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It would take me years to get everything I want to say out, Im sure you all have been through very similar things but long story short, My mother has been an alcoholic for 20 years. Ever since I have been in my teens. I am an only child. Fast forward twenty years, my dad left her, I am married with two kids and her alcoholism is ruining my life. I come to this board because regular al-anon meetings are hard fro me to attend because of my schedule. I am at the point where I am ready to just move on and never talk to her again if she doesn't stop but I am having trouble pulling the trigger on that. It is affecting my marriage and I am worried if something doesn't change I will lose my marriage. Ill post more as I read the forums but thanks for reading.
Welcome to MIP. I'm glad you have been reading our threads. We do have on-line meetings twice a day that could be of help to you if you choose to attend? Keep coming back here, too.
its rough having a loved one in the disease, but unless your mom gets into AA an surrenders 100% to the program, she will get worse and die...that is her future if this does not stop
NOT your problem....Your duty is to care for you.....al-anon is for us...it teaches us that we are powerless over another and we can only care for ourselves....your mom is on her own road and you didn't cause this...never will you control it, and for SURE you are not gonna cure her
i would get into face to face meetings for myself...cut her loose as far as letting her to her own devices, and work on myself....its sad, but cutting her loose to face her own stuff is the most merciful thing you can do...for yourself and her.....you can love, but al-anon teaches us how to love , but be detached from their problems that only THEY can address
glad u reached out......we have tremendous on line meets here.....2x per day....9am and 9pm on weekdays and saturday and its differnt on sunday....on top of the web site, here, i am sure you can find the times.....great meets......face to face is best, but if not possible??? i thrived just fine on on line meets when there were no al-anon rooms near me........IN SUPPORT
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Live and let live and do it with peace and goodwill to all!!!!
Thanks, I am very interested in the online meetings, I will probably be able to attend my first one soon. The thing that kills me the most about all of this is that I thought when I had kids that would be enough to change her. I know its not my kids job to do that, but I just thought it would. Every day I wake up thinking I am going to get a call saying she is dead, but she has more than nine lives. I keep thinking her luck is going to run out. We have tried every approach I could think of to try and help her. We have tried tough love, we have tried not speaking to her for an entire month, I tried handling her finances for her thinking I could control her buying alcohol. As you all know, nothing works. I do feel sorry for her that her marriage ended after 30 years and that at 64 she is single. On top of that, my dad treated her like crap a lot of the time which probably led her to drink but there comes a point in time where you have to take responsibility and control of your life, no matter how old or young you are.
Pilot: My x treated me horribly. I didn't drink. Alcoholism is a disease. There is a sticky the top of this board that talks about that. It might be helpful to you. Meetings will help you decide how to best help yourself and let go of your Mom and her disease. Nothing worked because she isn't doing anything about her disease. She is powerless over it. She can also get help for it if she chooses. If she doesn't choose to get treatment for her disease, she will continue to be affected by the disease that she didn't ask for but still must seek treatment to arrest its progressive nature. You are also powerless over it and your Mom. Meetings will help you put your focus back onto yourself and your primary commitments and learn ways to detach from your Mom that are good for you and for your family. She might not choose to do anything differently than she is, but you can. Hope you will.
We have tried every approach I could think of to try and help her. We have tried tough love, we have tried not speaking to her for an entire month, I tried handling her finances for her thinking I could control her buying alcohol. As you all know, nothing works.
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yea, you can even tie them to a tree and they will find a way to drink....the only thing to do is cut her loose as far as interferring with her life lesson.....like i said..I have A's in my life...i love them but at a distance...i take are of me..put me first...I do not absorb their life job....if they die?? and they will if they don't stop, then so be it...its hard...its sad...but if they refuse help, there is nothing I can do but LET GO.....My A brother and best male friend is an alcoholic who refuses help...i can't save him........he is circling the drain as time goes by and more empty bottles of booze....one day i'll get the dreaded call...I am saddened to think of it, but i have accepted it.......I know it is human nature to want to "hold on" keep them above ground, but I have come to the place where quality of life is more important than how long he is here....at the rate he is going, homeless unless he can find work on a ship and sleep there, he spends all his money on vodka.....that is no life......if he keeps this up, life for him will get still worse...there are times i wish his maker would take him back home so this darkness cannot torment him anymore..........BUT, there is always that teeny chance he will get soo bad he will cry for help ...percentages are against him , so I just put him in his maker's hands and release ME from thinking i will ever have any control over this........
i do relate to your pain.....I've lost folks whom i cared about to this....I HATE this disease and the darkness that it feeds.....IN SUPPORT
__________________
Live and let live and do it with peace and goodwill to all!!!!
Welcome Pilot, it is good to know that you are here and, if you have been reading the posts on this website, you already know that you are not alone.
I'm sorry that your life has been affected by alcoholism but I get a sense from your post that you are ready to turn things around. It sounds to me as though having kids may not have been enough to change your mum's behaviour, but it could be enough to change yours.
I can't really imagine how it feels to have had to watch over your mother's affairs for so long. I think I would have found it very draining. I think that if I were in your situation I would be in danger of becoming resentful of having to live her life rather than my own. I wonder if her drinking keeps you tied to her nest and takes your attention away from your own young family? It does not have to be that way.
I found that turning my thinking on its head with regards to my husband's drinking helped me a lot. I had desperately wanted him to stop. He wanted to continue. Who was I to tell him what to do? I accepted that a he was going to drink. At the time I was really just giving up and recognising that I could not do it all. Turns out I didn't have to do it all!! It felt counterintuitive but looking back I can see that it was the most loving thing I had done for him in a long time. I accepted that I was not able to be myself in the situation that he was choosing to live in and that I was in danger of disliking him intensely since I resented all the headspace that I was giving to his well being. I was angry about the hurt that I had endured. I felt incredibly guilty btw, as if I I had failed because I could not do enough to make 'it' better. In reality, I could make my life better and that took a load off my husband!! After a time I had the strangest impression of empowerment and that I was standing on my own two feet! It is possible to thrive and enjoy life, regardless of whether someone else is drinking or not. Dropping the guilt helps a lot!!
Thanks, that's one of the main things I want to work on. It stems from being an only child I believe for me, and that is guilt. The feeling that if I don't take care of her, no one will. She has selfishly mentioned that to me more than once of course when she is on one of her rants. As far as AA goes, she has been to 4 treatment centers in the past 4 years. 3 involuntary and one voluntary. It lasts for a month or so and then its right back to it. She lives by herself, I had family members say, why didn't you just let her move in with you after the divorce? I tell them I have 2 kids, I don't need 3 and I spent my youth watching her drink in my house, there was no way my kids would go through the same thing.
I'm so glad you're here Pilot. Your post brings back a lot of memories and feelings. It is so hard to be in the position you are in I know. Something that helped me was the acoa bill of rights specifically I have the right to say no. I hope you csn check out some online meetings. You are not alone. You are not selfish. You didn't cause can't control or cure her disease. it is possible to love the person and hate the alcoholism, to have boundaries and releive the guilt/burden/stress.keep coming back.((pilot))
