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information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
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I am reading a book that essentially says alcoholics have same problems that non-alcoholics do, anxieties, depressions, family and work issues etc; It goes on to say that the above is not what CAUSES an alcoholic to drink, that their disease causes them to drink then makes the aforementioned problems worse. It is like what came first, the chicken or the egg? Also, I was remembering posts not long ago trying about the concept of dry drunks. Just the mental stuff/behaviors being there whether they are drinking or not. When my A stopped drinking, but still had some of the same mental/emotional things going on-he said he always thought it was the drinking, being hungover etc that made him angry, yelling, cussing, "flipping out" as he called it. So then when all that continued when he stopped drinking-he thought it was psychological and went to MD for antidepressants and to start counseling. OR is it also that when someone starts drinking at such a young age, 14-that they never really learn how to emotionally deal with stuff?
I can only speak for me and my oldest daughter. I drank because I never felt like I fit in. I was uncomfortable in my own skin. I had no viable coping skills, and why, I can't tell you. It's like I was absent the day they taught those skills.
I was very immature when I started drinking (18), full of fear, anger, self-centered, short-tempered, judgmental, etc.
My oldest daughter who will turn 30 next month and is the active alcoholic/addict in my life is very immature.
She still often has the attitudes and behaviors of a teenager.
My belief is those character defects are there before the drinking ever starts, and then the alcohol just magnifies them tenfold.
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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
Tenderheartsks wrote:My oldest daughter who will turn 30 next month and is the active alcoholic/addict in my life is very immature.
She still often has the attitudes and behaviors of a teenager.
My belief is those character defects are there before the drinking ever starts, and then the alcohol just magnifies them tenfold.
The potential for those character defects is already hard-wired in at birth, I believe, but the choices made after they gain the understanding that they're addicts is what does my 26 year old A daughter in.
She knows what she has inherited, knows it can be controlled if she'll work the program, but for a variety of reasons isn't able to stay with it for more than a few months at a time. Encouragingly, as her suffering and trail of consequences grows, she has potential to make different decisions in the future. But, of course, it's impossible to know if she will.
One thing I read is that A's stop growing emotionally when they become As due to the chemical changes in their brains. That could be why I have a physiological 26 year old daughter who is still 19 emotionally - the age she lost control of her alcohol usage.
The way I always thought of it was when someone uses when they have obstacles in life, they never learn from them, they don't mature.
We don't know our strengths unless we find we can get through things.For instance, my A as I have, had many deaths in his life. He always used. He never allowed himself to grieve. He never learned that grieving is a process, yes painful, however, we go on. And sometimes life does feel kinda ok.
We all know life is frigging hard. We who face them, and learn we can get through all the tough stuff, mature.
My husband and his family were horribly abused in every way by their psychotic father. He is a very gentle, compassionate soul. But he found out if he drank then his horrible homelife went away for awhile. Then he got drafted to Viet Nam.The horrors of his past, and now seeing the atrocities of war, he went over the edge. This simple, beautiful,guitar playing country boy, became a heroin addict.
He did get sober, on program for several years. I was blessed to be with him for about 2 years. Then the brain tumor surgery took him away. He said it was easier to be an active A than to be on program. Now he is gone.
Then there was my first husband, he was a happy go lucky cute country boy. Good upbringing, full of love. He only drank when his friends and him partied. But sadly his father was A.When he drank he did not come home. I was young so would go find him and drag him home.He was gross.
Then he would be sober for a month or months.Back to the fun,loving, hard worker he was.
My mother died before she turned 50 of cyrossis, but had the maturity level of a girl of 16. I often heard of "wet brain"- the damage caused by chronic alcohol use....
My AH started drinking and using when he was about 13 and had the emotional capacity of about a 13 yo until he started trying to get sober. I was so confused about so much of his coping behavior until I learned from my f2f that they stop maturing when they start using. It was like someone let in the light. OH! That's why he acts like a child. LOL Go figure. Now I feel like I'm with a guy maybe 10 years younger, but at least I have an adult H now. LOL ;) They grow fast when they really start working at it hard.
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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
Bingo kim , I have heard many times that an alcoholic stops growing emotionally when they first start drinking and since most start in thier teens Problems don't end when the drinking stops , but with concentrated effort anyone can change and grow up . But that is still all about him , how much u read or how often it is still about him , find yourself get your life back on track . Today I know that I will never truly understand *HIM * anymore than the will understand how his drinking affected me and today thats ok , Al-Anons understand me .
I started drinking as a teenager. Once I felt the effects of alcohol, it was kind of a no-brainer. So many of my perceived problems vanished. Alcohol for me has the effect of a social dumbing down. When everybody is drunk and stupid, and acting at the lowest common denominator, it does have the effect of breaking down social barriers. But the price that is paid is not just the direct effects of the alcohol and where it leads us. It's where it doesn't lead us - to growing up.
When I stopped drinking, I had to look in the mirror at this adult body with the emotional and spiritual maturity of a teenager, and start from there. Fortunately, I didn't mind doing that for some reason. I think this part of it can be really scary, and I'm not saying it wasn't..... but I felt relieved at having the chance to do it. It literally was like a second childhood for me, and I chose to embrace it. My wife wanted instant adult on her terms; she didn't get it and even today wouldn't get it. I don't regret my decision to take the path of sobriety. I knew early on, that there would be consequences for that choice as well - not all of them perceived as good. At least not at the time. But I think we reach a point in recovery where we "do not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it". That is because we are happy where we are, and we had to do it all to get here.
