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I am new to the boards here, and i am seeking help and advice. I have a family member who is abusing alcohol and perscription drugs. This person just left their second stint at rehab, this time this person was 'kicked out' of the rehab facility. They lasted less than two weeks. The rehab facility says this person was disruptive, while they say that the rehab facility was 'abusive.' Regardless, this person has not finished rehab and is back in the same situation they were before leaving. This second stint in rehab was triggered by this person showing up intoxicated to our home one evening to pick up their two children, who were playing at our house with our kids at the time. When we refused to allow them to drive their children, and tried to get this person to give up their keys, a full-on exorcist type situation occurred, with all kinds of foul language and crazy behavior in front of our 4 year old and our 9 year old, who have never seen this type of behavior, as well as this persons own children, who have been exposed to this from time to time. Now that this person is back from rehab we have set a boundary that i am comfortable with: I will not allow this person around our children or in our home, period, until we see that this person is making some real attempts at recovery, or some kind of real progress in healing the damage they has done to their own family. My wife's mother has said that this is an unfair boundary, and that we are being mean and cruel and spiteful. The mother is making life on my wife almost unbearable. My wife is crying every day now. My wife understands the limit and supports me, but at the same time she wants the pressure and drama to cease, and wants everything to be back the way it was. It is true that this person would not hurt our kids physically, but there are emotional and mental issues that i'm concerned about. I'd like to see this person exhibit some personal control and responsibility before I start repairing the bridges that have been burned. My question: Have I set an unfair boundary? Are the limitations to the boundary fair ones? What can i do to help improve this situation, relationship with the person in question and the mother who has adapted to this and is defending this person?
Also, i don't know anything about the Al-Anon use for boundaries and I really just started learning about Al-Anon and 'Detachment with Love' today. I'm reading everything I can, and i've got a knot in my stomach from all of this mess. I'm just not sure what to do or which way to go. I'm just going with my gut right now and what i think is right. I am normally a straight forward person and i deal with things in a straight forward manner, but this isn't the kind of thing you can force a resolution on, and i know it. All I want is for my decisions to be good ones for the long term for everyone.
You have set a good boundary for you and your family. This family member and for that matter all family members should respect your boundaries. To improve is to not go back on ANY boundaries you set because that could or would make the situation worse.
As you read other posts and get an idea what Al-anon and MIP is all about others will be reading your post and will have some great ESH for you..
Take care my friend and keep coming back.
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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.
My husband & I set boundries with my A Father before our children were even born. We watched my Dad drive drunk with my nephew in the truck with him on many occasions and once had to go get my 3yr old nephew out of the bar where my Dad had taken him. From that day forward, Hubby & I made it very clear that our children would never be left alone in his care anytime. We never swayed from that boundary and never felt one moment of guilt because my children's very lives would have been at risk and they were our 1st and highest priority over and above anyone else's opinions/wants/needs. HTH
Thank you both. I really needed to hear a word, any word, regarding what people thought about the decisions we are making. It is tough. I'm sure you guys know. I want to keep my family strong emotionally and mentally, but i also do not want to be unreasonably cruel or unfair. I didn't believe i was, but this is like being on a roller coaster... one minute i believe in myself with the utmost conviction, the next i'm second guessing everything i've said we'd do. Thank you guys again. I will be around, and i will be reading.
Your boundaries were put in place to keep you children safe...that is your responsibility to them..they need to know they are safe and secure and that someone is looking out for them. Well done!
I agree, well done. We can't change the world but we can do our best to protect our children.
Another thing to be aware of is that fewer than 25% of people who go into rehab achieve longterm sobriety. (That is not 25% of all addicts/alcoholics -- that is the ones who go into rehab. Some never go into rehab, so the number is smaller if you count all addicts/alcoholics.) I just say this so that you know that statistically speaking, the odds are against this person recovering. When I first started to encounter alcoholics, I believed what they or others were saying about "He's stopped now, he said he would yesterday" or "I won't do it again, no problem." I didn't realize that recovery was a long challenging process and that it never happens like the flip of a switch. This may be useful to know if someone close to the addict says "He's stopped now, he hasn't drunk since last week" or "He promises he won't drive drunk, so go ahead and send your children," or the like. Basically the rule that's served many of us best is "Watch what they do, not what they say."
Mattie, Wow Mattie, you are dead-on. This is exactly what is happening. The mother of this person is my wife's mother as well. She is telling us that the addict is a 'changed' person since the offending night, and that even though the stint in rehab was cut short, that enough of the rehab 'took' and that this person is now changed. "These last two weeks she has completely changed", she said over the phone to me last night. I calmly tried to explain that we were going to wait and see what happens, but this only got me blasted and attacked. Understand... i do love my wife's mother. I know she only wants everything to be ok, and she believes that keeping our children away only makes things worse, in part because the addict is telling her that it is. She told me that the addict told her they were now 'completely ready to give up' because of us, and that this feeling the addict is having is our fault, and basically said the only way to fix it was to let this person be around our kids again. I see this as manipulative and redirecting their guilt/faults/attention away from themselves and onto myself and my wife, but it's so incredibly hard on my wife when my wife's mom is buying into it 100%. LIke i said, she's been crying off and on for days. It's a day to day thing, i know. Just some days are harder than others i guess.
Al anon would be helpful for you and your family...being in a meeting is like breathing in calm and sanity if one goes in with an open spirit. You will receive the support to stand strong among the chaos.
Maybe your wife would get some relief from coming to an Al-Anon meeting with you.
How tempting it is to think that someone could just "learn their lesson" and become completely sober and recovered overnight. If there were anything that could make that happen, believe me, Al-Anoners would have found it.
But you don't have to convince the in-laws and other outsiders in this equation that you're right. (Because they won't understand -- they're immersed in the madness -- and part of the chaos is keeping on debating the issues over and over.) All you have to do is to hold the line. It is, after all, your decision to make: you're responsible for your kids' safety. Paradoxically, doing this is the best thing for the alcoholic's recovery. When the consequences add up to an overwhelming amount of feedback about the unacceptable behavior, that's when alcoholics start to think about recovery. Not that you or anyone else can force that to happen. But it's ironic that what you're doing has the best chance of being an influence for the good, as well as protecting those who don't have the power to protect themselves.
