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 read these messages frequently and find great wisdom in a lot of them and I am thankful for that. I am seeking some ESH with the following thoughts I am struggling with. My AD whom has stolen from us, lied repeatedly, made up all kinds of outlandish stories and I believe stole from other people too. I have spent hours in the past talking with her, confronting, trying to hold her accountable for paying back etc etc to no avail. I have turned my self inside out trying to help her and am now trying to work the steps and find some sanity for myself. I have mostly quit asking her anything as I am beginning to accept that it will likely be a lie anyways. I have continued to try to have some type of relationship and keep things very neutral. She did go to treatment with little to no improvement. Anyways we will likely see her at Christmas and my initial instinct is to speak to her again about non payment and lies but a part of me thinks why bother its not about to change anything anyways except cause another fight. When I chose to keep quiet about these things I feel a bit more peaceful and she plays the role of being nice but then I feel like I am avoiding the real issues and pretending that everything is allright when it clearly is not. My heart is broken most days for the child I feel that I have lost. Thanks for reading.
Hi. In response to your request for e/s/h - I don't allow my AS into my home because I am not going to set myself up for anxiety of any kind. I don't want to spend my holidays worrying about what might come up missing, what he's bringing with him into my home, who he will bring with him to my home. Any money I loaned him years ago to me is a gift and not a loan. I don't give him money and I don't give him gifts anymore either. Part of the consequences to treating me as if I'm a bank, a free to all garage sale location, a person who believes lies, and no concern for my well-being is not being welcome in my home. If he can't behave like a son, he doesn't have son status in my home. That doesn't mean I won't meet him on neutral grounds when he's not swallowed up in his disease and back to working on his life, but until he behaves like a son again to an aging mother, I have boundaries in place to protect myself and my home from trouble. My son is 39. We've ridden the merry-go-round of alcoholism and drug addiction for a long time. I got off the merry-go-round and have tried to stay off it when he told me he didn't need a program of recovery and kept on doing what he has experienced many times leads to nothing but hell. I don't want to go to hell with him anymore.
-- Edited by grateful2be on Sunday 14th of December 2014 06:53:23 PM
-- Edited by grateful2be on Sunday 14th of December 2014 06:55:00 PM
-- Edited by grateful2be on Sunday 14th of December 2014 08:43:50 PM
Dear Serenity Truly accepting the first Step was a huge gift of this Program. When I fully accepted that I was actually powerless over people, places and things, I stopped trying to "Talk"about the issues and the lies and the money owed .
Alcohol is a disease over which I am powerless. All these issues are symptoms of the disease which no amount of discussion will alter.
The best I can do is accept the disease and decide how I want to interact with it in a healthy fashion. Many Meetings and the Steps taught me that I can be kind, gentle, compassionate to all without giving money or advise or being manipulated If your daughter is coming for the Holiday I would up my meetings and start reciting the slogans regularly.
Hi Serenity, I'm sorry you are going through this with your daughter. I think you answered your own question when you said, " I feel a bit more peaceful and she plays the role of being nice." She knows how you feel. And it doesn't matter what you say to her, she's not going to get help until she's ready for it. Alcoholism is such a dreadful disease over which we are absolutely powerless. If you aren't attending Al-Anon face to face meetings, I would strongly recommend it.
Take care of you and take one day at a time.
-- Edited by cloudyskies on Sunday 14th of December 2014 07:15:43 PM
__________________
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
It was loving and so experienced and wise responses like you have receive here that saved my sanity and then my life in Al-Anon. Alcoholism and chemical addict is such a very powerful foe and for one reason being that I continued to respond to it as if the alcoholics and addicts in my life were normal well put together people. That was kind of like an insane denial back then until I learned the philosophy and definition of insanity..."doing the same things over and over again expecting different results". The program and fellowship helped me to change my perspective...they taught me how to perceive when my "normal" person was in the room versus my "alcoholic and/or addict". There is a wide difference you will agree. Your "daughter"...your alcoholic. When I learn the differences I learned to change my way of responding. Alcoholism is a disease of the mind, body, spirit and emotions...that doesn't mean only with the drinker/user it also means with me. I am just as sick yet I don't have the anesthesia of alcohol and drugs to block out reality...I go thru the insanity wide awake.
I learned I didn't have to make HUGE changes...just small alterations. When I made changes the drama and trauma could not go on as it always had in the past...it had to change. A metaphor for this came from my sponsor leading me thru the example of sitting in the audience of a theater watching the play of my life (oh God No!!) and then he asked me if just before you were to act out your part a stage hand handed you a different script, how would the scene come out? I replied different or it wouldn't come out to which he replied exactly...and then I got it...change my script...do something different and I did...not huge stuff although at that time any change felt huge because it was accompanied by fear and anxiety. When I changed...it changed. Part of my change was holding my alcoholic/addict accountable for the consequences of her choices especially when they violated my values. Lying, Cheating, Stealing got her cut off from my enabling without argument, yelling, swearing or a dramatic act out. I loved ending the drama as my sponsor taught me that it wasn't required to get my point across or get my needs met...what I had to do was "say what I mean, mean what I said and not say it mean". Change was huge and I started to experience what the program talks about as "peace of mind AND serenity".
Your AD knows and knows that she knows so why not act on that...no fighting, no pressure...stop lying and pay what you owe and/or we will treat you like anyone else who does that to others and us. You do know that she would not agree or like being treated that way including the denial of it soooo you both agree that the behavior isn't acceptable. I use this with my own alcoholic/addict son. If it isn't acceptable...it isn't acceptable period. I have also asked for agreement to the terms out loud and in English and make sure that he understands the consequences. My son is alcoholic/addict and I have to do these things because while chronologically he is 49 years of age emotionally and mentally he has the characteristics of a 16 year old which is when his drinking and using was in full swing. Presently he has left his wife...adult children, grand-children and family to take up with a "high school sweetheart" who has been married 5 times. Booze and drugs...nothing better to keep living things from growing up to potential.
Its great that you keep your expectations real...as I said above I was taught that in the program..."either keep them real or kill them altogether". Keep holding on to the cloak of your Higher Power so that you have someone greater and bigger than yourself to lean on as the disease constantly attempts to keep kicking your butt...and it will. My HP is real and my HP is here...all the time not needing my okay or permission to do that. I take second seat and sometimes 3rd or further down to my HP and HP's will.
You can do this. Keep working it. In support. (((((hugs)))))
I love what has already been shared .. I just wanted to say trying to make someone else think the way I do only keeps me in my own crazies .. my XAH is who he is .. what the disease has shown him to be is a liar, thief, cheat and a drunk .. regardless if he's actively drinking or not the behaviors are still there .. I stand in my truth. I will not change how he thinks or make him see reason from my perspective. He lacks the ability to see it from anyone else's perspective except his own.
I am not avoiding or pretending everything is ok .. it's not. It is pointless to have a conversation with someone who clearly doesn't live in the same reality I do. I do have boundaries and there are consequences in terms of .. no he's not
It would be harder to do this with my kids without question ... you can divorce a spouse, leave a sig other .. however children are different.
It is still my right to invite or not invite whatever chaos into my own life .. I know I will never give with the expectation of getting back .. I don't loan money. My way of accountability with my XAH is allowing the courts to deal with him. These are his choices and his consequences. Whatever happens .. his part of not dealing with his reality. The part I play is getting out of the way of his consequences.
Other than that .. for me whatever decisions I make I focus on living with the consequence .. positive or negative .. I'm only looking at one person in the mirror and that's me.
Hugs S :)
__________________
Faith minus vulnerability and mystery equals extremism. If you've got all the answers, then don't call what you do "faith". - Brene Brown
"Whatever truth you own doesn't own you" - Gary John Bishop
The decisions I made came after many negative experiences of letting him come to my home, serenity47. My e/s/h is only my own and I'm glad you are seeing that it wouldn't fit for you now. It didn't fit for me either until it did. The sad thing about the disease is that as it progresses, a person's moral compass seems to lose the pointer. The disease isn't a respecter of mothers. It wants what it wants and that is always its fix. In my case, a sense of entitlement began to show up in my AS, as if my being his mother and his family being his family owed him what wasn't his due. The requests for help that he needed to do for himself became demands and then the demands became orders and then the orders were followed by threatened violence. To allow that behavior without consequences would have been the most unloving thing I could have done for me, my daughter and grandson, or my son. Boundaries as strong as the ones I had to erect because of the position his disease put me into were not easy to put up or to maintain. There is also a lot of grief involved in that process, too. It is sad that my son's disease has put him outside the family he has and yet I have hope that outside this family unit, he might find another family - one that might be able to help him recover in ways I could never do.
It is good that you don't have to erect boundaries to the degree I have had to do it. Should the disease progress and you find yourself in a position that requires even tougher, tough love, I want you to know that you are not alone. Until or if that time ever comes, I'm glad you're in Al-Anon. It will help you do what you need to do for you whether or not she ever gets into a recovery program in earnest. Keep coming back.
but until he behaves like a son again to an aging mother, I have boundaries in place to protect myself and my home from trouble. My son is 39. We've ridden the merry-go-round of alcoholism and drug addiction for a long time. I got off the merry-go-round and have tried to stay off it when he told me he didn't need a program of recovery and kept on doing what he has experienced many times leads to nothing but hell. I don't want to go to hell with him anymore. -- Edited by grateful2be on Sunday 14th of December 2014 06:53:23 PM
((((((((((G)))))))))) I 100% support you.....i will not let an addict in my home unless they have been clean a number of years and it would be a very "supervised" visit...no valuables in site for them to take just in case they get the urge to use......yep....i am going to protect me and my pets/home/possessions that i worked very hard to have........be it alcohol or drugs, i won't let active addicts in my home.....under any circumstances........i applaud you for setting strong boundaries......IN SUPPORT
__________________
Live and let live and do it with peace and goodwill to all!!!!
I am a rescuer, too. Al-Anon has helped me learn to recognize that the red light is whirring but I can keep myself parked on my side of the street and let him run free. Al-Anon's The Merry-go-round Named Denial is an excellent resource for parents. It is generally given at meetings in the Beginner's Packet and it can be downloaded free at the World Service Office of Al-Anon's website. There are other free publications that can be downloaded there if you don't already have them? Detachment and Just for Today are extremely helpful, too, especially when attending meetings and learning from others and with others. This isn't a do-it-yourself program so the literature is helpful but when utilized as a part of the rest of the recovery program for us it begins to make more sense - at least it did for me.
Oh the heartache we put our parents through. Very very sorry to hear this. I was an alcoholic drinker for three years, and the lies and lack of morality I had were truly shocking. At the time though I was numbed out from substance abuse and didn't feel deeply. For the few minutes it did hit me I'd be so shamed I'd hide behind my (total bs) injustices or just run and get drunk. My mother said nothing. She cut off what she saw was my enablement and put me in an environment where I'd be most uncomfortable. Years later she told me how she feared for my life and truly believed I'd be dead any day. Looking back it was a real fear but like most alkies i had a busy fleet of angels. Getting sober was a one day at a time process. I needed silence to hear my inner voice. Over time that voice overpowered the numbness. I needed a reason to get better. For me my first born son was that reason. Over time the reasons grew. Now I'm a mum and can only imagine how bloody hard it must be not to do mother as we know it. Many prayers for you and your beautiful girl who is in there somewhere.
For quite a while in Al-anon I really struggled with the fear I had of making decisions about anything to do with my family, and especially of making the 'right/wrong' decision.
I was so consumed by a mix of fear and guilt about trying to separate myself out from the enmeshed family that I had that I did not have any real clarity as to what was detachment or avoidance.
I think my primary motive was survival which worked fine for a time !
Over time I came to realise that there are very few decisions that were either right or wrong in the sense of how I used to think about them.
This had just been another part of my coping mechanism that I had used to help me feel I was in control of what is happening around me.
What was crucial was realising that in any situation or context I did have choices. They may not have been the choices I would have wanted, but they work choices nevertheless.
Realising that I had a choice gave me a sense of power and control back over my decision-making process which was the key part of me learning to trust myself.
Realising I have a choice about situations means I don't feel so trapped. Also that doing nothing can be a choice, and can be a decision as well.
Often I needed to buy myself time internally in order to feel safe and comfortable enough with whatever decision I needed to make, and that I had to do things in my time not other people's.
Good luck
__________________
No rehab advertisements or promotions are allowed on this site. Yours was removed by John - Webmaster
I hope you can feel our hugs. I have a son who is an alcoholic...I have had to make some mild to medium sized decisions regarding boundaries, which could only come from a strong foundation of al anon. I know if I had to make the hard ones ever, I could not do it without my recovery community and al anon. These recovery tools are like an insurance policy. If you aren't already involved in al anon meetings, there is an empty chair and lots of loving arns waiting for you
Thank you aquamom. That does give me hope. I feel that is exactly what she is doing is numbing herself with alcohol to avoid the shame and pain. But I remember the lovely kind tender hearted little girl she was not too long ago and my mothers heart squeezes with pain for her but I must accept this is her journey and I need to step back. If love could cure this she would be well by now. I will focus on her busy fleet of angels with her to console myself. I know my lovely child is in there somewhere. In the meantime, I know that I have another purpose in this life other then mother and I seem to have lost that. This is my journey now to discover
Mothering our children is a slice of being a mom....it can be expanded to mothering ( in a healthy way) us, others, animals, etc. it shows up in a different form. You sound like a loving person that sees a bigger picture for your life. Being tangled up in addictions keeps us hostage. Blessings for your family.
I understand where your coming from. For me, I learned that the alcoholic behaves in certain ways that will allow their drinking to continue. Lies, manipulation, deceit etc are all part of the denial and the disease for most alcoholics. Its not about me and never has been and its not for me to judge and condemn either. But for the grace of god go I, ive been lucky, im not an alcoholic, I was spared that horrid fate. Your daughter is sick and part of that means she is full of guilt and negative, distorted thinking. All you can do is show her compassion and courtesy. Anything else will add to her misery.
Its hard when its our children because we feel its our responsibility to tell them when they have went wrong and set them on the right path. I thinkthat ends when they are adults. See her as your equal rather than a person that you have any say ot control over. Shes making her own choices that she will suffer the consequences from so there is no need to add to anything, its pointless, we are powerless over others, including our adult children.
