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I have witnessed this over & over in my husband & his drinking cronies. Sunday evening he asked me if I wanted to eat some clams, I do love seafood! The neighbor cooks them up for the holiday weekend. I went over with him. It's been a long, long time since I've been there. My husband is over a lot!
The couple that live there have 3 kids, oldest son graduated last year from hight school, 2nd son graduated this year, youngest is a girl, just turned 12.
Of course, their very best drinking buddy couple was there. The male person of the couple was bragging that he & the oldest boy of his friends shared jell-o shots Saturday night, he said they ate them all between the 2 of them.
Sunday night he was egging on the son who just graduated to share a vodka induced watermelon with him. These are NOT his kids & they are both under 21!!!!!!! When the boys father, an A himself, said to his son not to eat it, the mother piped up & said it didn't have that much liquor in it!!!!!!!! Then the friend agreed, so the father, already drunk, just walked away.
As I watched this scenario play out, I thought to myself, how sad these people are. Here they are the supposed adults, alcoholics themselves, encouraging under aged kids to partake.
It doesn't surpise me in the least. I told my husband the boys are "alcoholics in training." When will they start their daughter out on the road to destruction? When she's a teen, next year or wait until she's a little older, like 16-17?
But, it does make perfect sense, the adults aren't really adults, they are just teenagers in adult bodies, they have no values, no morals. They all looked pretty miserable to me. Not a one seemed happy, sure they laughed & kidded around, but you could almost see the dark clouds of alcohol depression & despair over them. They are all younger then me, but look years older!!
It will probably be another 3-4 years before I go over there again, if ever. I did have a good time, in the sense that I didn't let their drinking bother me, instead, it made me sad. sad for the kids who know no other way of life, sad for their future of alcoholism, sad for the parents who haven't got a clue what they are doing to their kids, it was just sad.
The mother,the kids grandmother was there too, she's in her late 70's. So we had 3 generations oif alcoholics. Not one of them seemed to care, they just sat there & drank one beer after another.
If not for this program, I know I would not have been able to look at them this way. Before I would have gotten angry or upset over the whole thing. I was able to keep my serenity, that is a miracle!!!!!!!!!!!
I need to keep myself surrounded by positive people, sober people, people with values similar to mine. I think maybe it was a good thing to actaully see 1st hand how bad they have gotten with the drinking. If my husband continues to visit them & he will, there is nothing I can do about it.
I can ONLY take care of 3 people, me, myself & I!!!!!!!!!! I am very thankful to Alanon, to all of you, my friends, to my friends @ my f2f & for my CHAD (Confidential help for alcohol & drugs) counselor.
You all have helped me find sanity in a crazy, mixed up insane life, helped me reach serenity & try to hold onto it!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I just wanted to share with you that a girl I grew up with had the same type of family. Her parents were/are drunks and used to push alcohol on them and any of their friends that wer eover on the weekends. The parents had big huge parties every weekend with lots of '40-years-old-teenagers'.
The son grew up to be an alcoholic.
The daughter, however, is as normal as normal (what is that anyway...) could be. She nevere ever drinks, maybe once a year, if that, and one mixed drink and she's done... won't drive, totally responsible.
So it is hard to say what is going to happen to a kid. We just have to trust that God has them, and He's going to allow them whatever experience the free-will he gave them brings to their lives.
Me on the other hand... I grew up with NO alcohol around, whatsopever, EVER. Was told time and time again about the alcoholic car accident my mother died in when I was 4. Went to church every Sunday, was severely punished the 1 or 2 times I managed to drink in highschool. Know what? I was a raging alcoholic and drug addict for over a decade, tearing apart everyone's life whom I touched.
It is by all means NORMAL and NECESSARY to watch out for our young ones, and the messages we give them; what kinds of things we encourage in their lives. But the parents' behavior is not 'all-powerful' in shaping the future of the child. While I feel sad that they are being encouraged so, I would have to try my darnedest, as I am sure you probably did, to say to myself, "God has them".
Thank you ofr the post, and I am glad to hear you got through it without losing your serenity!! I know I'd UNFORTUNATELY have FELT LIKE LEAVING the party 'swinging', if I'd have been in the wrong mood!!!
Thanks Debbie! I am so on your side with this. It is very sad to see such a thing happening.
I have a cousin (by marriage). The son was in 2nd grade and lived with his dad and grandmother. Dad, uncle and grandma had a meth lab in the garage. The boy had headaches every6day while he lived there. I felt so sorry for him that a 2nd grader knew more than I did about how to cook meth because he had watched his immediate family cook it for years. They did get busted.///dad is in jail...grandma died before trial. Then his mom died (age 36)so he's living with his other grandmother. The whole thing is so sad. I offered to raise the kids but they did not want to leave their small town and more 20 miles away to my town.
Moral decline is correct. This same family does the jello shots and I have also seen them give them to guests who were not of age.
I have always found it interesting to see how children of social drinkers, teetotalers, and heavy partiers would turn out. I was raised in a fundamental religious extended family and alcohol was the devil incarnate. I never had any experience with any kind of drinking until I went to college. I didn't want to parktake and didn't. I married a social drinker..never a problem. We raised our son conservatively, carefully, and with utmost love. The only drinking he saw in our home and among our friends was moderate, never drunken behavior, and never ME drinking. In high school he tested the waters, we lectured and disciplined with love. Then college and the fraternity life. All heck broke loose and he has been drinking every since with much chaos in his life personally. So I don't know. Environment does play a role, I know that genetics plays a role, but the age old question of how and why continues to plague me. How could my son have turned out so differently than how he was raised and what he saw??? I haven't come up with an answer. But I can definitely say that I know with certainty I didn't cause it and neither did his father. I also know I cannot control it and I know I cannot cure it...or I think I know it??? As a new person to all this, I remain confused but am learning each day.
I debated whether or not to respnd to this post, but felt I had to.
What was going on in your neighbor's home is sad for the adults and the children. I hate to see children not getting a fair shake in life and not getting the solid foundation they need to develop and grow into healthy adults. People with the disease of addiction already start out with one strike against them as they inherited a horrible disease they didn't ask for. THey don't have a chance to learn that it's best not to feed the beast to begin with. Children tend to live what they learn. However; I have to trust that each person's HP will look after them just as mine looks after me.
It sounds as if you handled the situation really well. I don't think I would have. I have to remind myself that addiction isn't a moral deficiency, but a disease. I don't want to start a debate here and I know it seems as if addicts can be morally deficient, but addiction is a disease of thinking and the drugs/alcohol are simply a symptom of the disease. Addicts do have morals and values, but it's hard to tell because their brains are so foggy from the chemicals.
There is a "moral deterioration" in acoholics. It is listed in the critical phase of alcoholism according to The Jellinek Curve. This curve goes through 3 phases of addiction & recovery, the critical, chronic & recovery phase.
Moral deterioration is one of the symptoms. Physical deterioration, neglect of food, work & money troubles, family & friends avioded, the list goes on & on.Of course, not every alcoholic will hit all these symptoms. It is like any other disease, not everyone has the same symptoms or hits them at the same time in their lives. I see people with diabetes for example, not every diabetic is on the insulin or the same amount of insulin.
When I think of morals, I think of what people see as right or wrong. My belief is that alcoholics sometimes have a distorted sense of right & wrong.
These same people along with my husband made a "soft porn" vidoe tape 3 years ago. In the front yard, they did not remove clothing, but they were in, shall I say comprimising positions. All while the then 15 year old boy took photos with a digital camera. I know because I have the tape & he was on it taking pics! My husband was the camera man! Also , the 9 year old daughter was there. They stopped taping because on the vidoe, I heard someone say, here comes Nichole! and it went blank.
My husband said they did it for "fun" and because we were "broke up". I had asked him to leave. We were not broke up & he refused to leave. That is rationalization. Have to have excuses for their drunken behavior! I did take the tape to my lawyer, I had filed for a divorce. I was not ready for that, so I did change my minds. We are still together. That is no excuse at all! There is none.
So, that in my opinion is moral deterioration!!!!!!!!!! Along with feeding alcohol to minors. Which I heard went on at the oldest son's high school graduation party. My husband allowed them to give his daughter a beer before she turned 21.
So, it's not that alcoholics don't have any morals, they seem to have a warped sense of righ & wrong.
We should all be happy that thank God, there is a 12 step program that allows for alcoholics to admit their wrongs and make amends, and hopefully forgive others, too, just as we are all forgiven by our Higher Power. God forgives and loves each and every one of us, despite our pasts. Thank God he restores people to sanity... and not just alcoholics.
Yes, you are correct about the moral decline in alcoholics -- and it is sad how it affects the families and friends.
While growing up, I was surrounded by alcohol and alcoholics -- still am! It was such a part of my life, I thought drinking was "normal". According to relatives, I got drunk for the first time at age 2, at a party with parents and aunts and uncles I moved around the room drinking the last few drops in everyone's glasses. Sadly, everyone then and now thinks it was cute.
Personally, I think part of the reason for bad choices and bad judgement for alcoholics is justification to make them "okay" -- you know, that warped sense of reasoning that makes them okay and those who don't drink not okay. No one is immune to being a target for justification, not even babies.
I could say more, but I'm new -- this is my first response to a post -- and will stop for now. Hang on to your strength! We need to cling to it constantly, don't we?
Tracie, that is so sad for you. My Uncle (by marriage) taught my cousin to smoke pot when he was only 5 years old! My aunt overheard him bragging about it to one of his cronies! How awful for my cousin, who by the way was heavily into beer & pot by the age of 14! He ended up spending 9 years in prison for involuntary manslaughter. Drinking & drugging ended up in a death & he paid the price for it. As for my neighbors I don't frequent there. I have my life with my friends who don't drink at least not like that. If hubby continues to be friends with them, that is his perogative! Can't control it, right?
Hi Horselover.