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'm not quite sure where to begin. My sister (38 years old) is an alcoholic. She was diagnosed with cirrhosis back in October 2011. She developed a very rare immune disease and almost lost her life. My parents lived out of town part time and I found myself taking my sister back and forth to dr's appoinments, missing work, and slowly watching her die. The beginning of 2013, a miracle happened and through the work of many doctors, she started recovering from the debilitating disease. We all thought she had hit rock bottom and would never drink again... boy were we wrong. I noticed early this year that she had become very "crazy" with text messages to me and family and I knew that something was going on. I repeatedly told my parents that I thought she was drinking again and also confronted her husband about it. That caused a huge fight and my family didn't talk to me for almost 2 months because they couldn't believe that I would think she was drinking again. All seemed to calm down and I just had to force myself to not have or show any concern and to concentrate on my life and my family. A month and a half ago, my parents were in town and staying at my sister's house and her husband asked my parents to go and check on her. She was completely incoharent and her husband lifted up the mattress and revealed several empty bottles of vodka. Turns out, he had known about her drinking for a while and thought that he could handle it.
My parents confronted my sister the next day when she was sober and she blamed me. She blamed me because at the beginning of the year when I wanted people to listen to me and see that something was wrong, she took that as me spreading a rumor. So according to her, I made her start drinking again. I know, and my parents know that is not true, but she has been texting me crazy things saying that she is in AA now and the ball is in my court to talk to her. I told her that I am not ready to talk to her, I found an Al Anon meeting that I have been going to, and that I need to start my recovery too. She then got very mad, and took back her "apology" because I wasn't deserving of it and blamed me again.
I just started going to Al Anon 3 weeks ago. I can say that the meetings are really great and so are the people. I'm just so broken right now because I still do not want to speak to my sister and now my mom is blaming me for her not recovering if I don't talk to her or let her see my son. I know that she is the sole person that can make herself recover and no one else can keep her sober... but why am I being blamed and why is everyone pushing everything on me like I did something wrong? I'm at my wits end and just want to scream... Thank you all for taking the time to read this and I hope it made sense....
Welcome, I can relate to the insanity that alcoholism brings to the whole family. One of the first things I learned was detaching with love. You have the right to not take part I the madness and live a happy life. Alcoholism tries hard to bring everyone down with it. Your right to get recovery for yourself. It sounds like your parents need alanon too but your powerless over everyone but yourself. Keep going to meetings, learn how to think in a different way with the alanon philosophy and you will be fine in no time.
Aloha kjfro and welcome to the family...an earlier post mentioned the pamphlet "Alcoholism - A Merry go Round named denial; it is CAL or Conferenced Approved Literature and often can be found in the literature box in our meetings. If it isn't in yours you can google it or just check the web under the title and I know it will be there cause I've seen it there. It is an amazing piece of explanation of our disease. Please go find it and read. You are going thru the insanity of this disease however I think you're pretty Akamai (smart in English) and see it for what it is. Blaming...why? The are so many answers to that question and anyone of them or more can be the ones used...Why you? Hard to believe but often times it is most easy to blame the one that loves the most because it is safest. The one that loves us the most takes more from us and doesn't fired back at us as often or as hard. Just my experience from being a therapist.
Pulling your attention back into your life, your wants and needs and goals actually is what we learned to do in recovery...we start taking care of self cause no one else is gonna step up for us much. Blaming someone else is kinda/sorta a cowardly way of actually owning their part in it. We learn how to do that ourselves and stop blaming also. Keep coming back. (((((hugs)))))
Welcome to MIP. I am glad you have found al anon, it can bring you peace and the answers you are looking for. Keep coming back, it works if you work it and you are worth it.
Hi Kjfro, welcome to MIP. You are among friends here. Alcoholism is a progressive disease that affects not only the drinker, but also family members and friends of the person drinking. The disease needs someone to blame. You cannot help your sister, but you can help yourself. Please seek out Al-anon and attend the meetings. This program will help you find serenity for yourself.
Let go and let God, and take one day at a time.
It works if you work it.
__________________
Look for the rainbow after the storm, and I'm sending you a double dose of HOPE. H-hold O-on P-pain E-ends
Thank you all for your kind words. I need to start one day at a time and just get through this. It's breaking my heart that my parents aren't seeing what she is doing and they actually accused me of being jealous of my sister. It really makes sense that people who love the most, get hurt the most...
Your parents are part of the dysfunctional family system the made her sick in the first place. They are her enablers it sounds like (as well as her husband). So...it sounds like you are asking a "why" question that has no good answer. Why are your parents acting in a crazy and enabling fashion? Because that is what enablers do. Like many folks who enable, they buy into the things that the alcoholic says are upsetting them and "causing" them to drink. You know this is BS. They believe your sister is a special snowflake that has overcome so much adversity and now everything has to be nicey nice and stress free or she will get sick again and/or die. Hence, you are getting flack for not going with their nicey nice make believe no boundary approach.
I would have a hard time with this scenario. I would be jealous of sister in some ways but not for the ways your parents are implying. It's because they are paying her all this attention and showing her unconditional love (which is coming at the expense of them having boundaries). Nonetheless, I'd be jealous that my parents were not as supportive of me. So there may be truth in that statement. It will take some boundaries with your parents regarding your sister. I don't know that they will listen since they sound enmeshed with her and her drama. I could see you saying things like "How I deal with sister is my business. You guys can deal with her in your own way. I am not taking any responsibility over her failure to recover or for her disease. Doing that would stop her recovery more than anything. Anybody else taking responsibility for her addiction other than her is enabling and I no longer want to be part of that."
Welcome to MIP: I understand on an experiential level the ways a family can try to make a disease somebody's fault. In Al-Anon we learn that we didn't cause and can't control or cure the disease or the alcoholic. We also can't control the way the disease has affected other family members and we didn't cause their reaction and can't cure it either. The best we can do is what you are doing. Go to Al-Anon. Share your experiences with others who understand the disease. Look for support in the recovery community. You won't find it in your family of origin for now. That doesn't mean you've done anything to bring all that bologna on. It just means your family as well as your sister are affected by the disease and only one of you is going for help. Good for you. Keep going to meetings and coming back here, too.
-- Edited by grateful2be on Wednesday 15th of October 2014 11:51:17 AM
