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
Nikki, thank you for your supportive and kind words. It means a lot to me that you think I am doing a great job.
Julie, what you wrote was so helpful and uplifting for me to read. As much as I have gone through, I cannot imagine the fear and pain of knowing your son has a warrant out for his arrest, and yet you are taking care of yourself and getting the help you need. That is amazing.
When you wrote, "God has a plan for my son, and I need to step out of the way and let that happen", I knew inside that this is not only what I believe, but what I must focus on daily, to stay sane. If I remind myself that I may actually be sabotaging my son's sobriety by "getting in his way", and keeping God from working on him, then it is so much easier to relinquish him to God, and this is what I need to do, constantly.
You are absolutely right about how our kids are being watched over. It amazes me, also. There is so much evidence of this in their lives.
Thank you for reassuring me that it "will work itself out eventually". I don't expect an overnight miracle, but if I could just hang on to the belief that he will be OK one day, I can get through this.
I don't hate my son - it is more like a "numbness" about him. I don't recognize him. I know that alcoholism is a disease, but I also believe that, nonetheless, there are choices the alcoholic can make to move him or her closer to sobriety - for instance, some members of AA work the program more seriously than others - so there must be an element of free will involved with the disease process, or else all alcoholics would progress or regress at the same rate. So my anger emerges most often when I feel he is not giving it his best "shot".
Thanks for all your helpful responses,
as always,
Janet
I would just like to suggest that it is not hard to stop using. It is dealing with life that is hard. Your son, JMO, should be more concerned with the fact that he wsa unable to handles the situation, and was dependent on someone else for happiness. This are things that recovery focuses on. Rather than trying to figure out what to do to patch things up with anyone, he needs to patch himself up. I am sure you know this, you have shown much insight, but it is just a thought from reading your posts.
Its not as simple as saying I'm not going to do it anymore.
The brain gets rewired and it takes along time time after not using for the brain to rewire itself.
This site is a fun site to see how drugs and alcohol effect the brain. As you can see they are not all the same.
http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/addiction/drugs/mouse.html
http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/addiction/drugs/index.html