The material presented
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It's such good news that your mom reached out for help and now has that help. I found in person Alanon to really be a life saver when someone I loved was in rehab. It's obvious you're very worried about your family and how this change will affect all of you. Your mom has taken the first step to getting well. I understand your sadness and and concern during this separation from her. Rehabs like to give a person a chance to settle in at first so they don't want communication with family. If you mom was in the hospital and came out of surgery, there might be a waiting time before being able to communicate with her. Her alcoholism is the much like that. She is drying out, ridding her system of an addictive substance and trying to restore her physical, psychological and spiritual well being with the help of professionals and a higher power which is greater than the professionals or her family. Have faith and keep hopeful. You can send her loving and healing thoughts, you can write her letters and you can call the rehab to find out how she is doing and continue to take care of yourself as you know she would want you to do. It's definately hard to trust others with a person who is so precious to you like your mother. I found having others in this program to talk it out with really helped. Your dad could attend Alanon too. I was very relieved when my husband went to rehab, Shellie. My life was so much simpler when he was there. I could finally relax. I could do fun things I hadn't been doing. I loved him so much though and really missed him and couldn't wait for him to come home and be well enough to do those things with me. Please try to stay in the present moment if you can and hold on to hope. The disease of alcoholism takes lives but many people do get sober and stay sober. I think you are right when you say people sometimes lose patience with an alcoholic's ability to get sober and stay sober. Sometimes it takes a few tries before somebody does it. It's like they are trying and getting closer but just can't quite do it just yet. But lots of times that's what it takes to be done once and for all. Your mom is trying. She's getting the help of professionals and a loving god to get well and keep sober one day at a time. It will always be one day at a time for her and your dad and family will need to be prepared to accept her as she is. Alanon can help your whole family with that. I hope now that you're back on the board, you'll keep coming and keep recovering with us :) (((shellie))) TT
-- Edited by tiredtonite on Saturday 16th of June 2012 09:57:43 AM
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Surround yourself with people and elements that support your destiny, not just your history.
After my last post I did not post for a while. I watched my mom miraculously go further downhill. She drank one night and then in the morning while still drunk she dropped a wine glass, cut her knuckles on it really bad. I had to rinse her hand and bandage it. itwas bleeding a lot, probably because of the blood thinning effect...
went to an orchestra concert, found a long time friend who it turns out knew someone who was an alcoholic as well. she recommended i come back to al-anon and talk. so here i am.
My mom applied for state help for rehab. They said my parents make too much money and that they would not help us. They don't consider my sister and I dependants since we are 18+ even though we still live at home and...depend on our parents...duh...
So my mom called a rehab center ~200 miles from here and they talked with the board of directors, had her send in a letter about why she needs rehab. She got a scholarship and we drove her today to the rehab facility. She will be there 21 days. She has not drank in 8 days as of today.
They seem very nice. But I'm sitting here panicking for my mother. What if she hates it? I've been in a psych ward before. It drove me mad. Though she can go outside and smoke and walk and breathe fresh air, none of which I could do in my program, I still worry. What if she is miserable? What if her IBS acts up from the food and they get mad she's in the bathroom a lot? what if no one in her group likes her? What if they laugh at her temporary denture she has to take out when eating?
And what am I going to do without my mom for 3 weeks :( I'm so proud of her for going but I've never been away from her for that long.
I was so nervous in the place while she got checked in that my own stomach got upset and I had to run to the bathroom, was stuck in there with a mad tummy for ~10 minutes. I hope my mom is doing ok.
We can't talk to her and she can't talk to us until Wednesday. I don't understand--why can't we talk? She needs support. Why then do they push us away, the program, at first? Doesn't she need help now? I dont get it....
And then I'm scared about my dad. My mom is a worrier and has anxiety and so when she is around she criticizes herself and is very nit picky and what not. Her lupus and sjogrens bother her a lot so we don't go many places. Today we went to a pretty state park after dropping her off, and we are going to take her there with us when she gets out now that we know it was really nice. But my point is, my dad is able to do things he wants to do when my mom is gone, like go to a state park, and eat at a restaraunt, and buy 10 scratch tickets at once, and stuff. What happens if while my mom is gone he finds out he likes it better and doesn't want her back? Tries to take my little brother and leave?
I'll never forgive him. Not when she's trying to get better, he can't turn his back on her. And he and I talked and he said he had told her that, honestly, he had thought about leaving several times, grabbing my brother and leaving her and never coming back, but he had never done it, and he just wanted their marriage to be what it used to be. But I'm scared. Nobody gives alcoholics enough TIME or PATIENCE. Nobody understands how my mom must feel. I smoke cigarettes and if someone locked me in a room and said, "No cigarettes anymore." i'd freak out. I'd be mad. I'd want to break things and yell. I'd get grumpy and shaky and gain weight.
Why does no one remember that she goes through that too? That even though we know smoking is bad we still go out and light up another one for more cancer? Because it's an addiction and if they COULD be reasoned with no one would be addicted. There'd be no rehab places--no one would need them.
I miss m mom so bad. I'm scared. I don't want my family to fall apart. Idon't want my mom to lose everything because of STUPID ALCOHOL. I don't want my dad to abandon her.
But most of all I don't want her to have to be without us right now and yet there she is in her room all alone. :(
"What if" is a question that is rarely helpful to ask. You are catastrophizing and that will lead you to a life of anxiety problems. You cannot control the outcomes here and your mother's recovery is going to be hers. If you worry more about her that she does herself and try and make her world okay to the extent she doesn't have motivation to solve her own problems, that's not going to have good results.
How much are you able to detach from this situation? Kids are meant to grow up and live their own lives. The sober version of your mom would probably want that. The Language of Letting Go is a good book for dealing with learning the art of detachment.
I can understand how you would be so worried for you mom. It does mean you are a caring person, but the worry and anxiet is misspent and you do have your own life that needs attention. Let her be responsible for her own sickness as much as you can.
When I first went into rehab, I couldn't see my family for several days and actually, that was good for me. It gave me a few days without the guilt & shame that I felt everytime I looked at my husband & son. Being alone is not always a bad thing - it gave me time to collect my thoughts, get myself centered and turn myself over to a HP.
((((Shellibear)))) welcome back to the board and the loving responses here. You're one of us...QUALIFIED for program. I love Path's response to you...straight up ESH from someone who's been there and done that. For me what I related to was that I use to be a "What iffer" myself. I "What iffed" everything and finally got a great response from my sponsor. "You need to balance out the what iffing...in order to do that you gotta "what if not" just as often as you "what if". I no longer "what if" it doesn't matter cause my HP has the situation in hand before I get anxiety over it. Got me some sanity. Check out the face to face meetings for the AFG in your area if you are not currently going and then get there quick so that you won't have to be alone with your head.
