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Just to update you on my older post "desperately needing advice" things took a turn for the worse, I tried to get my husband to back me in putting down our new rule that my son would have ten weeks to leave, my husband dragged his feet and didnt agree with me and hadnt the courage to face our son.
my son is very sucessful in manipulating my husband, and holds an us and them view, of me, that its him and my husband against me as i am the stronger one, so he finds it easy to keep my husband on side, by using guilt etc etc, anyway, i reached rock bottom and had a break down, resulting in my being hospitalised for 2 weeks, at first my son was sorry and even came to visit me, then he quickly went back to his old ways.
what hurts me is that in the 7 months since I left them, due to the drinking, and while my husband did stop drinking, my son never once stopped and drank every night, he never once asked me to visit and talk or to try to find a compromise, he cut me off completely and said I had left him, he refused to phone, or visit me.
my husband allowed him to continuing drinking in our home 7 nights a week, taking minimal board off him, and kept bailing him out financially, which caused arguments with us,
I have now returned to my family home, and they were supposed to go and live in my lodgings, but my son managed to put this off for nearly 2 weeks, the other night, he point blank refused to leave here, and kept saying his drinking was my fault because he needs to drink to sleep as he has images of my messed up childhood, he said i was a bad mother for leaving him 7 months ago (he is 23) and that I should understand why he drinks and stand by him
I told him although I had had a horrific childhood I am not drinking, and that he was welcome to live with me if he stopped drinking, he point blank refused to, so I had to have the police remove him, which caused more arguments with my husband
What shocked me is that he left rather than live with me and stop drinking, but what also hurts and confuses me is his absolute refusal to stop drinking even ONE night a week, and how he has turned all this onto me, I refused to let him move into my husbands new lodgings, and made him go and stay with a friend, which I knew he would hate, now he wants to move in with my husband and of course he will let him
my husband and I are still seperated but sort of trying for a reconciliation, but I am becoming more and more upset with my husband and feel let down, he left here the other night and left me alone to deal with the police putting my son out, said he simply couldnt watch it, I felt deserted and my son sent my husband a text to thank him for not calling the police, I feel that so long as my husband is seen by my son to be "on his side" he will get away with his belief that I am a controlling mother and just trying to stop his fun
he says his life is comfortable and he is happy as he is, that at least he is not drinking 7 days a week too, its all my fault apparently becuase he has to live with the horrors of my childhood and didnt ask to be born, I kept bringing it back to his drinking and stayed calm,
I feel guilty, confused, upset, and let down by my husband, but also devastated that my son can be so heartless and harsh towards me, he knows I suffer from Post Traumatic Stress and that any alcohol around me can trigger flashbacks to my awful childhood, yet, he continued to keep me up at night, with loud music, drinking, and gave me no peace to try to survive my PTSD and depression,
I can predict the future as my husband and son living together, my husband paying for everythign, my son, cutting me off again, especially now I called the police for him, and this just going on and on and on, any advice? I feel like writing to my son and telling him to keep away from me till he faces the truth, I want to cut him off to protect myself, he wont listen to any reason, whether he is drunk or sober, is very ruthless, and i also find it hard to see him being so disrespectful to my husband who is loyally supporting him.
I totally get what you're saying...its like talking to a brick wall. They truly believe what they are doing is ok...and it's complete insanity!! I'm dealing with this too...the only way I can even function and deal somewhat is having no contact whatsoever. I can't listen to the crap, because that's all it is. Nothing they say makes any sense. By hearing it or being around it or seeing him...its the only way for me right now...maybe for you too...I'm so sorry we all have to suffer with this stupid crap!!!!
In my experience here on this board, and through alanon and my sponsor, I have to stop taking everything so personally. We have an acronym for it: QTIP=quit taking it personally. They drink because they drink, and they blame, but you know its not true. The three C's here say it all: You didn't cause it, you can't control it and you can't cure it. The only thing you can do, is change you. Your reactions, your ways. You can keep to your side of the street and find sponsor and start working the steps. Another thing I have learned is that I have to detach. I have to stop thinking, worrying, everything about the A in my life. Whether he uses/drinks or not, when I am concentrating on him in anyway, I am enmeshed and not detached. I can find my A sober and talk to him then, but if I try to yell, scream, control, question, coerce, force a solution, silent treatment him or any thing else, it find it does not work. The only thing that works is me working on me, concentrating on me. Asking my HP for help and guidence. To take the problems and allow me some peace.
It sounds like you have set a boundary by having your son and husband leave the house. Thats great, but you also sound like you are very resentful. That is a normal feeling, but you have to let it go. That is another one of our great slogans: Let go and let HP (Higher power). Nothing changes if nothing changes. I work hard at it every day, but this program and the tools work if you work them. Keep coming back and take care of you. Focus on you and you will feel better. Thinking of them and what they are doing, will only make you sicker. I have become sicker, quicker through this program, and am able to come back to my recovery more quickly. Thanks to my sponsor, Alanon books, and MIP... :)
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You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection. -Buddha
The past has flown away. The coming month and year do not exsist. Ours only is the present's tiny point. -Mahmud Shabistanri
Well I can definitly relate to your post on so many levels. I will try and make sense of this reply. First of all thier is nothing that will tear a couple apart as quick as having an A child. My husband and I have been married going on 30 years neither of us A's but both come from highly addictive families. We are each others best friends, actually not only love one another but we like each other and before my sons addiction I could count on 1 hand the times my husband and i strongly disagreed or fought about something. i too suffer from PTSD from horrible experiences from my childhood and I had suppressed most of those memories until a few years ago i was in a horrible car accident which made me feel totally vulenerable ( as I was a a child). I fought it as hard as I could but eventually i totally checked out of life. Therapy, meds etc were usless to me. I was so filled with anxiety I couldn't bring myself to go to work after a while, of course lost my job which was my dream job and soon I wasn't even leaving my own home. For over a year I couldn't take one step outside my house as I saw danger everywhere. I was also chronially depressed, didn't get off the couch for 2 years and durning that time my husband who is disabled tried to hold everything together. But my son was slipping further into his addiction and I had no strenght or even the will to stop it or intervene. By the grace of God I was lead to alanon. No face to face meetings in my area so all my recovery is done online. Of course I came here for my son but soon found that this program works in ALL areas of my life. I shared my story, my childhood everything to perfect strangers and they all understood ( wow that was a total shock) and the first thing the wonderful people of alanon did for me was help me dig my way out of the deep dark hole I was living in. Inch by inch I was getting better, my son wasn't but I was growing stronger every day. If you work this program despite what your son or husband will do I can promise you it will also work in ALL aspects of your life K I am rambling now let me get to my point. Becuase of his addiction my son had lost all his jobs and basically stayed high 24/7. Our lives were beyond insane and unmanagble. My husband was like you, wanting to get our son out of our house. By this time my husband (who adores his son) didn't care how we got him out he just wanted him gone. Me? All I knew was my son was just so sick. He had lost all his jobs so had no money and couldn't stay sober long enough to find a job, he had lost all his friends so he couldn't stay with any of them, no relative would take him in ( and they shouldn't have) and all I could think of we would just be releasing him to live in the streets if he was lucky maybe get into a shelter, all i could think was he would surely overdose ( as he had before) and die in the streets. I could not project 1 senerio where throwing him out would turn out to be a good thing. This caused several arguments between my husband and I and my son very well knew I was the weak link that i would never allow him to live on the streets to die. And anytime i may have leaned towards my husbands position my son was quick to point out that he would just kill himself if we turned him out. The tension in our home quadrupled over this dissagreement. It put my husband and i at odds all the time. There was no peace to be found in our home. But as I grew in the program i knew my husband was right but again could not turn our son out, I just wasn't strong enough. It took at least a year in working my program that I realized that just putting a roof over our sons head was enabling him. His drug of choice is halluinegens they are called "loner drugs" when he could no longer afford to buy drugs he researched over the counter meds that taken in large quantities would produce the same effect and again with no money he learned to steal these drugs everday sometimes several times a day. We live in a small town, every store in town knew him on site because of his stealing and yet they could never catch him in the act. He would take these massive amounts of drugs then get home as quick as he could before the hallucinations set in, go downstairs and isolate. So yes just giving him a roof was enabling him because if he had no where to go he couldnt kick back and enjoy his hallucinations. He was in trouble with the law with a possesion charge....they gave him chance after chance even sending him to 30 day rehab and the kid would not comply with his probation. The fights continued in our home until one day my husband said he was "done" he stopped communicating with our son unless he was sober and when he was high my husband would lock himself away in his computer room. He told me "let me know when you are on the same page as me, until then he is your respondsibility" He wasn't kidding and we drifted apart even more. And it still took me a while working the program to get on the same page as my husband. I realized despite his threats of killing himself my son was already slowly killing himself right in my own home and I couldn't watch it anymore and he was sinking fast and talking my husband and I right down with him. I finally found that I had to save myself and my husbands relationship and that meant out son couldn't be here anymore. So we sat him down in a sober moment and laid out our boundaires. If he wished to remain a drug addict than we had to give him the dignity of his decision but we didn't have to watch or enable it anymore. If he came home one more time than we would drive him to the homeless shelter. We told him we were choosing to save ourselves even though we would always love him uncondtionally forever. Son said he understood exactly what we were saying and agreed to all of it. Then he promply went out and got high. The most painful moments of our lives. I sobbed as did my husband as we went about packing up all his things. With my son following me around asking why? and to give him one more chance etc. We weren't angry there was no yelling or accusing just complete sadness. By law I had to inform his probation officer this was no longer his home and that we would be talking him to a shelter. The PO asked that we just keep him there and he would come get him, and he did. The judge ordered him into the jail rehab program he was there 10 months. He is now on the work release program where he can leave the jail each day and look for work and a place to live. I had found a sober living home he could go to as we had to keep reminding him home was no longer an option, he just found a part time job but can't be released until he is working 30 hours a week so i guess he will have to work his way up to that. But he has been out and about looking for work a month now without a relapse ( knock on wood) and he is the type of person who thinks he could easily fool the guards and pass a pee test if ge were to get high. So his being out this long and staying straight has been a minor miracle. So I don't think it is uncommon for parents of an A to disagree on how to treat them, in fact I think it is pretty common. It may take time for your husband to come around but all things are subject to change and there may come a point when your husband is no longer willing to live with your son and his addiction. It may take time like it did with me but it still could happen. I urge you now that you are on your own and pretty much detached from your son to throw yourself into the program and work it as hard as you can. I know with my son gone and peace restored in our home I took advantage of this time to work work and work my program and it has turned my life around. It has even help me cope with my PTSD big time. I am now fully fuctional although can't find a job to save my life, being disabled for a few years puts your application on the bottom of the pile. But HP will take care of me and the fact I have my sanity back is worth more than any job could ever pay me. Sorry to have rambled on...I tend to do that lol I wish you the best in you recovery Blessings
A sure sign of an alcoholic is they keep on drinking no matter what the circumstances. In al anon we adopt the three C's, we didn't cause it, we can't cure it and we can't control it.
Your description of your husband's behavior reminds me of my exA. I felt chronically let down, deserted and abandoned. If there was ever an issue he backed the other person. I never learned not to take that personally.
Thanks to everyone for their replies, I have started to look at the 12 steps, and have already purchased some of the books, but personal experiences are valuable so thank you.
Xeno your story sounds so much like mine, while i was desperately struggling with a very dysfunctional childhood (as an adult survivor) my son began drinking, it sort of crept up on us, and i was so zonked with my own depression etc I never even noticed, it felt like I woke up one day and my son was like a stranger sitting in my living room, I simply didnt know him or how he had got to where he was.
my husband and I are in love, and are friends, we do get on well, and though he has drank over the years he does stop when I issue ultimatums, he hasnt drank for 8 months now, I think the reason I let my son away with so much is that I felt so guilty for not being there emotionally for him while he was growing up, I adopted the attitude that he must have had an awful life with me, as i suffered from PTSD and dperession etc, so I gave in to a lot of the drinking in the early days, then it began to affect my mental health as it grew and has led to this.
I am going to try to put into practice everything that has been said here, I am not so much resentful as devastated as I know i have lost my son for now, to the drinking and the fact he cut me off when I left the maritial home and has cut me off again now I have put him out, so I guess I am "grieving" him, as i wasnt prepared to have my world turned upside like this, first having to move out, then how cruel he was when I did, and now coming back home but putting him out and he now hates me of course for ringing the police, and wont talk to me.
I wasnt ready yet to lose my son, could accept it if he had left to go to college or something, but to lose him to alcohol and what its done to him, how harsh he is to me etc, its pretty much broken me completely.
I am sad it has come to this. Sad husband didn't stay home, and let that other place go.
Are you able to get to meetings? "Getting Them Sober" book?
It just does not matter what son says. He is under the influene of drugs. He is an addict.
Dad is totally making him sicker. We have NO control over this.
So hon best for you to take care of YOU. Basics, healthy food, hydrated, nap, read. Find what you love to do. Paint a room. If you are spiritually involved get into a Bible study.
Lose yourself in YOU. If I could I would volunteer somewhere.
I am sure right now you don't feel very strong. It is hurtful to have anyone talk to us like that, the worst when it is our kids.
I know for me I had to learn to separate myself from how my kids sometimes can break my heart.It is not easy. I know lots of it is my problem. I need to not put so much importance in their very shakey memories!
I mean as simple as my daughter as a teen would turn her head and not let me take pics so I stopped. Then as an adult was mad that I took no pics of her. gads.
I know your situation is lots more serious. As long as dad babies son, son will continue to use in comfort. Son is as immature as he was when he began drinking. So if he started at 14 he is 14.
So blaming you for leaving, makes sense as he is only a young teen in reality.
As I alwasy say we cannot control anyone but ourselves, take care of ourselves. We have no idea what anyone things but ourself.
You are home, if you need life around you, get some plants, adopt a dog or cat. Make it your own.
Develop a good relationship with you. This is my experience.
I am very sad you are going thru this. Please keep coming. there are meetings here too.
I asked my husband not to come home, although he hasnt drank for 8 months now I still wanted more time to decide if I want my marraige to work, i just needed space and time, we still see each other every day and are sort of reconciled but not living together,
I forgot to say in my other posting that my husband has allowed my son to move in with him, but has told him he must pay half of all the bills, thats progress, of course my son is still going to try to manipulate him and control him for his own needs, but at least i am now back in my family home and have some proper breathing space to see how this pans out.
thanks for all your suggestions, I have 2 dogs and a cat, and I do look after myself, for now I cant go to meetings, outside my home as I am still trying to cope with PTSD and depression, but will try to join the meetings online, you have helped me tonight and I am now off to bed, so thank you!
