My First Time Here
 

Hello,
This is my first time doing this. I needed some place to talk to someone that might understand! I have a crackhead father, a brother in jail for helping to make meth, another brother and his wife addicted to pain meds and suspected heroin, an alcoholic grandfather and an enabling mother and grandmother. Does anyone else feel like running away and changing their identity? I simply can't take the emotional rollarcoaster of it all anymore. Being sober puts me the odd man out in a place where I am supposed to have the most comfort. What happened to my family that was so close that turned into strangers that I avoid because they are not safe to be around anymore? I'm out numbered and feel like I'm standing alone and fear for my kids growing up!

((FedUP)) - Welcome to SR, though so sorry for what has brought you here. This forum can be slow, at times, but I'm sure someone will be along. You may also want to check out the Friends & Family forums - one for alcohol, one for substance abuse.

I'm not really an ACOA, but I do have several family members who are addicts/alcoholics. I'm in recovery, myself. The great folks here have helped me to regain a bit of sanity and serenity, even when everyone around me is spinning out of control.

Hugs and prayers,

Amy

I am in a similar place. I am so outnumbered.

I am glad you found this place. It has helped me so much. It helps to know I am not the crazy one, and not alone.

Read, read and read more. Loving detachment and taking care of you first are beautiful things!

Definitely read up. There are lots of stories here, and lots of information. Mostly it will help you understand yourself better. No one on this site knows your life better than you. Only you can decide what's best and safest for you.

It sounds like you may already know what you want / need to do. Stepping out on your own can be a scary thing. Assuming you are old enough, it's often the only way. Sometimes the familiar may seem secure, but in the case of the alcoholic home that is not often true. Getting out on our own helps us explore our own identities, unencumbered by the box our parents try to put us inside.

I just wanted to say welcome, I am happy you are here and that you should be incredibly proud of yourself.

You sound a very well balanced young person living in the middle of a chaotic drug/alcohol zone.

You have done amazing to have all these negative influences around you and remain sober.

First and foremost you must protect, care and love yourself.

Please keep coming here and reading, learning and posting.
People here understand. People here care.

My very best to you
xxxx

I want to sincerely thank everyone for relying. It has already told me a lot about myself. Though all my family is what it is, I seem to have portrayed myself younger than I am. I apologize. I am 35 married with 3 beautiful children. I fear for them tremendously in this world. I'm so scared that this evil prison of drugs will get introduced to them and that if they make a wrong choice, it could ruin their lives or even kill them. I'm doing my very best to educate and warn and pray, but what if its not enough? God help me, I don't think I can deal with it. My father and brothers have taken my strength I feel like sometimes. I'm so glad I found a place I can vent all of this. God bless you all!

Hi! Absolutely doing the right thing. Keep your kids away from the family with the addictions. I kept mine from my family, and from my extended family that condoned and fostered my Dad's drinking. I think it helped her to not be living in the addicted world of family. It was a little lonely at times but what a better price, a little loneliness or crazy chaos of alcoholism. No choice.

Frustrated
 

:a108:Does anyone know how to get someone on drugs to deal with it? I have a father and two brothers going down the drain fast. Anyone they know just want to sweep it under the rug and act like nothing is going on. I can't do that and I have been banished basically. This sucks!!!!

Kialu,
I know it took me a while to say this, but that you for your message. It is very lonely. I don't feel like I have a family anymore. It makes me feel like the wrong one standing alone when I know in my heart I'm right. I'm so exhausted with dealing with addictions and I am not addicted!!

Hi FedUP,

I don't know how to get someone on drugs to deal with it. I'm learning that I have no capacity to affect my alcoholic father's drinking. I have tried for years, decades. I can tell him that I love and support him, and if he decides to get help, I will be there.

But I can't live with the chaos. I need to take care of myself and find peace in myself. In the meantime, he may die or kill someone from this disease. Or hurt my mother. That is a tough thing for me to accept.

Maybe your father and brothers are in a place where they are ready to get help. If not, I don't know if you can make them.

I didn't choose my family, but I can be around sane, healthy people, if I choose to. You're right, it does suck.

Thanks Fatally, I have seperated from them and you are right. The thing that is the hardest is knowing that there is a good chance that them or someone else will be hurt or killed because of this and here I sit with a front row seat, powerless. I pray and pray and pray to give it to God, it is just so hard to watch people you love go down and become strangers. :headbange

Yes it is lonely. But everytime I dipped my toe in the crazy pool I regretted it. I have chosen to have a lonely but SANE life. I find other people to be friends with and I am in touch with a few 2nd and 3rd generation kids in the family. But it's not really like having family. So I made my family with my husband and my own kids, brought them up in the church and we kept very busy and happy.

Fatally if you have been banished, I know the feeling well ;) , then there is not much you can do but pray and hope. What can you do if you are banished? It's hard but you have to let go and let God. Hard to accept and even harder to do. But well worth your sanity.

As we come to grips with the fact the best thing we can do is let them go, it's okay to grieve over the family we wanted. Maybe they hit bottom and get help before they kill themselves. We can pray for them, and have hopes and dreams. But we need to let them go because we can't control them.

It's good to protect your kids. My Dad was offering my brother and I booze and drugs before I was a teen. I would never trust him alone with my kids. He is supposedly sober (I think he still binge drinks and hides it from me because he knows he can't see me or the kids if I think he is not sober). We see him at Father's Day and Thanksgiving. He is never alone with the kids. Never. Not even a question. period. End of story.

You gotta get yourself out of that front row. It’s not going to be easy and it’s not going to happen overnight but with some new knowledge it’s very possible.

Besides here, Al-non would be a good place for you to begin to understand this whole big issue of addiction/enabling and codependency and where you fit into the big picture of things.

Something I learned on here a very long time ago was – family is not a license for abuse.

Drama only happens when you take a front row seat and open the curtains.

And - NO is a complete sentence and you CAN actually say that to a family member!! The ground will not swallow you up, life will not come a complete stop…….but more a healthy lnew you will be born.

I totally agree. Never left mine with my folks for one minute. Not that they even wanted to be with them, but some of my siblings left theirs with them. It's sad that none of the grandkids have any good happy memoires of them, but that was their choice alone.