Hi Lacey, I sat here and thought about you and your mom a lot. Yes you are in a every difficult place.

My thoughts brought the usual Al Anon things we share.

It is a disease not unlike cancer, or ms or anything. We want to help so badly, however we can do nothing. If we try to do things, clean the up, get them off the floor, make excuses for them, it honestly makes it worse.

She may wake up in a mess on the floor and realise she has to do something about this. She is the only one who can. If we baby them, we can take away what might make them get the strength to stop.

It's so hard as it is your mother. What you can do, that will help her, believe me, is take care of you. do your best not to let her disease hurt you.

What are you into? Music,gardening, fashion, riding bikes, sports? Whatever it is, do your best to get very involved in it. Get to know others who are too.It is my experience that kids need other kids who have the same interests.

You may find adult mentors too. Talking to a special teacher or other staff at school helps.

If you have your own room, you can keep it nice just for you. I am a mom, and I would want my kids to do whatever they could to be happy, and not allow my illness to bring them down. I would want them to take care of themselves, go to movies, goof around with friends, not hang around me trying to help me which is a waste of your young life!

Please keep coming, put this site on your favorites if you choose to come back. You are very safe here believe me.

Honey sometimes all we can do is love the sick person in our life. Mine was my husband who I loved very, very much. Love was all that was left. For me that was all that was left. I learned to forgive him, not bring up what he did, did not feel I was any better than him. I just loved him.

Hope to see you here again kiddo,love,debilyn

Welcome to MIP,

Here's another website about Alateen meetings:



http://www.al-anon.alateen.org/for-alateen/how-will-alateen-help-me

 

 

Aloha Lacey and welcome to the MIP Board...There is also a Family Teen board and I am sure you are welcomed at both.  Alateen is a part of the Al-Anon Family Groups which was founded for the family, friends and associates of alcoholics and addicts.  The program has been around for a long time and there are many members in that program here at MIP so welcome...you  are  not  alone in this.  You are loved and unconditionally supported.  I don't know what town or district you are in however the hotline phone number for Al-Anon should be in it and you can call it to get local membership to support you.  Getting as much information about the disease of alcoholism is very important so that you come to understand what your Mum and you are up against.

On the face page of this board is a posting from John about alcoholism being a disease...please read that.  If you are able to get a lift to a meeting there is lots of literature there also.  If you are attending school ask your school health counselor for information and ask her to have it available for you and your school pals who also have the same problem.  Yes you are not alone and the disease and what it does to people, drinker or not, should be talked openly about. 

It is good that aside from what your Mum is telling you that you can clearly see what it is otherwise.  Stick around here so that you can read and learn and ask for help from those of us who have been in your situation.  I was born and raised within the influence of alcoholism.  It wasn't very good having to rely on adults that were soooo messed up.   Keep coming back (((((hugs)))))

Hello debilyn, 

i have tryed so hard to take my mind off things and its so comforting knowing i am not the only one who has to deal with alcoholism. I know my mum would not want me to be feeling this way, however no matter how much i ask to stop drinking she doesnt. One of the things she always says is 'the more you ask me to stop, the more i will do it' and that is something i find so hard to deal with, if she can see that its hurting me then why isnt she stopping? My room is the one place i come to get away from it all, i have it how i want it and when she has had a drink i ask her not to come in, not that she does that. Thankyou so much for your support, i hope to hear more from you, its really helped! take care x

 

 

 

Thankyou so much for the reassurance it means alot. I am in England and i will going to a meeting on friday night, i am very nervous but i am sure it will help. I have tryed talking to friends but they just dont seem to understand, they say she is just upset and that it will all be ok, but they can never seem to give me the advice i need. Something i find very hard is that my mum will not accept she has a problem and until she realises that she cant help herself. I do worry for her health and mine for that matter, me and my mum get on very well but i find it difficult not being able to talk to her about the biggest problem i have because she is the one that is causing it. I need someone to be like my mum and give me the sort of advice she would. I agree with you its very hard to rely on someone who can barely complete a sentence half the time. Thankyou once again for your support!x

 

 

 

-- Edited by Lacey on Monday 4th of July 2011 10:44:58 AM

Lacey, you can talk to her about it....but keep your expectations low. I am a sober alcoholic and haven't drank in almost 3 years. If nobody close to me ever said they wanted me to go to AA and that they thought I had a drinking problem, I might not have went. Knowing that, if your mom is really in denial and not ready to stop, your talking to her about it is not going to change anything. Just wanted to let you know that it is not the case that you have to be silent about it. It's more that you have to know it's not your fault and also keep those 3 C's in mind in whatever you do.

Hi Lacey & Welcome to the board!

I'm so happy that you have decided to try Alateen meetings. Let us know how it goes, okay?

Keep posting, there are a lot of great people on this board as you have already discovered.

Take GOOD care, Gail

Lacey I had a huge note to ya and my dog bumped me and it went away!!!

Ok here we go again!

Many of my students were in your situation and worse. I even started a womens group for the girls in the highschool I taught at.

Have you checked to see if there is an Ala teen group there? I am sooo PROUD of you for making a goal to go to meeting on Friday! We will be sending our hearts to you. Close your eyes and feel it. Everyone is afraid at first, they will be sooo glad you walked in the door! There are no expectations of you.

You asked why can't she just stop when I ask her? Hon she can't. That is how the disease works. Not unlike telling a person with cancer to stop the cancer from growing. I  yelled at my mothers cancer all the time....didn't work.

An addict wakes up thinking about their drug and or drink. Even if they want to stop they can't. The only way is for them to call someone, AA, the hospital, her doctor etc and arrange for detox.

She has used so long her body is dependant on the alcohol, it craves it. Detox helps them to be supervised and  medicated thru the withdrawal.

Then they arrange for rehab. 6 mo to a year or more is best. Then they come home and hopefully do 90 meetings or more in 90 days. Hopefully they will have developed a program of recovery.

It is a list of goals, a manual for their life to follow forever. They do not know how to live like non addicts. To just stop drinking is not the answer, its far more complicated than that.

They have not matured past the time they started drinking. They don't go thru grieving processes, they don't know how to maintain thru a crises or problem solve. They may not even know how to be polite or have manners or be moral!

We also don't know the brain damage they have suffered.

We come to Al Anon to help US to learn how to take care of ourselves, while loving our A. We also learn so much more. You can do research on Alcoholism. Genetics of the addict, how alcohol affectst the brain etc.

I spent years studying and I still have soooo much more to learn. Its so very much more complicated than to just stop drinking.

This is why,no matter how much she loves you, she cannot just stop.

Can you move a mountain,no. can you stop a river, no. Can you change the weather,no. Can you change or control  an addict,no. Do you see that it is just plain impossible so what would make you try?

It was a hard one for me to face too. I loved my friend, husband,lover, confidant, budi all in one man soooo very much. I woulda done about anything to change him from being an A.

The last time i had with him was precious. But he had brain damage from all the drugs and alcohol and a brain surgery. He became physically abusive so I had to end it 100%.

He is NOTHING like the man I married. But before he got real bad I lived with him and did not pay any attention to his disease at all, the smell, the arguing or trying to,nothing. When he got where I could not handle it, I just would nicely say goodnight or I am going to read or watch tv in the bedroom, or go feed or go check on my horse, whatever.

NEVER reacted to any of the bolony. Was a precious time.

sorry got off subject...

In time with Al Anon and reading lit, researching meetings sharing here, you will see a miracle for you, I promise. You will come to understand so much, be so sure of all you learn too.

You will look at your mom and love her and enjoy every precious minute whether she is drinking or not. You will understand you cannot change her, but you can still care and love her.

BUT you won't sacrifice YOU to have that.

You are brand new in this now. Its like you must learn to add before you can do College Algebra.

Its the same in anything you learn. I just told my son the same about the Bible. He comes up with questions that there is so much he has to learn to understand what he just asked me! lol

So he goes fishing...haha. Hey hon he is married to an A. He loves her too, going thru what you are. but he left becuz he got to the point of realizing, staying was doing no good, he cannot change her.

I have been blabbing al anon to him for years. He finally showed me he has been listenting! Shock! haha BUT she and him and friends, go fishing, camping, go to dinner. He just won't live with her.

So when ya go to your meeting we will be there with you. We are especially pleased when a young person comes here. We care soooo very much, we keep it safe here so young ones will be ok.

If you have personal stuff you don't want on the board you can pm us. Tom aka Canadian guy is a great one to get help with the board and direction.

I have always been the mom at whatever school I worked at. My desk had the stuff for colds, sewing stuff, paper, pens, candy, money,food, etc. I loved it. They teased the  heck out of me and pulled pranks on me to.

I got back at them by putting stickers on the macho football players backs that said I wear pink pig slippers, or pink jammies...or hahaha  I would put them in timeout for blowing it.

they took all the chairs from my three room classroom and put them in the tree!!! somehow the vp or principal did NOT see the humor...of course I did....lol lol

Anyway I am very glad you are here. I hope we see a lot of you. This is home for me.

Hey if you cannot afford literature, I can send you some. Hopefully it will go better than the last time I sent to London. I sent a box there then it came back.....I forgot part of the address...nice of me to send a box on vacation eh???

hugs! hey put some fresh flowers in your room! Do you have a pet??? love,debilyn

Hi gail, 

i will definitely let everyone know how it goes on friday. I will keep posting and thankyou for your support x