board. It would take you a life time to cover the research most of us have had to do during our recoveries. All of what we find out has helped us come to understand deeper and deeper and only one of the things I came to understand is that the disease is thousands of years old which (for me) states that we are "altered" from the start...kind of like saying alcoholic is normal or natural. I for one was born and raised within it and so "normal" people were abnormal for me. In college I studied among other subjects the genetics of the disease of alcoholism part of which has been mentioned already. My thoughts, feelings, actions and intentions were abnormal from birth and alcoholism was normal...grand parents, parents, family then me. We drank alcohol...that was normal. We drank often and a lot regardless of he consequences. We practiced, practiced, practiced until we finally quit or died. Adult children of Alcoholics means the person has survived into adult years with a problem that has continued to progress until changes are necessary. Keep coming back here and listen and look for the changes we are doing and offer to others who want change also.
Thank you for much for your kind words and advice :) I have found a local meeting on Monday evenings, so currently looking for a sitter for my two boys so I can attend.
I am currently taking time out of my relationship with my mum, and have said I don't want to see her until she is 6 months sober, I have felt enormous relief since telling her this and have been able to process other thoughts and feelings without seeing her daily.
My husband on the other hand I have had to put on a back burner for now, I am working on getting my own financial independence, working on my health and fitness and what makes me happy. Funny enough I had made these decisions before knowing anything about Al anon!
Looking forward to the meetings, I will do all I can to make sure my children are protected from this awful disease :)
Great plan Michelle - keep coming back and be sure and let us know how your first meeting goes!!
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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
Hello, I'm also new here. Your message speaks to me because it describes my mother's alcoholism. She still denies it, but it's clear that it is her emotional crutch as she practically bathes in alcohol nightly from the second she gets home. However, she is by far not the only alcoholic in the family. They come in many shapes and sizes, and behave in so many different ways. As I'm sure you've heard, alcoholism is a disease and manifests a variety of 'symptoms'- the characteristics you noted as having an influence of you. It is also important to note that alcoholism affects an individual, so it will look different on everybody. Don't be confused if you don't seem to 'fit' the typical ACoA description. Your mother is an individual, so her 'version' of alcoholism will not be exactly by the book. Similarly, you are an individual, so you will be affected differently. Good for you for distancing yourself, I have yet to do so with various family members. I might take your 6-month-sobriety approach.
