Families & Friends Of Addicts Support Group
Addiction affects more than just the individual. This community is dedicated to the families and friends of individuals suffering from any form of addiction. Mental health professionals are increasingly considering alcoholism and addiction as diseases that flourish in and are enabled by family systems. Family members react to the addicted person with particular behavioral...
Ok, so my sister has been clean of any illegal drugs for over a year. She is currently living in a city about 3 hours away from us in a living sober program. She has her own apartment and minimal income, she is responsible to pay her rent and attend a certain amount of NA meetings, parole meetings, and meetings with her personal counseller. She is required to do this for a length of time. She is not allowed to leave or she goes back to prison.
When it's cleared with her parole officer she is allowed to come home for visits. She has been home twice so far. The first time she asked that me, our other sister, and our mother and herself all go out together for a night of karoke. I hate karoke, sing like a dying moose, but I went with the family to help encourage her.
She came down this past weekend and this time she wanted to go to a local nightclub. This club has a deal where the first forty people in the bar get five free drinks, and the possibility of another five. So we pick her up, my mom does not drink, has been completley sober for sixteen years, so she is always the DD. My sister was half cut by the time we got her. She then proceeded to get so ridiculously drunk. She got louder, and obnoxious. I had a friend there who I hadn't seen in years and I was so embarassed.
At the bar she ordered two more shots of tequila and while she took the first one I snatched the second one and told her she had had enough. She got a little physical, started pushing me and the bartender got in it. Asked us what was going on, I took the shot(NASTY) and told him nothing. She couldn't get it in my belly right? So she stormed off.
Later I found her with another drink in her hand, skirt riding up, face all slack. She said she had to pee. I told her I would hold her drink and she could go. She snapped out. Rushed off. I followed. What happened next is ridiculous.
She proceeded to cry and yell about how nobody loved her, nobody cared. I ended up pinning her against the wall, snatching the drink from her, dumping it in the trash, and yelling back. Maybe not the best idea, but I was furious. I yelled at her about how she was an adult, we were here, but she was the one who had to make the decisions. Some nice other drunk lady brought us some water and I tricked her into drinking half a jug of water.
Then she went into a washroom stall and I kept holding her hair out of her vomit, keeping her dress down, and trying to get her up and out of there. It took me forty five minutes to get her coherent enough to move, and my little sister and I had to physically haul her out of the bar. It was very embarassing.
The next day she claims she remembers none of it. And that it's hilarious that this happened. I also found out that this isn't the first time this visit she got this wasted. Apparentley she get's hammered three or four times on the weeks she visits.
Is she just releasing stress from her time int he big city, where she has no pals and never leaves her house, or is she swapping one addiction for another? She isn't even supossed to drink on her parole!!
When it's cleared with her parole officer she is allowed to come home for visits. She has been home twice so far. The first time she asked that me, our other sister, and our mother and herself all go out together for a night of karoke. I hate karoke, sing like a dying moose, but I went with the family to help encourage her.
She came down this past weekend and this time she wanted to go to a local nightclub. This club has a deal where the first forty people in the bar get five free drinks, and the possibility of another five. So we pick her up, my mom does not drink, has been completley sober for sixteen years, so she is always the DD. My sister was half cut by the time we got her. She then proceeded to get so ridiculously drunk. She got louder, and obnoxious. I had a friend there who I hadn't seen in years and I was so embarassed.
At the bar she ordered two more shots of tequila and while she took the first one I snatched the second one and told her she had had enough. She got a little physical, started pushing me and the bartender got in it. Asked us what was going on, I took the shot(NASTY) and told him nothing. She couldn't get it in my belly right? So she stormed off.
Later I found her with another drink in her hand, skirt riding up, face all slack. She said she had to pee. I told her I would hold her drink and she could go. She snapped out. Rushed off. I followed. What happened next is ridiculous.
She proceeded to cry and yell about how nobody loved her, nobody cared. I ended up pinning her against the wall, snatching the drink from her, dumping it in the trash, and yelling back. Maybe not the best idea, but I was furious. I yelled at her about how she was an adult, we were here, but she was the one who had to make the decisions. Some nice other drunk lady brought us some water and I tricked her into drinking half a jug of water.
Then she went into a washroom stall and I kept holding her hair out of her vomit, keeping her dress down, and trying to get her up and out of there. It took me forty five minutes to get her coherent enough to move, and my little sister and I had to physically haul her out of the bar. It was very embarassing.
The next day she claims she remembers none of it. And that it's hilarious that this happened. I also found out that this isn't the first time this visit she got this wasted. Apparentley she get's hammered three or four times on the weeks she visits.
Is she just releasing stress from her time int he big city, where she has no pals and never leaves her house, or is she swapping one addiction for another? She isn't even supossed to drink on her parole!!
I've never heard of an addict progressing in recovery when they're abusing an alternative drug. I know of some people who have been able to continue smoking cigarettes, but that's it. If it were me I'd try to cut out even those if I could.
You have been through so much with your sister. I'm not sure what to say. Her counsellor or parole officer needs to know what she's doing, but is it appropriate for you to tell them, I don't know. Part of me thinks it's only going to help if it comes from her. Somehow.
Never agree to go out to a bar with someone who is suppose to be working a program, it sends the wrong signal, instead you needed to say no but we can do this instead. I am afraid the damage is done and it is only a matter of time before she is back to her drug of choice.
All of you need to tell her you know she is using alcohol to get her high and will no longer go out with her. If she wants to visit you will all love to see her, but she has to stay sober and work her program. If she can't do that then tell her she isn't welcome home for the weekend visits.
We went to a pub for karaoke, she had a few drinks, but that was it. A few. She stopped then. I assumed since alcohol is in everyday life it was something she was going to be exposed to sooner or later. She started smoking cigarettes when she quit crack, she says that's her 'replacement'. But she smokes menthol, and about one cigarette a day.
Next time she comes down I just won't go to the bar with her, but that won't stop her from going.
I'm wondering if the program needs to monitor people better - it's a concern if people can go home and do as they please, and not have consequences at the program like getting kicked off it. How would they know what she is doing while she's away? By being in touch with the family. I guess that's not happening enough.
On the positive side though, remember what Katrinka often says, that many addicts grow out of it, and many need to rehab and relapse more than once before they eventually "get it".
There is a case to be made for allowing the person to re-integrate with normal life with visits - going straight from a controlled environment into the real world doesn't work, thats why we have probation, sober living houses, and visits. It's just that it's hard to tell when they are ready to be trusted. Maybe they can never be trusted, but they can't be locked up forever.
It's very sad that this has happened. Back to square one I guess - she needs to learn again why she needs to be clean, and make that decision, and learn how to manage temptation and stinking thinking. Long term work.
I do appreciate the points in your post that mattered. But just so you know, when my sister was using crack, I did confront her. I had her children taken away. I kicked her out of my house, on Thanksgiving, into the cold with a plate of food that hissed with steam the second she landed on my step. I raised one of her daughter's after she was taken by the government and awarded to me. I do not enable her, and I never have. This was one time, I was not aware she had been doing it with other people until she did it with me. She wandered around the bar, and when I saw her for the last time she was so drunk she could not stand.
Since that night, she has gone home. But before she went we had a talk on the phone. I told her that we could go for coffee next time she was down, but I wouldn't be going anywhere were there is booze. I told her that it was her choice to get drunk, and it sure as hell wasn't a funny choice, but I wasn't going to help her make stupid choices like that. She told me that she does understand where I am coming from, and that she doesn't expect me to go with her if she chooses to go out next time she is down. However, I won't report her to her PO. My sister didn't get clean with the help of anyone, she decided to do it on her own. She was clean when she finally went into sentencing for the crime she did while using. I won't be responsible for throwing her back into prison. As it is now, there is a chance she can kick alcohol, as long as we work at it before she is to far gone, if she goes back to jail, that's it for her. She has mental issues, and she will go off the deep end, and the second she get's out, alcohol will be the softest thing she falls back on.