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...
My 28-year-old alcoholic son, who lives in the shelter system and changes shelters every week (he cannot seem to stay in one place, and flees in-patient rehab after a couple of weeks - the only thing he can bring himself to do is go to AA meetings...) called my husband and I a couple of days ago. I answered the phone, and when I had the audacity to ask him why he keeps running from one place to another, he proceeded to run down a list of the cruelest statements I have ever heard (about me.) He said that I was a "neurotic person" who had "caused his alcoholism" and who made him what he is today. He said that all my friends had abandoned me (not true) because of how impossible it was to be around me. He said that I should "look in the mirror and see who I am - the type of person I am". He said that all of his friends, including the people at his church, feel I am a "monster of a mother" for allowing my son to live in a homeless shelter. (My husband and I decided to not continue paying his rent on his apartment or have him live with us because we knew this would give him the "safety net" he needed to keep drinking - Mommy and Daddy being there to enable him. My husband also goes to AlAnon meetings, and many parents there told him that their adult kids only sobered-up after they shut the door and threw them out.)
He also feels that I hate him, and said he would respect me more if I just admitted it.
I feel that it is excruciating to just be alive right now, knowing that my son believes these things about me, and that he can be so very cruel. I also feel that I am internalizing what he said, and feel that I may have contributed to his alcoholism, and I know that this is lethal for me (to believe this.)
I believe that he is projecting onto me what he believes about himself - and that he despises himself, so accuses me of hating him. All of the things he said about me - I believe he thinks is true of himself. But it doesn't help to know this - because I am sad that he believes these things about himself, and also that he says such cruel things to me. We used to have such a good relationship.
I feel I need some support from you guys, if you would be kind enough to send in anything that would be helpful for me to hear right now.
Thank you,
Janet
He also feels that I hate him, and said he would respect me more if I just admitted it.
I feel that it is excruciating to just be alive right now, knowing that my son believes these things about me, and that he can be so very cruel. I also feel that I am internalizing what he said, and feel that I may have contributed to his alcoholism, and I know that this is lethal for me (to believe this.)
I believe that he is projecting onto me what he believes about himself - and that he despises himself, so accuses me of hating him. All of the things he said about me - I believe he thinks is true of himself. But it doesn't help to know this - because I am sad that he believes these things about himself, and also that he says such cruel things to me. We used to have such a good relationship.
I feel I need some support from you guys, if you would be kind enough to send in anything that would be helpful for me to hear right now.
Thank you,
Janet
My son has said some of the same things to his mother and I. Addicts always want to blame someone else for the mess they're in.
Stick to your plan. It's the best thing for him and you now.
God Bless
Joe
Read the following (not sure who wrote it but I read it quite often).
Reflections of a Mother
I gave you life, but I cannot live it for you.
I can teach you things, but I cannot make you learn.
I can give you directions, but I cannot be there to lead you.
I can give you freedom, but I cannot make you account for it.
I can take you to church, but I cannot make you believe.
I can teach you right from wrong, but I cannot always decide for you.
I can buy you beautiful clothes, but I cannot make you beautiful inside.
I can offer you advice, but I cannot accept it for you.
I can give you love, but I cannot force it upon you.
I can teach you to share, but I cannot make you unselfish.
I can teach you about respect, but I cannot force you to show honor.
I can advise you about friends, but I cannot choose them for you.
I can advise you about sex, but I cannot keep you pure.
I can teach you the facts of life, but I cannot build your reputation.
I can tell you about drinking, but I cannot say "NO" for you.
I can warn you about drugs, but I cannot prevent you from using them.
I can tell you about lofty goals, but I cannot achieve them for you.
I can teach you about kindness, but I cannot force you to be gracious.
I can warn you about sins, but I cannot make you moral.
I can pray for you, but I cannot make you walk with God.
I can love you with unconditional love, all my life . . . and I will.
The first coincides exactly with what you are thinking...
"What he says is merely a reflection of his own internal hell."
The other is a very appropriate response...
Tell him,
"Yes, I am responsible for all your problems, You are responsible for the solutions.... let's see how good you are at your responsibility."
(While she was not inferring in anyway that I was responsible, it did shut him up. After all it does take 2 to argue and when there is no argument... there isn't much more he can say.
"Mshell"- thank you for taking the time to send "Reflections of a Mother" - it is so true, all of it -
Can I ask - are you all still in a lot of pain a lot of the time regarding your kids and what they say to you and what they do - or have you found a way to "distance" from them and the pain, as AlAnon claims you can do? And if you have found a way to distance - how have you done it?
Janet
It seems to me to be geared for spouses.
Just my opinion but thats what I felt when I went there.
I dont think as parents we can ever distance ourselves from our kids.
I just had to tell mine not to call me unless he wants real help period.
It's hard but it has to be done.
There was a mother of an adult alcoholic daughter at an AlAnon meeting I went to who claimed she had distanced completely from her daughter, but I am cynical that she was able to do this -
Janet
I admire you for taking in your grandson, although I know it would be impossible to not take over the care of your grandbaby. But it is such an extra responsibility, and as much as you must love him, so much added stress to raise a child again! One of my biggest fears is that my son will get a girl pregnant, because I know then that I would have to get deeply involved, if the girl were also an alcoholic.
I completely understand why you feel some level of relief that your daughter is in jail. I would feel that my son was safer than he is now - in the shelter system and on the streets - and also, the phone calls asking for things would stop, and the insults and hateful comments -
Janet
Alcoholics will blame others on their problems. Don't yell back just say "if I was in your shoes I might feel the same way" Don't nag him, don't judge, don't critize him. If he's screaming at you hang up try to remain calm and tell him you'll talk later when he's in a better frame of mind.
Our Alanon has several parents and very few spouses. I enjoyed Alanon and went for about a year, but don't agree with alot of things. Its not for me. I know several it it becomes their life I have too much more I want to do. But it may help you.
I agree that my son has been self-medicating a long time.
I never yell or nag him - I do tend to break down crying sometimes (I never did this until very recently - I think I am really wearing down emotionally...) I have learned, over these many years, that I have no control over his behavior, so I am gradually learning to accept that this is the way he wants to live his life -
I have not found AlAnon helpful in that I seem to need feedback and "crosstalk", rather than telling my story or updates and having people just stare blankly at me, with no reaction, which has been my experience.
I did tell him during our last conversation that I wanted to get off the phone, and I did - and I think it startled him. He's not used to me doing that.
Janet
It's so hard, especially since I have had the experience of having a very good relationship with my son, and seeing so many good qualities in him - you're so right about addiction betraying our kids and their families. Alcoholism seems to have destroyed those good qualities in my son. But I still have hope that those qualities must still be in him, and that they will emerge again one day (I feel this on a "good" day....)
Janet
Your comments make a lot of sense - but are our addicted and alcoholic kids truly following their "dreams" by living on the streets, being in jail, and living in homeless shelters? My son says he feels he is "in hell", and talks about wanting to kill himself. So I would absolutely say that he is not following his "life's dream" in living the way he is. Now, he may be making choices (and of course, he denies this, saying he has a disease and that his lifestyle is not a choice) - but I believe that even if a person has the disease of alcoholism (and there is definitely a hereditary factor in his case, as all of my cousins have been or are substance or alcohol abusers...) he or she has some element of choice in how they deal with the problem. But, since so many alcoholics have severe emotional problems, do they really have the strength to "fly away from the nest" and create lives for themselves? I don't even mean a luxurious life - I would be ecstatic if my son volunteered at the Catholic Worker (a center for the homeless) and lived there for room and board, and no pay - (he has done this before)- as long as he was safe and was respecting himself and others. So I think it is more complicated than it seems.
Blessings back to you,
Janet
I never dreamed I would be a drug addict and homelessness would prevail in my life, but it didn't prevail to the point of permanency. I can tell you this; however, while sitting in those shelters and crack-houses and feeling dejected and in despair is when an opportunity for Someone much greater than I and you was able to reveal Himself to me and made the difference in my life. I am now wide awake and finally living on the "continued dream" of achievement and sharing and caring with others who are on the path I trod. It is my duty, my passion to give them hope and encouragement to let them know, the addict as well as their family and loved ones, the nightmare, which is a dream, too, eventually ends and one does fully recover and can proceed forward, claiming a disease or no, for I do not, but this is the path Providence often takes us to get us to where we should have been all along.