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Greetings, MIP'ers! It is surreal for me to be here, posting about this. I recently visited my sister, who lives a few states away, and was pretty shocked at how she is living and the state of her life.
Our family of origin has a history of alcoholism, but I never took it seriously until this visit with my sister. I knew one could get into an addictive pattern with alcohol, but I didn't see it changing my siblings lives as they binged in college. I thought it was just my father's problem, and his father's, and my paternal grandmother's. It had nothing to do with my brothers, sister, or myself in my mind.
After this eye-opening visit, I find myself needing to do something to help my sister at least have an idea of the resources to turn to to get her life straight. I find myself extremely troubled at how she's doing and the fact that this will have greater health consequences due to her blood condition. I feel like it is up to me to "save" her, but I know that I can't.
How can I help her, continue to be her confidante, not have her hate me, and get her the help she needs?
***STORY BELOW - Apologies that it's so long!***
My AS (Alcoholic Sister) is having trouble and she won't talk to me about it- keeps pretending there's no prob. Her H is always out w a group of friends gaming and partying, barhopping, and AS told me that she can't drink that way anymore bc. of her blood condition, which has gotten worse - she doesn't eat at all (I forced her, good naturedly of course, to have a sandwich while I was there).I think she has a huge secret drinking problem.I overheard (loud cell phone settings) her call to her H, who was barhopping.
He was angry w. her because he discovered a liquor bottle watered down and thought she drank it all.She was supposed to go to work, but called in that day - he accused her of staying home bc. she was drinking.... My H noticed a shaking of her hands and asked if she'd just smoked a bowl before we arrived (she said no, but later offered me pot?!).She also fell at work last winter and got a bad concussion - she's not quite herself a lot of the time now and we wonder if it's the drinking problem or the concussion.It could possibly be both.
When my H went to bed, AS wanted me to run to the gas station down the street for aspirin, so I came along.We drove down and she said she'd just be out in a minute.I could see where it was going, and told her I'd come in with her, so we both went in.,.She pretended to be looking at a tiny display of one-dose aspirins, but didn't see what she needed.All the while I'm taking in the store - it's not your regular gas station with junk food, a little beer, and so on.It's basically a liquor store.The guys behind the glass (where an impressive wall of liquor faced us) greeted her, said "she's one of our best customers!She's in here every day!Sometimes TWICE a day, three times a day!!"I laughed like it was funny and she ordered two single shot bottles of vodka.All the cashiers knew her, asked how it's going, etc.I wanted more than anything to just go home, but once you see something like how a sibling is really doing you can't shut that knowledge out.
She asked that I not tell Mom about the concussion and her neurophysician appointment to assess the damage.
I have to talk to my brother and we've got to get a plan for how we want to deal with this.Creepy.She is shaking all the time, can't eat a whole PB & J sandwich, furtively binge drinking, out of it at work enough that her boss told my mother about it, and her H is choosing to stay out with friends and sleep at other people's houses rather than be with her when she's like that.She's all alone most of the time in that house, or working, and it's taking a toll.
Maybe she should move back with my parents for a while and go to AA and counseling.
I don't see the marriage lasting this way - her H is choosing activities to keep busy out of the house away from her and meeting new groups of people. AS told me he has a friend (female) who he has come to their house EVERY Thursday for pizza and a movie w. them.But it's ASH's friend, and he's having them meet.I have the sick sensation he's made the friend his confessor about my AS, her problems, etc.He wouldn't come home when she asked him to while we were there.He was furious she'd called in to work, just not loving being around her, escaping with friends, partying, and online gaming.
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"It isn't what happens to us that matters, but how we choose to interpret it and react."
I'm so sorry to hear you're facing this. It sounds as if you're in the right place.
You probably have heard the three C's: You didn't Cause it, you can't Control it, and you can't Cure it. I'm afraid this applies to your sister too. You probably already know from your experience with your father and other family members that explaining how harmful the drinking is gets nowhere. The addiction is strong and will do anything to defend itself.
Some people try formal interventions, and there's some literature out there about how to do them. From what I've read, they seem to need a position in rehab already set up for the alcoholic to go, and they usually fail unless the family doing the intervention has some kind of leverage. And even then I believe the success rate is not very high.
What you can control is your own serenity, which sounds as if it may be severely tested in the time to come. Learn all you can about alcoholism and what happens when we grow up in an alcoholic family. Find a local Al-Anon meeting (try several beacuse they're all different) and get a good bunch of supportive folks who know what it's like. Keep coming back and reading the boards. There are many people here in the same situation. Hugs to you.
You may have heard the saying... "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink."
What it means is you can't instill in someone the urge to get help. It has to come from within. Try putting yourself in a hypothetical situation. Let's say there's a color you absolutely love. Your friends think you should love a different color and they try to do all they can to convince you that you should like the other color. You know no matter what that your opinion of your favorite color isn't going to change. In fact, your friends badgering you about the different color only gets you to feeling resentful at their intrusion, even though your friends are only doing it because they think it's going to be good for you.
Alcoholism is it is NOT a choice. NO alcoholic out there wants to have a drinking problem. They all would love to be able to drink "normally" - to be able to control their drinking and not live day to day in confusion and anguish. But they cannot. When they try to control it, their body riots - quite strongly. It will scream at them for more alcohol. It's not as simple as their just deciding one day "you know, I'm just going to abstain." They require support to get through it, and that's where AA comes in. But as I mentioned earlier, AA can only help if the alcoholic WANTS the help.
There's an offer at the top of this forum for a free book called "Getting Them Sober". I suggest you request a copy and give it a read.
It is PAINFUL watching your loved ones suffer with this disease. It's natural to want to help them. But the disease is far more powerful than any good intentions we may have.
Al-Anon can help you to learn how to respond around the disease where you can keep yourself safe from getting wrapped up in its drama. It will help you learn how to be a loving presence in your alcoholic's lives, but Al-Anon will not... cannot... teach you how to cure alcoholism.
There is no cure. If there was one, believe me, there would be no alcoholics/alcoholism in this world, as those of us who don't want to see people suffer from it would have put that cure to quick use.
Thanks for opening up and sharing with us. Check your local phone book to find some face-to-face Al-Anon meetings. Or you can locate them here: http://al-anon.alateen.org/meetings/meeting.html
(I'm not sure what quick reply does, but here goes!)
I phoned my former individual and marriage counsellor today, who practices in the state my sister lives in. I plan to ask my sister to go to an appointment with my IC. I know that this can go either way - she never makes the appointment, she takes one appointment to make me happy and quits going, she goes to several appointments.
She needs life coaching in addition to substance abuse counselling, and I'm really seeing her marriage beginning to give out - it's only a year old, but they used to binge together with friends, a major bonding activity. There were other activities they bonded over, but now her H is so angry with her re: the AA that he has just opted to escape into another party, another online game, and it appears another woman's friendship. I don't want to see her lose everything, including the ability to get a better life going on, but I don't know what I can do. I can insist she do A, B, and C like my mother and have her stop speaking to me about anything true or real (as she has with our mom). I can sit back and pretend she doesn't have an A problem with the rest of the family. I can wait for the phone call that her blood condition and the A problem have resulted in her death.
Thank you for the solid advice so far. I'm a fixer, and it's hard to comprehend that I can't just make her get help and make her recover. I've watched episodes of "Intervention" and other reality based addiction shows, and I have been surprised to see that even after treatment people can just relapse. So I just have no control over how she does? But I can choose to stop enabling her A? Wow. Trying to accept this, trying to think of how to put it into practice.
Thank you for your replies thus far! You are all great, and I know how lucky we are that there is a MIP.
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"It isn't what happens to us that matters, but how we choose to interpret it and react."
"Getting Them Sober" is a great book to guide you.
I KNOW I was very into saving too. Felt it was my responsibility to make sure whoever did what they needed.
The only way they can get help is totally on their own. If she wants to, gets sick enough to, it is up to her. We do nothing.
In fact when we intervene it makes it worse, so much worse. They do it to please us or for any other reason than they are ready to do it for themselves.
Your sis is not stupid, she knows what is happening, she knows the right thing to do.
Its hard for us to think so opposite as we want to. The disease has you by the tail. It is making you crazy. Instead of thinking about sis, we need to think about ourselves.
Sadly yes, most people relapse. If they go to rehab on their own, find their own recovery, the chances are better that recovery will be longer. Remember for them, their life is "normal" for them. In recovery they are not themselves so it is a moment to moment commitment to stay in recovery.
We being involved takes away from their own power to take care of themselves.
I hope this helps. It took me a long time to realise doing nothing was the best thing I could do for he A's in my life.
Thanks for the good advice, Debilyn! It makes sense, esp. in light of our FOO issues. We grew up in an authoritarian household and grew the sense of learned helplessness about our ability to choose the lives we wanted and our ability to recognize our needs and the vocabulary to ask for the needs to be met. I'm in my mid-thirties and just now learning to name my feelings, I've ignored them (and my needs) for so long trying to make everyone happy. I think my sister's problem is the exact same thing - not knowing how to do things for herself. For years, my H did everything for me, believing he was doing me a loving favor. Neither of us discovered til recently that taking the easy route and avoiding the things I didn't know if I could do only proved to me that I could not do anything for myself. It made my ability to make choices and control my life harder. I abdicated all sense of responsibility to others, and it was a terrible feeling. Your post helps me to recognize this same learned helplessness in my sister's way of dealing with life's inevitable issues. She's drinking because deep down, she doesn't know she can live any other way. I know she can, but I can't tell her and have it really sink in- she has to live it and find her own answers. This is tough, but I can do it. Now, to learn more about it.
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"It isn't what happens to us that matters, but how we choose to interpret it and react."
Sorry to hear of your family. Sounds like a family illness. You can't save your sister nor can you take responsibility for her drinking.
Atleast that much is sinking in for me.
I know when my husband and I first married his father liked to drink. However I never knew he was an alcoholic. I remember how upset my MIL and my husband were about his drinking. My husband is now worse then his father was. Now my son has taken after my husband and they hang out a lot and drink together. Both my son and my husband do not deal with stress or problems well. They handle their problems with a beer in their hand. Both of them have personality changes. I see my son destroying his young life because of drinking and it hurts because I am afraid for him.
Hope it all works out for your family and also for you. I will let some of the senior members advise how you can be there for your sister in other ways.
I'm glad you found your way to MIP. It sounds like your sister is at a stage where she would need medical detox. Choosing, for her, involves so much more then a mindset or willpower. The tremors you saw are more then likely her body screaming for alcohol, a sign of withdrawl. It gets to a point that alcohol is required to function. Without it can come hallucinations, seizures, organ failure....even death. Even if she wants to stop, her body isn't letting her have that freedom.
Seeing a counselor could help, until the shaking begins. I think there is a fear involved when they begin to have tremors. It's much, much easier to take a drink then to suffer withdrawls. It has to be scary to have your body be in control and not your mind.
However, there is always hope. I've seen complete lifestyle changes and the will to live return to those who are committed. It can happen :)
Christy
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If we think that miracles are normal, we will expect them. And expecting a miracle is the surest way to get one.
Thanks for the observation that my sister may need medical detox, Christy - I might need to suggest a different route for that then beginning with a counselling appointment. My mother wants my sister to get to Mayo Clinic for a regular workup on her blood condition, and I think it would be best for people who know about her blood condition at such a good facility to be in the position to maybe suggest medical detox and tell us how she might go about it with the condition. Lots of medications interfere with her condition, and perhaps they could help her get well enough to assess her life at this moment. Great observation - this really helps! Her eye whites were bloodshot and often look yellowed, as well, for whatever that is worth. I'm new to the signs and symptoms and what they might mean, but I know that kind of eyes is no good. And I know it's not allergies, because she didn't sneeze once.
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"It isn't what happens to us that matters, but how we choose to interpret it and react."
