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.
OMG I am so angry. Now I have to clean up this mess. His friends are asking me why this happened. I have to tell my mom. The kids never told me he was drinking, I might have at least staged an intervention. Now it's all over. The pain is so much.
No it's not. Did you pour liqour down his throat? Stop pretending you have to, should, or can fix an unfixable situation that is just plain tragic. Bad enough your brother is losing the battle of addiction. Don't let it suck you down too. Grieve, but you did not cause this, could not control it, or cure it. Interventions rarely work and are not a family's "responsibility."
((Lucy))) I am so very sorry to hear of this sad situation. Remember that you are powerless over the disease of alcoholism and even if you had staged an intervention (as I did with my son) he could have continued to drink (as my son did.
I know that it is extremely hard to come to terms with a loss from this disease . I found that by processing the loss of my son from the disease with alanon members,, attending meetings and praying I was able to arrive at acceptance of my loss and process my grief.
To answer friends questions as to how this happened the answer is simple: Unfortunately he had the disease of alcoholism and since it is progressive and fatal he paid the price .
Positive thoughts and prayers for you and your family
Im so sorry Lucy, its such an awful disease. You are not in any way to blame for this. Unfortunately it seems to me people often look for someone or something to blame when they are in pain. Please dont take any comments like this personally. Please take your seat at Alanon if you haven't done so already and get the support you deserve.x
I love my brothers so much and would be devastated to loose them, whatever the circumstances so I'm sending you warm hugs and prayers for peace. It is not a reflection on you. I hope that you have some good memories to draw on at this difficult time. (((((hugs))))))
(((Anne))) - sending you hugs, positive thoughts and prayers. Know that we are here for you as well as we can be. Loss is never, ever easy. Be gentle with you today.
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Practice the PAUSE...Pause before judging. Pause before assuming. Pause before accusing. Pause whenever you are about to react harshly and you will avoid doing and saying things you will later regret. ~~~~ Lori Deschene
You did not physically put the bottle to his mouth and force him to drink.
Stop blaming yourself and don't let anyone else blame you for it either, that's ridiculous.
Thank you. I am still waiting for call. I know I am not to blame. He tried to blame me. He would tell me he had liver problems due to statins and make excuses for not seeing us. I am doing my best to chalk it up to his Narcissist Personality disorder. I do have some positive memories, but this situation was never going to have a good outcome. Long before he began drinking about 15 years ago, he was not able to accept responsibility. He basically discarded myself, my mom and this side of the family. He was the Golden child in the family. Nobody in my family drank. My dad did have a brother who overcame the problem. My grandpa had an estranged 1/2 brother with a problem, other than that, there's nobody that had it. So I missed signs. He tried to get help, but I don't think he was honest with the psychologists that tried to help him. One of them spoke to me.
I am doing the Al Anon program to work on my own short comings and helping my children to be held accountable for their situations. My son does a lot of blame shifting. He's being punished or breaking something. I am making him rake leaves and do yard work for free to pay for breaking something. I am working on not blaming but avoiding shifting responsibility in myself.
Thanks that means a lot to me. I guess I woke up to reality. I told myself a lot of stories and kept hoping that things would get better. I prayed and prayed that I could get my brother and his family back.
Then I started to think about it, even when my brother and his family were around, they were a bad influence. The dream has died too, the story I told myself that I would someday have that family I wanted.
When my brother was around 10 years ago, he created problems with my kids. He constantly belittled the way I was raising my children. WE always accommodated his schedule and his preferences. I once switched my kids birthday party so he could attend. He called at last minute and cancelled. One of many times...That was a bad influence on my children who were learning that bad behaviors are tolerated.
Even if he never started drinking, this behavior was not going to change. It was very unlikely he was going to do anything to make it better. It was likely, that I would have had no contact or very little contact with him anyway.
I had to tell my mom today that her son is passing away, and she's pretty upset. She wanted the dream to be true too. He kept score of things he did for people. He did something or my mom and dad like 20 years ago and recently said: see I was a pretty good guy forgetting all the other things he did and never apologized to them for his bad behavior. I told my mom. You have us. You are a nice lady, we will somehow go on. It's hard for her, she still believed the dream of that normal family, that never was.
