roundandround

First, I really want to commend you for recognizing that, like you, your daughter needs help.

I can only speak of my own experiences, and what - looking back - I wish had been done for me. I've never been to Alateen. My AF threw the word around right after he got out of rehab, but I never went. Could have been because I never said I wanted to go. I WAS hurting. I DID want to go, but there were a lot of things which stood in the way of me saying yes, please take me.

I was scared, and I had spent so long with my brain screaming 'DO NOT TALK ABOUT IT' that the whole idea made me nauseous. I wanted to be strong - I needed to be strong - and wanting help made me weak, in my eyes. It also felt like if I admitted how messed up his drinking had made me, that would lay additional guilt on HIM. What if he thought I hated him for what he did? What if that pushed him back into a bar? What if my friends found out I was in therapy? Would they think I was crazy?

Even back then, I recognized that I really wanted to go, to talk to someone, but I couldn't bring myself to say yes. I wish someone would have just taken me, so I didn't have to bear the weight of that decision - and would have had an out if someone found out. (My mom is making me go, it's not because there's something wrong with me.)

I didn't get help until I was in college, when the eating disorder I had been using to cope for the last six years nearly pushed me off the edge. It's taken 2 years of one on one therapy to sort through the mess I made.

It's likely that your daughter hasn't learned proper, safe coping skills. Make sure she gets them, definitely before the hormones hit. Even well-adjusted teens are irrational idiots.

Alateen is a good idea, imo. Or get her a counselor to see, someone that KNOWS about alcoholism. She's young and it will be easier to fix anything now, before her beliefs are set in stone.



Like smacked, this bit from your post concerned me. If you're asking her not to talk about a certain incident, I can guarantee that she needs to. She probably needed to before the subject was brought up, but it's like being told not to think about elephants; now elephants are the only thing on your mind. It's just one time now, but it's a slippery slope...She'll start keeping more and more things in, wanting to protect you from her friends and their parents. Not wanting anyone to think bad things about you, lying to herself and others. Codependency in a nutshell.

I understand and really respect your desire to not make her suffer and lose friends. But I urge you to be extremely careful about censoring her on this. And definitely give her an outlet, someone neutral, to talk to about it.