Hello, welcome to MIP. Al-Anon face to face meetings are a big help to me and can be to you, too, as you deal with a daughter who may or may not be an alcoholic. I can say with reasonable certainty that either call she makes to you - without a program - is a call from a very sick person who needs help that will probably not be found in the family. The best help we can give is to get help ourselves. The disease of alcoholism is a family disease and many of us have been affected by it from birth - whether we are alcoholics or love alcoholics. Keep coming back here, too.  Although we didn't cause the disease, can't control it and can't cure it, we can learn ways to live life for ourselves whether or not our loved one gets help for their drinking problem.  It is also okay NOT to answer late night or early morning calls unless you want to do that?  I stopped doing it because I needed sleep and to safeguard my own health. 

Nothing will cure the disease. It is a progressive, fatal disease if not treated. Not just in our loved ones but in us. We tend to think only the As can die young or get themselves in trouble with the law or develop disease-related illnesses but so can their family members and friends because of this cunning, powerful and baffling disease. Without treatment ourselves, our thoughts become distorted and we become irritable and unreasonable without knowing it. We are hooked over and over again by the disease and don't even know it. As an example of its hooking power, for me to feel guilty because my loved one is sick is one of the ways the disease tricks me into continuing to give into its threats, demands, badgering or inappropriate behaviors all in an effort on my part to "change or heal or fix the other" while I miss the fact that I'm not eating well, I'm not sleeping well, I forget things, I haven't had fun with friends or loved ones for awhile or I have frequent migraines, stomach aches, etc. When I start to put the focus on myself and notice the ways I am really not doing a very good job of taking care of myself and start to do something about that, I also begin to think "Hey! Wait a minute!!! This child of mine is 25 yo (or 20 or 30). She chose the job she has, the partner she has, the location she is living and the alcoholic beverages she is putting into her mouth. Why am I feeling guilty for her choices and the consequences of those choices. Yes, I have made mistakes as her Mother and yes, I am divorced but I am not guilty of putting a gun to her head and making her do what she has chosen to do thus far as an adult.

The frustration, fear, sadness and guilt are part of being affected by this disease. Al-Anon face to face meetings help us change our thinking and therefore our feelings. It gives us tools to live by that help counterbalance the affects of alcoholism. It does not help us cope with the disease. It helps us arrest it in ourselves. It helps us stop trying to arrest it, control it or minimize the effects of it on adults. I hope you will find a meeting near you and attend. We also have online meetings here twice a day that can be supplements to the face to face (f2f) meetings for you.

I am not an A.  My parents were not As but they were probably adult children of alcoholics.  They made mistakes in parenting me as all parents make mistakes in parenting their children.  What they did not do - and God bless them for this - was blame themselves for choices I made as an adult.  They would never have put up with me calling them at all hours of the night or day, trying to fault them for my poor choices, or step in to financially ease the blow following the consequences of my poor choices.  They let me sink or swim and I credit them and their hands off policy for my finding my own way and dealing with myself and my life as I had created it to be.  They let me take responsibility for myself and for some reason, that made me think my parents trusted me to do what I needed to do with minimal input or help from them.  It was hard.  I had a lot to deal with after the mess I'd made of my life in my 20s.  Today, I am proud of what I accomplished with my life and in an indirect way - that is due to my parents practicing tough love. There were times when my parents did make small loans to me and did listen to me but they expected me to pay them back and if I didn't - forget that next $20 loan until payday - and if I ever cursed them - out the door with me until I found a way to make it right.  One time, they also bought me a tire and helped me move away to a new location with a better paying job to care for my children and me.  That's about it.  But the greater gift to me was their allowing me to find my own way with a minimum of interference and a refusal to hold my hand while I sat on a pity pot.  There was a time when I moaned to my Dad about how God had let me down.  My Dad said:  "God?  It's God's fault?  What'd He do?  You're the one who decided to marry the man both your Mom and I said wasn't right for you."  I didn't even get to blame God for my poor choices.  I respect my parents for those hard, hard choices they made once upon a time.  I do think that tough love is always an option and Al-Anon can help the more tender-hearted of us learn how to do that without damaging our sick relatives any further than the disease has already damaged them.

-- Edited by grateful2be on Tuesday 23rd of September 2014 09:18:30 AM

-- Edited by grateful2be on Tuesday 23rd of September 2014 09:20:34 AM

(((K))) In Al-Anon, one of the suggestions has been a big, big help to me as a parent of an adult AS: Get off their backs. Get out of the way. Give them to God. Get on with your life. I think you will find attending Al-Anon to be a lifesaver for you. You aren't alone. There are many parents with adult kids with this disease. You didn't cause it. You can't control it. You can't cure it. You will find help and hope for yourself even if your daughter continues to drink.

I knew a dry alcoholic once who was born to 2 alcoholic parents and was 1 of 20+ children in W Va.  He got himself into all sorts of trouble with the law, had multiple health issues, had slept in cars and was one of the scrappiest, meanest men I think I have met in my lifetime.  For some reason, in his way, he "adopted me" as a person he was there to protect (and to make my life an interesting experience in dealing with a dry A who enjoyed watching people lock their car doors as he passed them on the street.)  One day, he was sharing stories with me of his life growing up and what he experienced as the product of two alcoholics who beat each other and their kids up as what appeared to me to be a regular pastime.  I felt such compassion for him and said so.  I also said based on what he had told me about his growing up years, I could see why he drank.  He looked at me with disbelief and said:  "My parents were drunks.  They could fight like crazy.  They really couldn't afford to raise any of us.  But my Mom and my Dad never forced me to drink.  I picked up the first drink.  I put it down, too."  He taught me a lot then about alcoholism, taking responsibility for one's life to include health issues and alcohol, and what wasn't to be gained by my blaming his parents for him or for his lifestyle.

To add something on the advice giving:  I have worked with folks who we might call "street people," who are often untreated As or severely mentally challenged otherwise.   Reading Scripture by themselves is not always a healthy thing for them because they often tend to focus in on very scary passages of Scripture out of context.  Since alcoholism is a shame-based disease, I have not often seen that this is a practice that is helpful for them and can trigger all sorts of issues that make things even more difficult for them.  Learning how not to give advice as you are noticing probably would be best for you to learn is something that Al-Anon stresses.  It is uncomfortable for us at first and then we get better at it because others are there or have been there and have seen positive results from "holding our tongue."  Not easy.  I have scars. 

-- Edited by grateful2be on Tuesday 23rd of September 2014 10:30:42 AM