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.
I understand your fear and your concerns. Living with the disease of alcoholism complicated by other disorders, we become confused as to the right coarse of action for ourselves and others. Glad that you found us and are willing to attend on line meetings.
Alanon also has face to face meetings in most communities and I recommend that you search them out and attend. It was at these meetings that I finaly broke the isolation caused by this disease, and connected with outhers who understood as few others can. Alanon tools gave me a new way to live and tools to act in a constructive manner and not to be always reacting.
Living one day at a time, focused on myself, trusting a Higher Power really opened all new options for me Please keep coming back It is not easy but you are not alone.
-- Edited by hotrod on Monday 22nd of April 2013 09:50:41 PM
My son is sitting in a bar, on his second pitcher of beer and is recovering from Shoulder surgery and has no driverl license, but rides his bike everywhere. He would not accept a ride from me. The surgical Dr. said no bike riding yet, and if he fall and reinjures his rotator cuff, he will not be able to fix it.
My son is also mentally afflicted with Schizzoaffective disorder. We have been in and out of dual diagnosis centers and we are out of money.
He lives in an apartment 6 blocks from us. My husband is his stepfather, and has been so generous, but he is sick of him. I'm sick with worry, and pray and breathe alot.
So, I left him at the bar, drunk, and he will attempt to ride his bike home drunk. I am worried, and if anyone can see this post, please give me a little advise. I think I should let him take his consequences. But then, I feel like I am responsible for him. He is a threat to himself. Did I do the right thing? I will do the online meetings. Thank you so much for your help, in advance.
Aloha Pink...this was the point where I started learning what the slogan "Let go and Let God" mean't and worked like. Here it is years later and that is still the best I can do for me and certainly for him. I am responsible "to" him not "for" him. My son can make his own decisions and he can respectfully have his own consequences. I'm letting him have them without fearing what they are going to be if any. He has a Higher Power and professes that all the time. What is real isn't what they say it is what they do and I am detatching from from all of it and letting him have the dignity of his own choices. I'm not even going to ask HP to continue doing special favors for him and getting him out of a jam "one more time". The pain of real consequences is a good teacher. Keep coming back (((((hugs)))))
At some point I am left questioning his competency. All I can suggest is to take a deep and searching inventory of whether is is competent to be in an apartment living in the community with as much independence and freedom as he has. Is he really a constant danger to self and others? Perhaps there might need to be a competency hearing and he may be better off placed in a group home with staff to monitor him that would not just "let"' him get wasted and hurt himself all the time. It's a difficult question and would require a lot of talk with lawyers and his treatment team. Also, not sure who is funding his appartment but if you stop, he will then probably only qualify for group home type of living anyhow and that would be supervised and have less freedoms (which is good and bad).
I have fixed and paid for broken bones, knocked out teeth and still he continues to drink and get on that bike and ride to get more alcohol. I told him I would not rescue him anymore and don't even call me if he's hurt. The last time I didn't hear and he spent 5 days in the hospital. I didn't have to take him or call 911....he got there all by himself. If they hurt enough and not dead they will seek the help without mom. I'm always sure my son has mental issues but it turns out to be because of his drinking. He's losing it plain and simple.
Al-anon has given me the courage to let go of my son and let God take over. I'm given the tools to take care of me without guilt and fears I had in the past. It's a learning process and everyday it's practice, practice practice....but now I know I can live a good life whether my son drinks or not.
Take care of you ((((( Colleen )))) Keep coming back
__________________
Lord, put your arm around my shoulder and your hand over my mouth
Speak only when you feel that your words are better than your silence.
I am glad you are here. Alanon is the answer as far as I know the only answer. It's so difficult when your son is an a. Not that difficult for them in the sense that he is quite happy in his drunken state. It's the sober mother who suffers. For me, I am practicing detachment. I don't offer advice, manage or interfere in my sons life. I have made it clear I want only his sober company. I don't want him in the house either. Sounds heartless but I have a tendency to enable and rescue which for too long has stunted my sons development from child to man. I try to be committed because he's 20 and I'm hoping the more responsibility he has had to take for himself the better. He is falling and it's scary because I'm not sure how far he will go but the alternative is worse. You are not alone.
We hear your loud and clear. There are so many of us on this board dealing with alcoholic children (who may also have mental issues), I'm sure you will hear from them all with good ESH. I concur with Betty, get yourself to an AlAnon meeting; if you find yourself not likeing the group or not understanding, go to another meeting to see if you can click there. After 12 years of "managing" our alcoholic daughter, I finally found Alanon where I learned how to get off the crazy train and pull into Serentiy Station. Took a while to realize my part in all this; all the years of "helping" (mostly money, bail, cars, lawyers, colleges, trade school,apartments, credit cards, etc.) and she is still drinking. We were always there to save her from bottoming out. Not anymore. We are not responsible for grown adults who want to drink their life away. Sounds like you are almost there. I know how hard this is to watch your child continue this horrible decline. As Jerry said, the hardest part for me, as a mother, it is to let go and let God.
This is not really Al-Anon wisdom, but it is my life experience that hopefully will help you let go a little, Pink. I've worked among people like your child for many, many years. They often don't think like we do, but they seem able to endure incredible things that would put me into a corner where I'd shrivel up and die. Many struggle with hardship, but support each other in ways that those of us who don't share their particular challenges simply can't do. They experience joy, are often fiercely independent, and are incredibly loving when it comes to people they trust who have been there for them and accepted them as they are without giving up our own limits and boundaries. If it helps - there was one man I knew who struggled with mental illness, drug and alcohol addiction, but could drive. I spent two years taking him to places I thought would help him, listening to him for hours, taking him food, checking on him. I tried to be there for him through thick and thin. One night, drunk as drunk could be, he drove his motorcycle to my house and knocked at my door at 2 in the morning. Though he was drunk, he wasn't violent or threatening, so I let him in. He vomited. After that, I put a sheet, blanket and pillow on the couch and put him to bed. Then, I went to my own room to sleep. I fed him breakfast in the morning and listened to him and did my best "wisdom talk" with him. Several weeks after that, he drove his car at 100 miles an hour into a tree and amazingly survived the crash. Maybe because he was drunk? He was taken to a hospital, treated and then put into the psych ward where he stayed for a month or so. Later, he came to my house with a new friend he'd made. After all my "good deeding", the one thing he remembered that I'd done several months before he tried to kill himself was cleaning up his vomit and putting him to bed. That was the thing he told his friend as he introduced us that let him know I loved him and what he'd never forget. To me, it was simply prudent - not an act of love at all. There was no one else there that night who could clean up the mess = just me. He stayed sober for several years after that. I can't tell you what has happened to him now.
I am a mother, too, with a child who is brain damaged, addicted and may be suffering from PTSD. There has never been anything I have done or not done that could save him from suffering or save him from the consequences of his diseases. But, I have learned that prayer, Al Anon, doing what I love to do and trying to keep my hands off his life and off him and respecting his strength and right to make choices that he thinks are best for him without trying to influence or change him in anyway has helped me find peace and joy in relationship to the son I have. Who knows? Maybe some day I'll do something that just seems prudent and he'll see that as the love that helped him keep going?
