I want to rescue and i know I can't - Al-Anon Family Group

laurab · Senior Member

I want to rescue and i know I can't

Cathyinaz · ~*Service Worker*~

Hi Laurab

My AS is 35 years old and I have enabled him for 4 long years. In those years I have shelled out 70 grand to make him well. In those 4 years he has drank to almost death, DUI's, NO job, no friends, no girlfriend and nothing anymore. He is about to be homeless because 4 months I got sick and tired of being sick and tired. I will NOT ever pay, help or support that disease anymore. I love my son to much to help that disease.

My helping him and ALL enablers helping him did nothing....nothing.

I have let go of him and I have let God take over. God is the only one that can do anything to help my son.

I understand your son in a different COUNTRY is really going to be hard on you but your the only one that can make that decision to get him home. If or when you bring him home ask yourself what you will do next. How will you help him next.

Whatever you decide please in the process do something for you. Take that first step and say

God grant me the serenity for the things I can not change
The courage to change the things I can
And the wisdom to know the difference.

Your in my prayers that your son will be safe, you make the right decisions and have peace and serenity doing so.

(((( hugs ))))

el-cee · ~*Service Worker*~

Thank you for sharing, you must feel so worried about your son, I also have a son I worry about. He is nearly 20 but I pray I won't need to worry about him when he is in his thirties. That seems so unfair. I lost my parents when I was 33 so I have had to take care of myself anyway. I'm already fed up being a mother to my son who is a problem drinker. I know that sounds heartless but at what point does a person live their own life without their mother bailing them out of the next predicament. I mean how far are mothers expected to go? Should they give up their own lives for their children? Is this a socially constructed idea of motherhood? Surely you and your husband have the right to feel happy. You have a son who probably needs to get himself out of this one. If you bail him out he will keep playing the victim who needs rescued. Take care of you and you.x

laurab · Senior Member

More from me; We have gone back and forth with our son all day today. We get one or two word answers. He never really says what's happening. But we are pretty sure he is just staying in his room. He has no transportation because he has no money to rent a motorbike, which is the standard means where he is. He seems to be waiting for something, but we don't know what. At One point we asked what it would take to bail him out of whatever the difficulty is. His response was "stop." My 2 biggest worries are that he will get arrested and a Thai jail is not a good place for an American, or that he has no food. So DH asked him what $50 would do for him, so he answered "food." So we sent $50. I know I am enabling and if he was here in the US I wouldn't do it, but I don't want him to steal in order to eat. I also know that he might not buy food. the money might go on beer.

Mattie · ~*Service Worker*~

The money will almost certainly go on beer. It sounds as if you have realistic expectations.

I thought when I cut my ex-AH loose that he would be living under a bridge within a month. But alcoholics have an incredibly ability to seem helpless and lost and poor and forlorn, and yet to keep on getting the money, the chances, the people to swoop in and help them, the people to bail them out, the money for booze, and more and more chances. All the time seeming as if they are on the brink of starvation and despair. The disease is very clever and it makes them very clever in holding on to their disease. One of the ways it does it is to make them seem helpless.

There are many ways in which they are not helpless. One of them is that they can walk into an AA meeting any time they choose. There are AA meetings all over the world. There are AA meetinsgs in every single city in America. When my ex-AH used to tell me very helplessly and pathetically that there was nothing more he could do to get himself out of whatever desperate situation he had gotten himself into, I know there was one thing he could have done -- he could have set foot in an AA meeting. If he wasn't doing that, he wasn't really desperate.

John · ~*Service Worker*~

All I can offer is a (((((safe hug))))). I got my 32 yr old son out of jail not so long ago, on a bond... and he ran to another state to avoid procecution. He doesn't communicate with me because he knows I will put him in jail if I find out where he is staying.... the bond is sizable...and he knows I surely can't pay it or want to be sued for it... and even though he has done this to me, I still love him and want to find that fabulous way to rescue him... from himself. I know it can't be done. I know I have to let the cards fall where they may, and I know that when I turned my life and my will over to the care of God in step three... my son was included in the turning over. Now I must trust and have faith that the judicial system will do what they do, the bondsmen will do what they do, and my HP will do what He does... and just let it unfold without my tinkering in it with my little paws.

Hang on, Let Go... Let Go, and just hang on... darn it gets confusing sometimes! smile

Today, I am hanging on to just letting go...

John

learning · Veteran Member

Please go to the AA message board of this site. Go back through the pages to Nov. 4/Nov. 5. to a post that I wrote. It is titled 'This is what I have learned'..... It is quite lengthy however please read ALL comments and my responses. My 'shares' on that day and over the course of the following week were from my heart. Around the same time, I also wrote a post here entitled 'Extending a helping hand'. You hopefully will glean some insight.
These are both shares of how I dealt with and SURVIVED life in coping with a loved one's alcoholism.
Unfortunately....I'm keeping eyes wide open currently on yet another. The two are related. One my ex.AH the other my daughter. I am saddened to think she is at the onset of the same road as her father. I've been down this road once and I WILL NOT travel down it again. Because of this site, two very close friends, and counsel both through my spiritual guide and outside of my church.....I became wiser and alot stronger!!! Yes, it hurts like hell, to watch/know a child is putting their life, not just physically but otherwise, in jeapordy by excessive drinking. You cannot control another's actions only yours.
Your son is an ADULT!!! Although we, as parents would like our children to be PERFECTLY happy healthy and properous, in the real world of adulthood it is virtually an impossibility. At some point in ones life there are struggles, challenges and pain. We as adults as well, make mistakes and sometimes those mistakes are painful/costly. It is what we learn from our mistakes that determine or impact our futures. Do we continue doing the same over repeatedly with the same results or do we change and come out the better?
My daughter knows what is now past. She knows where it can lead. I talked to her last night, in honesty. She knows I am VERY concerned. We are close!! She knows I LOVE her. I know she loves me; she calls me her "best friend.....I tell you everything......". What she doesn't know is that I AM better prepared. I AM willing to do things that I did not do back then.
My arms are always opened and my heart is always full of love for her.......HOWEVER, 'tough love' will become a lifestyle for me this time around. I still loved my ex. very deeply..... I just allowed him the privilege(s) facing the consequences of HIS actions and learned to be responsible for what only I had control over.
Please again read my post(s). Let go, let God/HP, and I will send up prayers for the best possible outcome!

Togethor for Sobriety,
Wanda

laurab · Senior Member

Thank you Wanda. I have to give this computer to my grandson so he can watch something. He is gingivitis for the weekend. He doesn't know how his grandparents are suffering. I will read your posts as soon as I retreave my computer tonight.

learning · Veteran Member

Laura, The AA post is on Page 14. Keep in mind....again....what is written on these boards of MIP are beneficial if you are willing to take what is given. For me it was life saving. I have done things I never thought possible! Is my life totally carefree? No! However, I am more at peace. I laugh alot more and when I feel those feelings of the past coming.....I know what to do to silent them. May God be with you on your journey! Above all with your son!

pinkchip · ~*Service Worker*~

Prayers for your son.

The good news is that there is recovery and AA world wide. Furthermore, Alanon can help you not obsess over him and learn to let go. It would seem you had some "letting go" forced upon you by him moving halfway around the world. On the other hand, that compounds the feeling of helplessness in some ways. The odd/ironic thing is that even if he were right in your own home, that would not "help." In fact, that would hurt him....a lot.

Pray and repeat the serenity prayer. The posts from other parents of adult children who are alcoholics (above) are more wise than anything that I could tell you. Folks in alanon know where you are at with this.

laurab · Senior Member

Thank you always. I don't know how I ever wrote that my grandson is " gingivitis' when I meant visiting us for the weekend. I don't know where that word came from. It's not part of out lives. My brain is shot.

el-cee · ~*Service Worker*~

I would recommend the prayer like Pinkchip said. It helps calm your mind and let's in your hp.x

hotrod · ~*Service Worker*~

Dear Laurab

i am so very sorry that you are enduring this difficult situation. I would give him the AA web site that I found and urge him to connect with AA recovery there

Here is the site

AA Hospitals

Telephone Numbers for Thailand Alcoholics Anonymous

Information from The Anonymous Press - "Alcoholics Anonymous Books, Software, Phone Numbers & AA Big Book® Index"

Thailand - Alcoholics Anonymous

HOTLINE for Thailand AA - 02 231-8300 Email: aathailand@thai.com

Thailand - Alcoholics Anonymous Contact Information

Contact information from AA World Services

Something very much the same happened to my husband when he decided to go to the Island of Jamica to kill himself. Some how he found AA and they worked miracles. He came home sober 3 weeks later.

Praying for your family

-- Edited by hotrod on Sunday 17th of February 2013 08:03:08 PM

laurab · Senior Member

Dear Wanda, I read your entries. Thank you for sharing. You have been through so much and you are getting so strong. I wish only good things for you daughter.
Intellectually I know I am doing the right thing for my son by not racing to Thailand to try and save him. Last night I even googled rehabs near him, but one month was $17,000. Besides, we have already done 4 rehabs. I would willingly pay $17,000 for a guarantee that he would walk out healthy and have a good life, but I know that's ridiculous.
It is so hard to do nothing. I have no energy to do anything other than pace. He is sending me messages on FB "Ma I need you."
The scary part for me now, is that he is so far away, penniless, no friends or transportation. Is this the bottom? If it is where does he go from here?

learning · Veteran Member

Laura, You have no idea how I 'paced the floor' with that son. At one point or another, he and my daughter were so angry they both blamed me for their father's attitude towards me and his leaving. I think, however, they were more afraid he would stop seeing/loving them! Regardless, it was tearing the very core of my heart out, yet I had to stay strong for me FIRST. Oh the stories I've heard when we all get togethor and one or the other child will 'tell' on the other. Things that happened some of which right under my nose!!! They laugh at their follies now. This same son wrapped a pickup around a telephone pole. I had asked for his help to remove the battery in my car so as to replace it. Standing there, I thought to myself, "Could've swore his truck was blue not blue-green" so I asked. "NO, not the same truck" and in a rather angered tone, "If you must know, I'm lucky to tell you, I ......" I didn't ask any more. His dad didn't bother to call me. However, I did call him, when daughter missed a curve (she was sober) and wrecked her car!! UGH! It is stuff like this, that makes my blood boil (and cold with fear) when it comes to alcohol.
Like I said, my daughter was there/has been for practically all of the horror stories and yet...... She knows how much exAH drank. She knew he had health problems and it is certain she has concluded why. And yet.......
You will have to decide for yourself how to proceed. My share was just one of 1000's out there fighting this disease. All I can say is AlNON, ALNON, ALNON!!!
Hugs and prayers,
Wanda

laurab · Senior Member

Dear Hotrod, thank you so very much. I also just found a monastery near Bangkok that does detox for a very minimal cost. But I don't think my son has the ability to get there from Phuket. I'm send the AA meeting info right to him. I am hoping he can connect there and not be so alone. This AA meeting info is the first moment of hope I've had in days. Thanks again.

hotrod · ~*Service Worker*~

smile I am glad In my prayers

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