The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
to exchange
information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
level.
My son in law called me today to say that my daughter is having more and more incidents of drinking till passing out or becoming very beligerant. They have a 3 year old daughter who is in the picture. He has asked me for some guidance. Advise please.
From experience here, just a little bit of time here, advice is not given. Sharing experiences is but I just wanted to be clear for you on that.
Your daughter is an adult and responsible for herself and her child. Your son-in-law is an adult and is responsible for himself and his child. You are responsible for you. The son-in-law may benefit from joining Al-Anon and attending meetings. Keeping the child safe is going to rest with the sober adults.
Since you have experienced this disease, I'm going to refrain from addressing anything related to alcoholism as I am not an alcoholic and only know about it from my RBF and some of my family. I do know that learning to not feel responsible for those in my life with this disease was my first step toward not losing my own life to the disease. I did lose my life to a "dry drunk" in my first marraige of 15 years. I felt responsible for him and his actions, I became stuck and was of no use to my own children. Once I stopped taking responsibility for him, I was able to focus on me and what I needed to do (keep my kids safe, keep me safe, get us healthy because we were all extremely dysfunctional).
Unfortunately, a divorce and 5 years of him spinning in his illness (he finally actually took up drinking as well, he's a child of two severe alcoholics) he is just now beginning to change his life. But not before nearly being homeless multiple times, nearly losing custody of our kids, etc. He had to experience a lot of pain before he was willing to change and the change happened entirely without my involvement.
When I was drinking my daughter was instrumental in me seeking help. I know she is the one that has to decide her drinking is causing a problem and doing something about it. It is hard to is the problem in your children repeating your own mistake. I want to give my family tools to help them deal with this and steer them in the right direction. Thanks
My son is the reason I am clean & sober. He asked me to stop doing what I was doing and it meant so much to me that anyone would have enough love for me to speak up. Shortly after that, I went into rehab and learned how to deal with life without numbing out. I'd hate to think where I'd be today if my son had not spoken up. (My father was an A and no one was allowed to address his drinking - the subject was taboo so my siblings & I just had to cope the best we could.)
That was 1989 - now 23yrs later the tables are turned. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think my son would become an A but he has. I really thought I had given him the tools to protect himself from this awful disease but I was wrong. When I saw how deep into the bottle my son had fallen, I felt I owed it to him to show him the same love he had shown me many years ago so I mothered-up & addressed the issue......he admits he has a problem but won't take the steps to get help yet........until that time comes, I'll just take care of me and leave my son in God's hands.
Al-anon could be very helpful to you and your son in law at this time.
