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.
I am struggling with a situation in my home over the past year that has steadily been getting worse & I am afraid that if I continue on the path that I am on I will do irreprable damage to a relationship.
I have a 21 yr old son who for much of his life I have been close to. During his jr. high school years he started slacking off with school, lying & some stealing. I would always call him on his behavior and try to help him see his potential in one breath then defend some of his behavior in the next. I made mistakes along the way for sure but I did the best I knew how to do.
In 2007 I got the first bit of inkling of my sons drinking problem. He was at a party and injured himself pretty badly - he called me and was so drunk that he did not know where he was and none of the friends he was with would tell me where he was. Fortunately, one of the people he knew at the party brought him home & the dutiful mother that I am brought him to the hospital for treatment & stayed up all night with him to make sure he was ok. The following day I was ready to go after every one of my son's friends and the parents of the girl who had the underage party. It was everyone elses fault but my sons. My sponsor quickly set me straight on that.
Since then, the drinking has gotten much worse & there have been several other medical and/or legal issues. Most recently he held a series of parties in my home while we were on vacation which resulted in my husband and I needing to repair or clean much of our home. Like most alcoholics he has no accountability for what occured - it was all someone else & has not made any efforts to make restitution.
Now if all of this was not enough to create ripples in one's sanity the real issue is just how much my son reminds me of my ex-ah. As my son's disease progresses so do some of our interactions. What concerns me most is that during these interactions I find that more often than not I call him by his fathers name. Attitudes, mannerisms, appearance, & even the way he stands are all his father. So there in lies the struggle for me - my complete disgust for my ex has blinded me to compassion for my son who is suffering from this disease. I have tried to look past it but it keeps coming back and I do not like the way I feel when it does. I do not like the overwhelming urge to want to punch the hell out of my son when I dont see him but instead I see his father. It is not fair to my son and I know it and I feel like a horrible mother & person for the inability to seperate the sins of the father from the son.
I will continue to pray for guidance and trust my HP. I will pray for my son to find recovery. Above all I will pray for release of the anger that I thought was gone so long ago with regards to my ex. And when I am done with all of that I will even pray for the ex.
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Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care. Love you all!
Karen
Wow can I relate...my 18 yr old son is his father. The way he sits the way he stands even the way he drinks a damn glass of milk.
I also see some tendencies in him leaning toward the alcoholic world.
Here is something i try and remember...could i save my husband NO, can I save my son..NO...however maybe by the grace of God he will listen, something will catch on and he will save himself.
Please try and remember they are half of us too...isn't that a wonderful thing???? So as much of the bad they got from thier fathers as much good they get from thier moms.
You are in my prayers he is not his father he is your son.
Hi and thank you for your post :) this was very interesting for me to read. I am a female, but it is astounding how I look JUST like my dad who was a heroin addict. My brother who is a recovering A (only 2 months) has a son who is a spitting image of him, so much so its almost freaky :) Everyone says, oh so and so is just like your brother. This child is not my brother, and I am not my father no matter how much physical appearances or gestures etc...remind a person. I have a son who looks very very much like his father who i am no longer with...the only thing that comes to mind and believe me i have no great esh on this subject lol.......is we are not them, no matter what we look like, walk like or act like :) thanks very intersting post...
((((Alamom))))...When I first got into Al-Anon I was in the same thinking and feeling and perspective as you have mentioned here. I was where you are at now and then I heard, "If you keep and open mind, you will find help." I made that decision and then I heard...Alcoholism is a disease not a moral issue...it is not a matter of sin but a matter of sickness and that alone altered my perspective concerning my alcoholic wife in such a huge way that I was able to tell the difference between the woman and the alcoholic behavior. She became a sick person. Would I feel disgusted of her if she had diabetis or cancer? Plainly no so I made up my mind to understand as much about the disease of alcoholism as I could and today I have no questions or doubts about the disease aspect. You hate in your son what you saw in his father and it sounds then like old resentments are still there...wide resentments even beyond the son and father.
Alcoholism is a progressive disease unless totally arrested it crosses generational lines and shows up in dna tests; it is genetic. It is a disease just like the tuberculosis I inherited from my father of orgin and...the alcoholism; I got that one also. I also inherited the reaction to the disease from the enablers in my family; the reactors and the definition of alcoholism told me that it was also possible..."be the alcoholic, be the enabler...be both."
Does the first step still fit for you? Does it still fit now? You mentioned sponsor so I got the idea that you have been around program some. The idea spelled out in the first step had to become real for me totally so that I could surrender the fight totally.
If you are even calling another person your exhusbands name you are still tied, in my experience, to the past.
Jerry, Thanks for the response - all of which you said I do know having been around this program for so many years. After some thought today after posting I am of the belief that old charachter defects are emerging with a vengence which only tells me that I am not working a strong program in my life now.
Yes there are still ties to the anger of the past with regards to my ex as they keep coming to the surface in the present with my son. I at this time do have the compassion to place my son in the hands of his higher power - not so much with my ex but then again I am human and have my faults.
Thank you for the great reminders and support - both are appreciated. I am grateful to have such a great network to come to.
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Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care. Love you all!
Karen
" he is not his father he is your son" This made a lot of difference in how I handled my son today with some of his BS.
Unfortunately, my son has gone long beyond the tendencies aspect of this disease. I love him because he is my son but I do not have to like him or his actions. Its taken a lot of soul searching in the last few hours to realize that I am not applying the same principles to him as I do to most of the other alcoholics in my life. Not sure why that is but now that I recognize it I can & will work on it.
My son is luckier than most however, as he has a stepfather in recovery & a grandfather who passed this past spring with 37 years of recovery. The seed is there for him & hopefully he will see it sooner rather than later.
__________________
Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care. Love you all!
Karen
Your sons actions and progression of this disease is pretty much my own sons story. Only neither my husband or I are A's. So while I can't relate to you comparing your son to his father. I have said things to my son in anger that no mother should say to their child. Until one day I was yelling at him, jumped up in his face ( he's alot taller than me), I looked in his eyes and then I saw pure, raw pain in his eyes that I had never bothered to look for before. Compassion wasn't even in my vocabulary at the time. All I saw what was he was doing "to us". I had to walk away and figure out in my head what I had just witnessed. And what I witnessed was my child in so much pain that he had to drown it out with drugs and alcohol. Then I had to wonder what would have happened to cause that much pain. To this day I don't know the root of his pain. But that day I learned compassion. Thats not to say my sons behavior changed at all but my interactions with him sure did. I have even made my ammends to him for my part in contributing to this disease. I know the 3 C's but I also know that by my behavior towrds him was not what he needed. He didn't need me to pull him down any farther than he had already fallin and he didn't need me to add to or validate the fact that he thinks so little of himself that he drowns it out with chemicals. Bottom line was I couldn't change his behavior but I could change my own Blessings
