Help, I'm new & desperate for advice, re sister & her kid - Al-Anon Family Group

kes · Member

Help, I'm new & desperate for advice, re sister & her kid

Jerry F · ~*Service Worker*~

Aloha Kes!!

You're home. We've saved a seat for you. We have been where you are right now and survived it with help from the Al-Anon Family Groups and each other's love, experience, strength and hope.

First off...we don't give advise or at least shouldn't. We offer suggestions along with our experiences and you get to make choices as to what you accept and what you do with it.

We learn the steps and learn how to walk them. The first step? "We admitted we were powerless over alcohol and that our lives had become unmanageable."
Does that sound fitting for you?

Your sister is suffering from a compulsion of the mind and an alergy of the body called alcoholism or at least it sounds like the alcoholism my exwife alcoholic suffered with and the alcoholic before that and the addict before that one. Her disease is incurable and can only be arrested by total abstinence. It is a progressive disease in that if she ever has any sober time and goes back to drinking it will be like no period of sobriety ever existed and most times it is worse. Alcoholics affect everyone they come in contact with, family, friends, associates. We who are the family and friends of alcoholics often times are just as affected as the alcoholic except that we go thru the problem wide awake without the anesthesia of alcohol to block out reality. We also affect others we come in contact with. The alcoholic has but three choices sobriety, insanity or death. We too have those three choices, Serenity, insanity or death.

Does this sound a bit familiar to you? If it does see if you can find some face to face Al-Anon Family Group meetings in your area and go attend them as often as you can for the next 90days before making a decision on how you think you should or will handle this dilemma with your sister, her son, her abusive male significant other or whatever he is titled. Get as much input as you can and as much literature as your can so that you can learn about what this is and what is happening and what you can do for yourself about it.

Keep an open mind and stick around here and read as many of the past posts that are here for you. There are others who will welcome you too and offer their experience, strength and hope for you.

Keep coming back and I am glad you popped in to check us out.

(((((hugs))))) smile

kes · Member

Thanks Jerry F for the kind words & hugs:)

I really just need an outlet to keep me sane. I now see this has been a pattern for many years and she hid it with socialising, I can't really remember a day she didn't drink for years when I look back - but it's just escalated beyond control.

And she goes through this cycle with men, falling for someone, in a relationship, then being rejected because she is unbearable and her true problems come out & she gets viscious with them. Then she starts to hate first her son, then me, then is all gushy with her son.

And it's her poor son I worry so about.

I forgot she also has HepC so she is going to end up dead if she keeps this up.

Thanks - I just need to talk, this place is a great start for me to get some serenity, and I plan on spending quite a bit of time at church over the next few days.
Thanka again :)

Christy · ~*Service Worker*~

Hi kes,

If you feel you aren't quite ready to attend a Alanon Meeting, we have meetings 2x a day in the chatroom if you'd like to check out what Alanon is all about. Online Meeting Schedules

Alanon not only offers a place for you to talk but also offers tools that help deal with the affects that the alcoholics behavior has on you.

Christy

lin0606 · ~*Service Worker*~

Just want to say - it's not only OK, but it is essential, that you do what is best for you. There is often not much we can do for the alcoholic, but at least we can keep from sliding down the slope with them, into the pit. It's all right to take care of yourself, and to do what you can for the boy.

Your sister has her own choices to make, and there is help out there for her - better help than you can give her. There is help for every alcoholic going on every night in some church basement or community hall, around a bettered table and coffee in styrofoam cups. They just need to want it enough to reach out for it.

maresie · ~*Service Worker*~

Well you have lots of options open to you. It isnt just stay in the mess put up with it or abandon this kid. I know it feels like it but al anon offers lots of options. The issue is they don't just appear overnight. I live eat and sleep on this board most of the time I am here a few hours a day most days on and off really learning from the ESH of others.

One thing you can do is to totally immerse yourself in codependent literature and knowledge about the alcoholic. Believe it or not one of the key things is not to take what your sister does personally. I know that is hard and believe me when I lived with an A I took it all extremely personally but I made a choice to do that. Now I don't but neither do I live with him anymore.

Congratulations you are beginning a great journey with this board. I have had the ride of a lifetime and am finally getting to my own codependence and working through it. Whatever I have to deal with I deal with rather than run from these days. For me that is so so tremendous. Welcome I 'm glad you are here.

Maresie.

kes · Member

Thanks so much everyone for all of the kind words and advice, I can only pop in here occasionally at the moment for everything is very volatile.
One of the biggest issues I have is just how much the boy realises, & just what I say to him, he's at a stage where he doesn't really wan tto bleeive the worst of his Mum, and she fills his head with rubbish. One of her ex co-worker who had an alcoholic husband now dead tells me to tell him straight up and to tell her to go away.
I have a close friend 2 streets away who is a lifesaver, and we are both part of our local church community - I'm going to talk with the priest this sunday and youth workers.
Thanks again & hugs.

thinkstoomuch · Senior Member

At 13/14 there's no reason he couldn't go to Alateen (if available) or even Alanon groups himself. At the very least I would suggest getting some alateen literature for him, though of course it would be up to him whether he actually reads it - I especially like "Alateen - Hope for children of Alcoholics". It's not about whether his mother is or isn't any given label - it's about giving him tools to help him cope in a very difficult situation.

Newcomer packets are available in both "regular" and "alateen" aww

and are normally free at f2f (face to face) meetings.

Glad you found us!

Maria123 · ~*Service Worker*~

(((((((((Kes))))))))))))),

Welcome to Miracles in Progress! You are already on the right path and I hope you'll keep coming. This forum is amazing. We have online meetings as well.

"If you are always doing what you've always done, you will always be getting what you've always gotten." Try something new Kes. Don't let their volatility change what you are trying to do for yourself which is get some help.

Many of us have been where you are and understand,

yours in recovery,
Maria

kes · Member

Thanks again.
I'm going to try the online meetings first either tonight or friday night, and try to get to an in person meeting Monday night. I'm also talking to advisors/counsellors throught the Windana phone service.
We are at a dangerous stage, we can't keep living like this, I keep finding she's left the gas on, or has left candles burning, or any number of other risky things.
I know I have to confront her and I keep avoiding it because she's so volatile and just shrieks and acts like an obnoxious teenager. The actual teenager - I know she's filling his head with fantasies about them all living happily ever after with the abusive partner, and that I am a horrible person. And I also know he looks at her and sees there is something wrong with her and like me tries to avoid her and wonders about what she says about me, but he's totally confused.

I don't know when to speak to her - the pattern is,
Grumpy morning sober probably has a hangover?
Mid morning self righteous, nasty, what would you know kind of attitude, busy kind of period - goes to about lunchtime, acts like a spoilt brat if she doesn't get what she wants & attention.
Afternoon, sometimes starting lunchtime, more and more slurred and emotional, drama queen period, often weepy or hysterical, anything goes wrong and she flips out, sometimes calls the C.A.T team and may be suicidal.
Later afternoon, she gets more and more drunk, night time makes no sense, slurrs, remembers nothing, talks utter gibberish by about 6/7pm, goes to bedroom.
All day long, she talks about nothing but herself, her problems, her health, whatever. You can try to change the subect, and it never gets you anywhere. Try to get away and she follows you and never stops talking, she drives me nuts. She can't keep things straight in her head, repeats herself over and over, hardly remembers anything - but strangely remembers odd bits of things to accuse me of.
She thinks she's hiding the drinking by using a coffee cup.
She also thinks she is some kind of martyr and does lots around the house. Right now she utterly repulses me and bores me to death.
I am just hanging in there for my nephew and I feel like I'm being buried alive. I just want to shout your an alcoholic get out, but I have only said quietly you have a problem, you dirnk too much aand need to cut down - even that had her shrieking abuse, I'm so sick of tiptoeing around and zipping my mouth and trying to put out the fires she causes (not literal, emotional).
I thought of setting a time on the weekend away from our house & the teenager, and with a friend close by to turn to for support after/or during.
Would it be better to have someone else talk to her, or there when I talk to her? I can't wait much longer I just can't live with this.

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.