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I have a question? Does the diesease of alcohol seem to rob the alcoholics self-drive and motivation to suceed? Does it seem like they do what they have to do just to get by and nothing more??? My son works at a part-time job as a busser making minimum wage. He rents a room from some guy. Barely making ends meet, living paycheck to paycheck. He has no skills, no college education and no future. As his mother, it makes me sad but, I have to accept that this is his path in life. It's so hard. If anyone can relate to my story, please feel free to reply with your story.
Hard to lump everyone in a big pile, but in general I have heard my father and uncle (sober a's for years) that they felt like failures for not being about to get out from under it. My dad in general had low self esteem and so does my wife. My son got better when he quit doing the same thing your son is doing and went to college... made some good grades and has much more confidence in himself.
You know much of my wifes lack of self esteem comes from me and the kids... as she became worse... we did everything for her until she started to belive she couldn't do anything... then as we realized we needed to change, she thought we were being ugly to her. Expecting her to take care of herself... it was quite traumatic, but she is slowly realizing those are things she is capable of doing. In a way it really helped for us to quit helping.
Take care of you!
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"Good judgement comes from experience... experience comes from bad judgement" - unknown
Your son is showing "common" alcoholic traits, if nothing else.... not sure if you could categorize all A's into one specific type or not, but I've certainly seen that type of listless behavior....
My ex-AW shows more of a tendency of a single-focusedness, almost to the point of ludicrous. The world is very black or white to her, with almost NO grey. She goes in spurts of incredibly intense scrutiny or effort on a given thing, but rarely keeps it going for very long. One day she is going to start a business and make millions, the next day she is onto something else...
T
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"He is either gonna drink, or he won't.... what are YOU gonna do?"
"What you think of me is none of my business"
"If you knew the answer to what you are worrying about, would it REALLY change anything?"
I've read some of your other posts and my heart and prayers are with you (((hugs)))
I am new to this forum and I am certainly no expert, but I can speak from experience. My H is an A, as is my BIL. My BIL has rarely worked at a job that he found himself. He works for his parents and pretty much relies on them from most of his finances. He is 40. Sad, huh? He had been married twice and had several DUIs. I really feel that his parents have enabled him BIG TIME! My husband (who is not anywhere close to being as out of control as my BIL) has also been in and out of work. I have always made more than him, so sometimes I feel that is "enabling" him to have no sense of urgency to stay employed. He is currently unemployed again. You would think that every time he goes through a lengthy un-employment period he might figure out that employers don't like to see huge holes in your employment history. He has started back to school several times to work on a second degree, but never gets very far.
My H also suffers from depression and has been on medication for about 5 years. You are not supposed to drink while on these medications. He knows that, but does so anyway. Anyway, in my reading on depression and Aism, I have learned that alcohol is a depressant.
Like rtexas said, it is hard to lump everyone in a pile! However, my experience has seen that an A doesn't seem to have a lot of motiviation/drive.
My 29 year old A daughter hasn't worked a job in over 10 years now. After her husband kicked her out and divorced her, she's managed to find people to live off of for years.
I do know she suffers from depression (I do also), and is on meds, but she doesn't get the correlation between alcohol/drugs, her life style, and depression.
She's an extremely gifted gal, accepted into the gifted program when she was in 8th grade and started taking college classes as a freshman in high school.
Unfortunately that intelligence has been her biggest downfall in accepting she has a problem.
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"If a dog will not come to you after having looked you in the face, you should go home and examine your conscience." - Woodrow Wilson
My AH was like this, but is starting to find some motivation in his recovery. He has 86 days sober today. When we have talked about this he says he was really afraid to try to accomplish things so always ended up sabotaging himself. "If I don't try, I can't fail" kind of thinking.
My A brother is the same way to a much more extreme degree. He hasn't had a job in 2 or 3 yrs now and has never held a job for more than a year. He is 31. He also always finds someone to live off of. Right now it is a girlfriend who I believe is also an A and works a mostly full time, but low wage job. His only motivation to work is for the next 12 pack of beer.
I also have a friend who has a son (22?) who is the same way. His dad is taking about getting tired of the young man not working. He thinks he will get tired of not having an income and a vehicle, but his Mom gives him money and the use of her car so....
Anyway you get the picture. I think this behavior is pretty common. They always seem to find someone to take up for their slacking. It doesn't seem to stop until they run out of people to take their responsibilities for them.
In recovery,
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~Jen~
"When you come to the edge of all you know you must believe in one of two things... there will be earth on which to stand or you will be given wings." ~Unknown
