Seeking help
 

Hello,
I am very new to this. I was looking up things online and came across this page and thought to give it a go.
I am 24 and I have a alcoholic mother and sister.
But, this post is mainly with my mother.
I still live at home but I spend most my time with my boyfriend and may be moving out during the summer. My mother has been an alcoholic since Jr. High. It all started with my verbally abusive father(raging alcoholic). He ended moving out and they got a divorce. My mother went to rehab for a month after a expected suicide attempt (I found her that morning. Alcohol and pills). Fast food, she is still struggling. She has her good moments and bad. I love the good moments...
But when she has her bad moments I loose control. I just get So mad I see red and turn horrible. I say things I don't mean and I know when I say them I will be regretting them. I love my mom so much and seeing her in that state kills me. I'm TERRIFIED Of losing my mother. She means the world to me and the thought of losing her... I can't bare it....
I don't know why I lash out in the way I do. Why i see red and turn so mean.... I just get So scared seeing her that way.
And I been away more and more lately.... I have s boyfriend I may move in with and i spend most my time with him. Being at my home makes me sad.... she sleeps on the couch(she works nights) and seeing her sleep on the couch like she use to when I was younger is so hard to see.... it kills me inside. But I feel so guilty. Guilty for leaving her. I am the youngest of 3 and if/when I move out she will be alone. Thinking of her alone in that apt on her couch makes me so sad.....
I don't know what to do. I don't know why I act so mean and horrible when I catch her drinking and lying to me about it...

I been dealing with anxiety disorder for a very long time and OCD thinking and also PTSD from my childhood.
Dealing with this plus my sister is getting really hard. I had a meltdown the other night and I feel so lost and confused.
I'm trying to go through college bit it's been so hard trying to do the work needed when I have all this pressure. I am the only one trying to help my mother and the pressure is unreal.
My mother is a wonderful person who never says a cruel word to me. I just want her happy again....


Please. I need advice. I don't know what to do nor think..

Hi Sunflower, I'm so sorry you're going through all this. It sounds like a very stressful situation. You might also want to post on the Friends and Family of Alcoholics forum. There are some very good people there too, and you might get some good insight.

Are you seeing a therapist? Have you looked into going to an AlAnon or ACOA meeting?

Hello Sunflower92, and welcome to our corner of recovery. This is a very small and quiet forum, the "regulars" check in about once a week so please don't feel ignored if it takes a few days to get replies to your questions.

Mike :)

Your responses and reactions seem like normal responses to abnormal circumstances. Why shouldn't you react and feel the way you do?

Truth of the matter... alcoholics are sick people. They're very ill and they don't know it (denial). They were probably bought up in alcoholic and or dysfunctional families themselves, so they don't know what normal is.

Alcoholism affects the whole family. It's a horrible dis-ease. It's enfuriatung, sickening, abusive! It's sad, it's frightening, it's pitiful. I'd like to say it's senseless but it's not... it serves a purpose and the purpose it serves is to mask a myriad of nameless anxieties and fears, and shame, and self loathing. For the lucky ones, as my mentor often says ' it's purpose is recovery. Drinking is but a symptom'.

Both my parents are/were alcoholic. Me too... I identify wholly with the 14 traits of the laundry list - check them out in the stickies. One of my folks has passed away, the other (my mother) has Korsakoff's syndrome and mixed dementia.

Although I didn't know it, I was taught from a young age that my Mums happiness was of paramount importance. If my mum wasn't happy, she might get drunk, or might cry, or might take pills, or might overdose, or might get angry, or might tell me things I didn't like, or might not talk to me.

What I learned was my Mums emotional state affected my safety, and as a child there is truth to that. I then thought that her happiness was my responsibility. Put another way I learned through alcoholic and dysfunctional upbringing to be codependent. This term is interchangeable with the term adult child - as in adult children if alcoholics and dysfunctional families.

... after attending meetings of aca and practicing their program I learned about the full effects of my upbringing and where my various thought patterns, beliefs and behaviours originated and I learned to re program them. I learned to parent myself. I also learned that I am only responsible for my own happiness.

I wish you all well

M

SF- being angry is okay. You are sacred- for you. Can you talk to someone- f-f counsellor? You need to look after yourself. Only your mum can help your mum with addiction.

Sorry- scared- not sacred

Hi Sunflower,
Have you looked in the friends and family forum? If you
posted your question there you would recieve many responses
quickly.

Sorry you have experienced the dysfunction of growing
up in an alcoholic family, but realizing that it has affected
you is the first step in getting healthy. You have learned abnormal
ways of feeling, reacting, thinking, and acting due to the alcoholism.

It takes time and education to unlearn all of it and to have a chance
at healthy relationships, the most important relationship being
with yourself. ACOA and alanon meetings are great
meetings where you will meet people who understand and are
on their own journey to healthy relationships. You may find getting a
counselor helpful for a time helpful also.

Please reach out here, in friends & family forum, try some
meetings, read books, (codependent no more by melodie beattie
is the most read, and the AA big book, and ACOA big book)

The more effort you put into recovering from the family
disease of alcoholism, the more years of your life you will
spend in happiness. Hugs to you.