Dear Roy,

I find your words very comforting as I am in the tough love stage with my daughter and I am starting to realize that I have to let her fall before she can stand. I have always believed that each of us have to go through the bad times and good times to be who we are meant to be but your words confirmed that hitting bottom was what brought you back up and I think that will make it easier for me to stick to my tough love program.

Mshell1970, I read your response with appreciation. I call it the "Bounce Back Syndrome". Just as a ball must hit the bottom, a floor, for example, it cannot and will not "bounce" back upward. Too many parents prevent the ball from ever reaching the floor thinking they're doing their parental responsibility but in fact, you're getting in the way of progression. If a parent is getting frustrated, filled with anxiety to the point where they're not able to live their lives, then too much of themselves are invested and not enough of the Higher Power, I choose to call God. Parents should learn to rest in the Greater Parent who knows the child, a word often misspoken because in truth although they are our children, they're now adults and need to be treated as such, and loves them so much more than we could ever do. Let's let Him do what only He can do.

Dear Roy,

I can relate much better to your image of the "dream" our addicted kids have being a "nightmare", from which they need to awaken. At this point, my son is lashing-out at those who love him, and blaming them, particularly me, rather than understanding that he, with God's help, has the ability to awaken from the nightmare he is in. I can only pray that he will finally wake up.

The irony is that my son is already a believer in God, and his religion is very important to him - but I think he is not in touch with the love and acceptance of God, but rather heavily leans towards legalistic thinking, probably in a pathetic attempt to keep his impulses in check. (He is a member of a very legalistic and strict church.) I believe that this particular church is not helping with his sobriety, but rather, is causing him to want to drink, because he cannot meet their standards of "perfection".

I want to ask - I have been praying daily for my son, a LOT, since he started using drugs and then alcohol, for some 13 years now - and your post above is the second thing I have read today (and I believe in synchronicity as guidance) about relinquishing our kids to God (I love your image of "resting in the Greater Parent...) For those of us who do have a spiritual path and/or believe in God or a Higher Power - do you feel it is better to pray for a result, as I do - that my son will be healed of his alcoholism - or do you feel "just" relinquishing our kids to God and releasing them to Him is a better way, and will have the effect of giving us, the parents or family members, more peace in the situation?

Thank you for your very helpful comments.

Janet

Dear Janet,

Your post has given me some food for thought. You're in a sense asking, "What should I pray for?" The Bible says, "The fervent prayer of a righteous man, availeth much." Fervent doesn't mean repeatedly, but it means being earnest.

When you say you pray "a lot" for your son, it causes me to wonder if you think God is hard of hearing! Not to make light of the matter but let's consider this for a moment. Perhaps the greatest prayer(s) made was Christ when facing the cross. Remember the first time He prayed His humanity was crying out for God to remove the cup, if there was any other way, etc? When He went to check on His disciples and found them slumbering, then He went back to pray again. This time, His prayer was different. It was a progressive prayer. He obviously got His answer for the first one, He had to go through, then He ended up saying, "Thy (the Father) will be done."

This is an example of how to prayer for our loved ones, in this case, your son. You've already prayed. God has already heard. Is there a need to continue praying? Yes, but to a different degree. How do you feel when your children continued asking you for something, regardless if you've given them an answer or not? It frustrated you. Can we frustrate God? Not by our repeated prayers, but by our lack of faith. Faith in our prayer will make the prayer suffice in believing God has heard and answered--already, regardless of how we think He should answer.

I have a friend dying of 4th Stage cancer. When asked to pray with him, I didn't pray that God would heal him, not because it was beyond hope, but because God has already answered. My prayer was let God have His way with my friend and that my friend would find comfort in God's will. Would my friend like to be healed? I believe he does, and then it should be "his" prayer to do so, not mine. Mine should focus on the struggle and for my friend to find peace and comfort and support.

When you are praying for your son, know God is doing all He can, and even a little bit more, to prove Himself to your son. Talking about legalistic churches, mine is the same. I'm a Seventh-Day Adventist. I remain because I believe they follow the Bible and if there is any strains on my part it is because I've taken my eyes off Christ and His Word and have them focused on church doctrine and policy and God never sanctioned this. But there can only come an understanding and a parting and knowing of what God expects from me only when I have a PERSONAL relationship with God. This is what I believe God is doing for your son. He's revealing Himself to him in a way He will know for a surety who he is in Him. Let it happen.

So, in answering your question, I believe, your prayer should be in letting God's have His way with him and backing off. If you are asking God to heal him, which is typical of any parent, do so, but know God's will will be done despite your wishes, so I am one who tries to cut to the point. Let your son's prayer be for God's healing because it is more direct for him and only he will know when it begins to take place.

I hope this helps. I'm available to you.

Dear Roy,

Thank you for taking the time to write. Your response was very helpful.

I am going to send you a private message, elaborating a bit more on this topic...

Blessings,

Janet

My son would always seem to choose me to vent his ugly words and foul attitude. I would pick him up fromthe side of the road and he would scream and disrespect me to tears. I tried to remember that it was the drugs talking, but it was one of the most horrific times I've ever been through. He is now serving a 2-year sentence in prison. I pray that he has hit bottom and we can all begin to heal. Keep strong, be kind to yourself, and remember this is NOT your fault. I'll be thinking of you!!

While I am the spouse of an alcoholic, he has said almost the same exact things to me at times! It is, as you said, a reflection of how they feel about themselves. It doesn't magically go away even after they get sober.....However, I disagree that Alanon is not for parents of adult alcholics. The meeting I attend regularly is primarily parents of adult alcoholics, and I am the minority as a spouse. I think you should keep searching for a meeting that better fits your needs. I searched for a year to find a sponsor that was right for me, and a meeting that I truly felt I belonged to. I send you my best and will pray for your family!

Thank you, "Sally's son" and "cokercola". Do you think that we are the recipients of our adult child or spouse's venomous remarks because they remember how close we used to be to them, and they lash out at us because they are mourning the loss of that close relationship?

I'm asking this because a week before the horrible insulting phone call I received from my son, I saw him for about an hour, in my apartment, and we had a great talk - like "old times", when he used to open up to me. Then, just days later, came this phone call from hell. Maybe the old adage is true, "You always hurt the ones you love"...in our kids' and spouses' cases, maybe "You ESPECIALLY hurt the ones you love"...

I may try another AlAnon meeting soon -

Janet

In addiction there's a term called the King Baby Syndrome'.
Here is a good discription of this:
King Baby Lecture
~By Bob Brissett

My name is Bob Brissett. I'm a chemically dependent person. I'm a member of the treatment staff at Hazelden, and this morning we're going to discuss a certain characteristic that is shared by a lot of chemically dependent people. It's something that often stays with us after we get clean and get dry. It's something we're going to have to work on if we're going to have good sobriety. If, simply, we're going to be at all happy in this life. It's something that seems to be born of our loss of personal freedom. This characteristic is immaturity egocentricity. It's what we call at Hazelden the King Baby Syndrome' .

That's it: the King Baby Syndrome'. Now how does the chemically dependent person, the alcoholic, become King Baby, the consummate egomaniac? Professionals tell us that the addict has an almost instinctive need to protect himself from the knowledge that he's hooked that this is right in the disease. And that because of it, the addict becomes extremely defensive. It's this defensiveness, stifling our mental and emotional and spiritual growth, that reduces us all to some degree at least to a state of King Babyhood. At any rate, that's what the psychologists say. And it makes sense to me. But I guess it doesn't really make any difference how we got where we are: this is where we are, and how do we manage to cope with this problem of ours?

Being King Baby isn't so bad, really, if you happen to be a baby! As a matter of fact, it's a natural, normal thing in a baby. Babies cry and someone rushes to feed them, change their diapers, hold them, burp them, or somehow administer to them. Babies smile and everybody says Good baby. Nice things happen to babies. Then they close their eyes and everything goes away. When they open their eyes once more, everything comes back again. Babies have absolute power over the world: they can truly make it appear and disappear. The tough old world is really their oyster, and it's a nice deal for babies. Most people grow out of this stage maybe ourselves included at about the age of four or five. But then, unhappily, some of us, like some of us assembled here this morning, stop growing up at some point and begin growing down! And by the time we get into a treatment program, we've become full-fledged King Babies genuine egomaniacs.

Oddly enough, another characteristic shared by many chemically dependent people, and it goes right along with the egomania, is a strong feeling of inferiority. Once we get into treatment, most of us do pretty well working on the flip side of the King Baby Syndrome. It's easier to get over feeling inferior than it is to cope with the egomania, mainly because we don't enjoy feeling inferior: we don't get any satisfaction out of it; there aren't any rewards in being King Baby. For some of us, it's difficult to even want to quit playing the King Baby game, but there are some very good reasons for doing so. One is that if you do, you feel more free, and you feel living that is more comfortable and interacting with other human beings, whom you begin to treat as people, not as objects or things to be manipulated and used for your own satisfaction. Another is that you feel cleaner inside, better able to swing with life, to feel the natural high, the intoxication of really being alive and experiencing. People become people, not things to be manipulated and played with like toys. People can become genuine equal partners in this beautiful business of living, not as objects for us to exploit. This morning, we'll talk about six different ways in which the King Baby Syndrome reveals itself. We'll discuss each one a little bit and see if we fit in anywhere. We'll see if any of these descriptions fit us.

Just like babies, alcoholics assume that the world is our little private oyster. We tyrannize our homes, our wives, our children: we demand meals to be served before there has been an opportunity to prepare them. Then we throw tantrums if everything isn't done thoroughly. We demand that food be of our choice, not the family's choice. We demand that our TV program be tuned in, not the family's program. And we deserve this, we tell ourselves, didn't we work hard all day down at the office? What if we did have five coffee breaks, a three martini lunch that lasted til 2.45 and a couple of long, warm counseling sessions with that pretty girl employee who told us how kind and understanding we were. And the King Baby's wife must accede to his every sexual demand . Didn't the marriage contract say that she must love, honor and obey? The King Baby, you see, has a tendency to remember his wife's vows and forget his own! At work, if he happens to be lucky enough to have employees, he terrorizes them, demands of them complete obedience. He's adept at twisting knives, cutting people up and humiliating them and making them frightened, insecure about their jobs. And he does this because it makes him feel better: it makes him feel more powerful. The King then is selfish, he is arrogant, and he's omnipotent. He demands everything and gives nothing in return. People must be absolutely obedient to his every whim that's the King Baby.
Do not take it personnally and learn to walk away when they are acting like a baby.

Fascinating - thanks, Katrinka -

Janet

I adored my parents, but felt abandonded at an early age. I spent many years trying to make them prove that they loved me, but the things that they did did not fill the hole that got deeper and deeper, and which I was creating and allowing to fester. If love was enough, I would have had a completely different life. I took a path that only I could get myself back from. I never once doubted that my parents loved me, although I said it over and over, I extracted everything I could with that guilt. I blamed them for so much and the truth is that, the first thing, the original anger, was valid. They did not get it because it was something that a child took in a way that was a child's view. But as I grew older, it was just the same thing only more and more and more, and I was stuck in that really early anger and causing chaos. Until I looked at that, and grew up, it didn't matter what they said or did. They loved me, I loved them.

I cannot count the endless conversations during which I was told how much better I was than what I was doing, how much potential I had, how sad it made them feel, it was like...blah, blah, blah. Really. If something really did make a dent in me, I responded with something really nasty to back them off. Most of the time, it was just what I had to sit through to get what I wanted. I knew going in what I needed to leave with. I really believed at many times that they should pay for the pain I felt.

I was loved, and I was an active addict. Addiction always wins, until it doesn't. JMO

Thank you for your post - it helps me understand the alcoholic's behavior towards his or her parents.

Janet

Janet7.. just wanted to add you may want to find a different Alanon meeting. Sometimes the fit isn't right. the one I go to is mainly parents. also, as far as needing feedback and one-on-one, that is the role of your sponsor. so as they just, Keeping coming back.
I also wanted to say, I love the fact you reply back to the postings.
Often, people take a lot of time, effort and thought into posting a repy and then we never know if the poster even read it.
Kudos to you and a very big hug!!!

Thanks, mgs1 - (how's this for a quick response? lol - I just saw your message come in...)

I have been thinking of looking for another Al-Anon meeting, and I'm especially drawn to the thought of having a sponsor. Thanks for the encouragement -

And thanks for the positive things you wrote about me - I had been thinking that you are one of the members who really seems to put her heart into the posts - thank you for that - we really need that here...

Blessings, Janet

I am soooo not worried about you. You have a great head on your shoulders. Right now the emotional toll is wining and weighing you down, but I am sure that will change as you become stronger with more information, support and time.
Hugs!!!