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Hi there, i am new to this forum so I am not quite sure how this goes or what the etiquette is. Please forgive me if this is lengthy or not in proper form. I am 35 years old and the daughter of an alcoholic mother. She has drank my whole life, with a few extended stints of sobriety. My mother has always stumbled when things are going too well in her life. She has always seemed to need drama and chaos to feel ok. My father who is not an addict does however, enable her. It is at that time that he feels guilty and furious and physically takes it out on her. I spent my whole life trying to make her stop drinking, and getting him to never touch her. I would encourage them to split up because they were so bad together. But low and behold, they have been married for 50 years. My brother chooses to act like it is not happening and my sister chose to move away to not see it. I do however, acknowledge that my parents have provided for us everything we could have ever needed to survive. So I will give credit where credit is due. However, once I was married and my children were born, i realized my obligation to those other people in my life that I loved and that counted on me. I took the approach that since they were getting up in years, I might not have a whole lot of time left with them. So, I decided that when things were good and sober that me, my husband and my children could be around them and when things were not good, we just wouldn't be around them. That worked for a good 10 years because the children were small, which leads me to my current problem.
My mom, now 70, has decided she need to start drinking again. I have spoken to her and my father and know that things are as bad now as they ever were. I know for a fact they are beating each other around and she is drinking in full force. I am really actually ok with this because I know this isnt my fault, nor is it my responsibilty to fix. I have a very strong faith and all I can do is pray for them, not fix them. However, my problem is my children only know the "good side" of my parents and they are now old enough to realize they aren't seeing them and are beginning to ask why. I have never been the person to lie and have always been honest with everyone about my home life growing up, so I am not sure how to talk to my kids. I am feeling that old familiar stress associated with being around an alcoholic. My question to this forum is how do i approach this with my children? I feel so bad crushing their image of my parents. I have always tried to protect them from "growing up too soon" like I had to. I just know that the minute I disclose this information to them, a certain sense of innocence will be lost. I have always planned on telling them at some point so they knew the gene pool they were a part of and could make well educated decisions themselves on weather on not to drink when they were older. I just dont want to hurt them. I know my childen are sweet children and have the hero complex that I had growing up and I fear they will stress over this or even worse take it upon themselves to want to help. However, I fear this time with my parents, something bad might happen before they decide to shape up. they are older now and i am not sure they can physically handle the alcohol, the abuse, or the withdrawl itself.
Has anyone here ever had a similar issue and do you have any advice on how I should approach this? Thanks for listening and I am eager to hear your responses.
I don't know if I have any really good advice except you have come to the right place, this forum has helped me a lot. I am in a situation also where some day I am going to have to tell my kids (6 year old twins) that a lot of problems early in their life were caused by their mothers addiction and my enabling of that behavior. We also can not bring the kids around my mother because she has been ad addict my entire life and continues to be, it's not an easy place to be. I feel your pain becasue all we want to do as parents is protect our children from the all that is around them. The one positive thing I have learned is that children are very strong and more resilient then we usually give them credit for.
People will post here soon with good advice, all I can say is try to stay strong.
Welcome to the MIP forum board. The help and support you'll find here may be helpful. I'm sorry your mom decided to pick up again after years of sobriety. Let's hope she decides to recover again. Until then, there are many Al-Anon meetings for you to try. There's also Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACOA) meetings. Both recovery groups have lots of literature that can be a tool for your own recovery. Just remember what we call the "Three C's";
We didn't Cause it,
We cannot Cure it,
We cannot Control it.
As far a what to tell your children, we don't give advice because there's no way of knowing what would be right for you and your family. Many people have experienced similar situations though, and would be glad to share what worked for them.
Thank you Courage and skahtul for your responses. Ok, I now understand that "advice" cannot be given but I would however appreciate hearing other's accounts of similar situations. I am eagerly awaiting hearing such things.
My son was 13 when the jig was finally up. AW had been alcoholic for a couple years, she woud binge vodka. She also had mononucleosis for awhile, so I thought her passing out on the couch was just being exhausted. So when that happened my son and I would say she was tired. Once I knew what was going on, I didn't tell son, he was 11. But she told him once she hit recovery. And then she relapsed, and he would say she is tired again.
Then she got a DUI while attempting to pick him up from school. So, as I said, the jig was up. She went to an inpatient center where, to be able to see her on a Saturday, we had to attend two hours of family education sessions. I had been to one of these before at her first inpatient center, so I warned him that what he was about to hear would be intense, but he still couldn't believe the first question was from a mom who didn't want her daughter going back to heroin after she got out.
Once the cat was out of the bag, he did get to express his anger at her being unavailable to him a lot. And life started making a little more sense for him. He also now knows that his grandma is a functioning alcoholic, and doesn't love her any less for it.
I do regret not having told him before though. He got to hit the cold reality right in front of his schoolmates. It would have been better to have a talk with him before that happened.
But I am glad he lost his innocence on this with us, rather than in a parking lot at school when he was 17. He now knows that he could be carrying this disease, and is educated on what could happen to him if he were, and how dangerous drinking can be.
I knew my Grandma was sick at a very young age. Nobody ever said anything about her drinking. I still knew there was something different about Grandma and that she was sick. I didn't love her less. I did wonder why I didn't get to spend as much time with her after awhile. I was told she had a nervous breakdown. Maybe she did? It would have been helpful to me to understand that she had an allergy to alcohol and that when she drank it it made her very sick, but there was nothing anybody really could do about it except stay away from her when she was very sick because she wasn't very nice then. I knew that. I knew she wasn't very nice when she was sick but that she loved me and was very proud of me when she was "well." We call that Jekyl and Hyde behavior in Al-Anon circles. I didn't know until I was in my 50s that there was alcoholism in our family because nobody ever talked about it. It may have made a difference if we had talked about it and did what we could do to learn about it as a family rather than just stay away from her when she was sick.
My son is an alcoholic. My grandson knows that his uncle has a disease that needs treatment but that if he doesn't get it, we have to let him suffer consequences that aren't very nice but are necessary if we want to help his uncle choose to get the treatment he needs for his disease. We've also let him know that the disease of alcoholism isn't something his uncle caught or caused but that he was probably born with the allergy. I've asked my grandson not to drink because there is no real way to tell if anybody has inherited the disease until they drink and its better not to do that since alcoholism is on both sides of his family. My grandson feels empathy for his uncle but has seen his uncle act out and knows why we can't let my grandson spend time with my son unless he is working a program and sober. He also understands that a recovery program like AA or NA is probably the best help his uncle can get right now but he has to choose it and that we can't force him to do that. It's his choice.
-- Edited by grateful2be on Friday 28th of March 2014 06:09:47 PM
I have let me oldest know that my family of origin was not healthy and I stay detached and don't visit often to keep myself and my family healthy. She is now 16 and we haven't gone to see my FOO in a few years and I don't feel guilty for that. I talk to my Mom and so does she on holidays and birthdays via phone, but my priority is my family and my life. Sending you love and support!
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Sending you love and support on your journey always! BreakingFree
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