The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
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information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
level.
I been sitting here for the last couple of hours trying to get myself to an alanon meeting but its not easy. I been dealing with this disease for the last 4 years with my daughter. She is now almost 20 years old and left our house again last night because we discovered she was stealing from us again. Its the saddest thing ever. Shes the most amazing child when sober... but a liar and a thief when shes using.
The thing is, I cant ever tell when shes using anymore. Shes makes me feel like im the crazy one even suspecting her. But the same patterns are there. Shes been coming in late, doing whatever she wants regardless of how we feel about it, and the stealing has started again. But other then these signs, I have a hard time recognizing the high. She doesnt look high...
Im just exhausted and tired. I second guess what I do all the time when it comes to her, never sure if i am handling this the right way. I dont want her to leave our home, but I just dont know how she can stay. I know she will be back...she always comes back and will do whatever we want but its short-lived. I been told not to let her back this time but I dont think I can do that...its a loose - loose situation...thanks for listening...
This disease is cunning baffling and powerful. I found it so very freeing to finally understand that I was/ am, powerless over the disease and over, people, places and things.
I know you love your daughter and are so very worried. The best you can do for her is to get to an alanon meeting. If that is too hard try our on- line meetings or the open chat line. Here you will break the isolation. know that you are not alone and pick up some tools that will relieve your fear, anxiety and pain It is a win / win situation.
No one will give you advice about what you should do about your family . Slowly after being in program awhile your inner voice will become stronger and you will know what is the next right action.
She is grown now. You did your job and just because she has problems and issues, that does not mean you failed as a parent. It is on your daughter to get well now. I cannot tell you what to do exactly, as I have not been in your shoes, but I just wanted to let you know it's not all your fault and you can't fix it all by loving her and trying to protect her. At some point she has to be dealt with as a fully grown adult.
Kids don't come with an instruction manual. I am sure they did the best they knew how. Plus the instinct is to love your child more when they are sick...not cut them loose. To stop enabling, you have to do what is completely counterintuitive. Let them go, knowing they may flounder and fail, but there is no other way they will learn.
we are here for support, concern and to share our positive experience, strength and hope.
Sometimes we do have to allow them to find their own Dignity and self-respect ~ even tho it hurts us to let go!
Maybe if you have some recovery literature you could read some stuff on healthy boundaries and what happens if your loved one doesn't honor your boundaries - that info really helped me.
PINK HUGS, Rita
-- Edited by canadianguy on Tuesday 25th of January 2011 09:00:34 PM
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No matter what me and my God are going to be ok, even better than OK -
Aloha Hopeful...She has been making herself "different" than what goes on in your lives and she has been responsible for that choice and behavior. She needs to be reminded of that along with the awareness that we all get to be responsible for the consequences also. Took me a long time to get that lesson down to where I would remember it before I made my choices. She has earned her present consequences and in order to feel comfortable with them she needs to be with users and drinkers and not normies. Normies have another lifestyle which she isn't choosing so she can separate.
It isn't like she doesn't have the information about drug and alcohol addiction. The information about what it is and what it does has been around longer than we have had radios and televisions and health classes in school. She knows and she chooses to use anyway "inspite" of the information. She wants what she is getting. She is working for it.
Parents are not supposed to be drug rehab people...though I've known many who had to learn how to piss test their child, check their behaviors and call for intervention and attend family group 2 times a week. Families are too close to the problem to see the solution. It takes a very experienced therapist with natural detachment and the tight boundaries of a in/out rehab program to have that kind of hammer and then even with the therapist there is no guarantee and the youth still get to have all of the consequences, mind...body...spirit...emotions. Drugs and alcohol affect all of those parts all at the same time.
So you can't see the evidence. What I use to work with my parents to maintain their own sanity and atmosphere of home was to "trust your feelings...intuition...read the body language" and then go with the feeling. It isn't so much about being right or wrong as it is about being alert with active memory. If they are not doing something different they are doing the same thing they have always done and trying to sell you on the idea that they are not.
Lots of MIP members have in the past set the boundary that if the drinker or user wasn't in rehabilitation for their chemical problem they also were not in the house. That is fair, that is honest and that is just.
Let her have her choices. Let her have her consequences. Remember also that the consequences you are currently living with come the very same way.
