The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
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information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
level.
My son abused alcohol for years while living at home. Always denied he had a problem. Drank bottles of vodka, whiskey, etc. then would get mean and aggressive to his girlfriend. Vowed he would stop only to start again. We wanted to kick him out but he was finishing his college degree in a few months so tried getting him help. He stopped the hard liquor but then went to drinking 36 cans a beer a day. He would be so drunk that he would urinate in his bed, etc. It was horrible. The girlfriend stuck with him. He then finished college and moved across the country. Said as long as he had pot he would not have to drink... Well, he could not find a job in his new location and kept up the drinking. Finally got a DUI and spent a night in jail. That really set him back. He would have fears of the jail but kept drinking and causing issues with the gf. She finally broke up with him and then he became suicidal. I had to call the police from across the country to check on him. He ended up in the hospital but they released him telling me he was just drunk. We were able to fly out and talk with him. He agreed to get help. We spent so much on a lawyer and psychologist in hopes of helping him. He seen him for a few times, lied again. Then probation started and it was wonderful! He had to get an ignition lock put in his car as well. Had to go to classes, etc.
Finally got a good job and all seemed to be going great. Probation ended about a month ago. He had issues with is blower and decided to sell the car because of the expenses, etc. He didn't need it for his job because he can ride the subway. I hate that he sold the car because now there is nothing to hold him accountable. He can drink all he wants now and won't be able to get put back in jail. There is no "public drunkenness" charge in the state where he lives.
We visited him for a mini vacation last week and it was nice. He is doing well at his new job and seems to have goals set to move upward. However, I noticed he had a tremendous weight gain which was upsetting.
Since he still has his cell phone under my plan, I check his phone calls he makes. I was heart broken today when I seen he made a call to a liquor store yesterday about 2 hours after we left. I am so broken. I know if he starts that again, the girlfriend will leave and I don't blame her. The suicidal threats will start. He most likely would lose his job, etc.
Unfortunately, my name is on their apt. lease until next year. That is a long story. I am so afraid at this time. Trying to let go and let God but I am just panicking.
Maybe he won't go back down that road. Maybe he can drink like a normal person? I just don't know. I am so tired of the worry. I had told him months ago that I won't help him in any way if he goes back down that road once he gets off of probation. He was like "I don't have cravings anymore. I have those pills too." (Naltrexone)
Hello hummingbird I am so sorry to read that you are dealing with the pain and uncertainty of this dreadful disease.
.Please search out alanon face to face meetings and pick up the alanon literature entitled the " Just for Today" bookmark . This small piece of program recovery helped me at a similar painful difficult time in my life. We are powerless over this disease so that developing a supportive network and new tools to live by is extremely important.
Keep coming back here as well
Aloha Lola and I second what Betty has suggested to you...and your husband. Alcoholism is a Family disease and our program is called the Al-Anon Family Groups for the family and anyone affected by someone else's drinking and/or using. I read your post thru old pain having also gone thru it in similar fashion and then now I know the power of the disease. You have a wish that he would drink like a normal person while alcohol is a mind and mood altering chemical and alcoholism is a compulsion to drink it with an allergy to it mind, mood, spirit and body. The disease is over 6000 years old and it is a part of us like breathing. You and your husband have done what we have done in reaction to the alcoholic drinking and the disease still has won as it has with us. My relation to alcoholism and drug addiction is familial and I can track it into the thirties. There is no cure for it. It can only be arrested by total abstinence and if not arrested is often fatal.
Do yourself a favor and add to the literature Betty suggested the "AA Big Book" for those who are addicted to alcohol. Read it and then send your copy to your son with a love note inside the cover. Let him know that you know and then find the earliest Al-Anon face to face meeting you can get to. The hotline number is in the white pages of your local telephone book. We are all over the planet.
Keep coming back here also and let us know how it is going and if we have more ESH (Experience Strength and Hope) to share with you or his girl friend or whom ever.
I send welcomes to you (and your husband).....I too am sorry for the way the disease is affecting your life. I can so relate to all that you share and can tell you that I wish I had found Al-Anon way, way sooner. I worried, yelled, pleaded, cried and a ton more things and nothing worked. The program gave me a platform to better understand how the disease affects me and gave me the tools and support to deal and heal. It's a progressive disease that is never cured. It can be arrested through recovery and abstinence but the drinker has got to want help/recovery.
Al-Anon is for family and friends affected and you are welcome to attend no matter if he is/is not in recovery. I found a gentle place to share with others who truly understood and I was able to leave my worry and shame behind after working the program for a while.
Please keep coming back - there is hope and help in recovery...
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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
I'm sorry for all that your family is going through. Glad you're here with us for recovery and hope you will keep coming back. It's really tough to be living at a distance from someone you love and be worried for their personal safety. As was already suggested, Alanon meetings can be an enormous comfort and vehicle for helping family members to keep sane when dealing with someone who is actively drinking. The reactionary behaviors of monitoring our loved ones, helping them get on their feet, checking on them without their knowing are typical things many of us have done. We can end up with more information about what the alcoholic is up to but our powerless over their decisions remains the same. All the attempts to intervene, love them even more and rescue them are not more powerful than their addiction, their compusion to use. Meanwhile it becomes an all consuming quest on the part of family to keep doing whatever they believe can help.
The Alanon program, our literature, our meetings, website will help to sort out what is and is not helpful support for a family member who is still actively drinking. We learn how recover our own lives as for many of us our lives receded into the background, were left unattended and our mission was our substance abusing family members. We have literally drained our bank accounts, emotional and physical reserve in our efforts to help our loved ones. This is the point at which so many of us enter the rooms of Alanon for information and help. We simply don't know what to do anymore. It's almost a last ditch effort... maybe these people have the answer. We find a warm welcome and help for ourselves as family members in a very difficult situation.
There is hope, there is recovery and there is a god of each individual's understanding if sought. Your son has known recovery. If there is a subway, my bet is there are plenty of AA meetings he can get to if he is ready to make that choice. No family member to at least in the Alanon meetings I've attended ever got an alcoholic ready to surrender to a higher power and become sober. If he's been in recovery just as with those of us in the Alanon program, he's familiar with the literature, where to find a meeting and others who are recovering who he can phone for help. The Alanon program has some wonderful books for family members of alcoholics. Members post the daily readings here and share on those readings. It's a lovely gift to have that included as part of this message board.
I hope you will choose to keep coming back and also to find an in person Alanon meeting that will offer you support. There is hope for your peace of mind and your son getting sober. Please join us at in person meeting for unconditional love and support. We truly understand and care. (((hugs))) TT
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Surround yourself with people and elements that support your destiny, not just your history.
I guess I just don't understand why he would go back to that lifestyle after how far he has come. He will lose his girlfriend if he goes back down that path and then become suicidal just like before. That is what happened the last time. Got the dui, spent a night in jail, called me about getting a lawyer and if I would help him with it. A week later kept drinking and when he drank he would get emotional and not let go of things. He would call each of us and accuse us of lying. She broke up and then he got some hard liquor and told me he was going to kill himself. I called the police from across the country. He called me screaming it was something I can't go through again. The hospital left him go home once sober.... Never offered to get him help. He did have the fines and dui classes to deal with.
Sometimes I get so upset that I pray God takes him. I am so tired of this. I know I have to let go and let God. I tried Alanon meetings near me but it was not a good fit. I will have to try to find another one.
Maybe I am over reacting and worried about nothing but in the past year while on probation he has never called a liquor store..... Odd, the day we left from visiting him, he calls.
I know before he tried limiting his alcohol only by the end of a week being right back at the case in a days time.
He has a good job and I just don't know what would have triggered him. He seemed happy with us there.
Dear Hummingbird, I do hear you and have asked the same questions myself when my son relapsed after 14 years of sobriety. The best answer that I can give you is that alcoholism is a chronic, progressive, fatal disease that can be arrested but never cured. I understand the anxiety regarding telephone calls and inability to take action. I stopped taking telephone calls, suggesting that he call his AA friends and called the police often for wellness checks as well.
We have Al-Anon online meetings here that have helped many so that if you cannot find face-to-face meeting in your community please try the online one. Is extremely important that you take care of yourself and that is what Al-Anon meetings
will help you to accomplish
Hello hummingbird. I am sorry for the turmoil you are experiencing with your son. It is incredibly difficult to watch our children self destruct. Anything and nothing could have triggered him. If he is an alcoholic and wants to drink he will find a way. Same goes for the car and the probation. It is a very very cunning and baffling disease that seems to have no predictability to it. No matter what I said or did or didn't do, how much I cried, took away, punished, threatened etc etc etc it made no difference in our young daughters behaviour. She would try for a while to be sober which would last a few days to a few weeks and it would start all over again. I became a complete basket case trying to save her. It wasn't until she became sick and tired of the way she was living and was given the gift of desperation that she began to seek recovery for herself. I to had to be given the gift of desperation so that I began to seek recovery for myself. Just for today, we are both in a much better place thanks to 12 step programs. There is hope. Take care of yourself.
Hello Hummingbird....I can't add very much to the already great ESH you got here, but to welcome you and to send you hugs of support.....you are totally powerless over his choices....its sad but true!!! hes been in recovery b4...so was my brother and he went back to drinking "Never to stop again" so he says....I just had to distance myself with lots of love and good energy for him, but my boundaries are in place...he is not to visit me with alcohol if he ever comes here and not to call me drunk , or I am getting off the phone.....I can't help him...I can't make him want to save his life....I have to let whatever will be, be and take care of myself....I have a daugher who is 5plus years clean of drugs...Every day, I say "thank you" to the universe for her sobriety, which really is one day at a time.....I know if she relapses, her daughter will deny her any visitations with the grandkids and I am hoping that fear of losing her grandkids stays with her if it means keeping her sober...but i had to "cut her loose" and let her go to jail...serve a year and it was the best thing because that year in jail, she got into the program, worked it..reached out...faced herself and she has a good shot at staying clean, but NO addict is a better's dream.....as Betty wrote, her son relapsed after all those years.....so yea, we go , we live, we take care of ourselves, ONE DAY AT A TIME because we are 10000% powerless over another's choices...even if it is a life ending addiction.....Nothing we can do to stop it, cure it, mitigate it, the only hope we have is to let them fall flat on their A$$ and hope the fall HARD enough to force them into recovery.......thats all we can do...When I stopped enabling daughter and quit helping her, she crashed big time and hence the jail time.........addiction sucks...its the worst...but its here and we have to deal, one day at a time, taking care of ourselves adn letting them learn what they gotta learn in this life....be it hard or not so hard...its their choice...............IN SUPPORT
