getr345

My sister has described my mother in this way and I am struggling to understand what it means, if it's true, and how to conceptualize it. Some history: My mother was "raised" by a raging alcoholic mother (ever seen Mommy Dearest?) and this is generally what defines her life and all that has come since. My mother swore as a young girl that she would never "do that" to her kids (meaning be a raging alcoholic) and for what it's worth, she never has BUT has she in a way "done that" to her kids anyway? As far as I know, she has never had more than a single Midori sour in her whole life. She despises alcohol. Cannot be around it, judges others harshly who drink, and has been involved in social services her whole life (shelters, detox centers...) and as a result has been around alcoholics and crazies her whole life as well. This has exposed her kids to things that they might not otherwise have been exposed to.

My mother is HOPELESSLY addicted to nicotine and caffeine. Her life revolves around smoking, coffee, and Pepsi. All day, all the time, constantly. Up down, up down and she has never, not once tried to stop smoking. In fact, all her children were born addicted to nicotine because Mom smoked through all four pregnancies. She says from time to time, "it's a good thing I never tried cocaine because I'd probably like it." She lives from crisis to crisis and is what I would call very dramatic and very defensive. She rarely has anything positive to say, everything in her life is miserable, stressed out, and bad news is the only news we are used to from her. She does not sensor herself for the sake of her kids (all adults now), she unloads her life on them as she did when we were kids.

We are all very concerned for her and the current state of her life does not inspire confidence in us that our mother will be OK, quite the opposite in fact is true. We all fear that her addiction will kill her but not before the bad choices she has made in her life put her on the street, lonely and alone.

Needless to say, all of this is very PAINFUL to me.

Now, what I'm wondering is what does it mean someone acts like (or is) an alcoholic without booze? I want to better understand my sister's point because I think she may be right, but I would like to know what is "alcoholic behavior" and how does it manifest itself in someone who never drinks?

lizw

Have you tried reading some of the posts and stickys in the Family and Freinds forum? You can read about some of that stuff there.

getr345

I have not, no. But I will. Thanks.

I just read through the 13 Characteristics of Adult Children, many of which really do fit for my mother who is without a doubt the adult child of an alcoholic, but here I guess is the heart of my question then....

Am I the Adult Child of an Alcoholic even though my mother never drank?

Is that even possible?

getr345

I'm thinking hard now (and with a sober mind) about how my mother (the adult child of an alcoholic) acts like an alcoholic but NEVER drinks, my mother is very adept at manipulation, guilt trips on her children, and passive aggressive behavior. She is afraid of just about everything and has tried very hard (and with some degree of success) to put her fears into each and every one of her children. She is jealous of and resents "successful" people. Her addiction to cigarettes controls her socially, and I know that she feels inferior to just about everyone BUT at the same time she sometimes acts SUPERIOR because her drug of choice (nicotine) is legal. I guess this gives her comfort in some way to compare herself favorably to a heroin addict. She spent years after divorcing my father, essentially trashing my father to any one of us kids willing to listen. I never realized how wrong that was until recently and Dad never did that, he just kept his mouth shut.

TTOSBT

Wow getr345, do we have a lot in common!!
It sounds like we have the same Mother except that mine did drink through my childhood. She has been sober for 20 years but still has all the same behavior. She has never worked a program of recovery. My Mom also trashed my father and he never trashed her. It is sad because of that I did not have a relationship with my father of any substance until about 3 years ago and then he died in March of this year.

I am newly sober myself (7 moths) and I know that I am going to need to delve into my ACOA issues eventually but for right now, I am still dealing with my addiction issues. Anyways, just wanted to say hi and that I could relate!

CarolD

Hmm..
When I was dealing with iproblems from my past
I found counseling helpful.

I learned how to forgive...move on...let go.
The 12 Steps of AA also allows me to live resentment free.

I absolutely know the only person I dan change is me.

Best wishes as you work thru this painful situation.

getr345

Therapy?

Did I mention that my parents divorced because my mother decided she was gay and wanted to be involved in relationships with women and had been cheating on my Dad with a women for a couple years prior to the divorce? Did I mention that?

Well, it's true. In the 23 years since the divorce, my mother has been in 3 different (monogamous and relatively "stable") relationships with three different women, none of which worked out in the long term (as in forever) and now my mother is alone again.

My wife has always been fascinated with how a 14-15 year old boy deals with that. I always told her the truth as I understood it which was that I loved my mother (was loyal to her to a fault) and always supported her decisions, however unusual they might might be and with little or no concern at all for how I felt about it.

I do need therapy, lol...

Eleison

It's sad that we pick up behaviours from our parents, we see that's how they survived, and so it gets included in our repetoire of survival.
Your mum learnt the behaviours, didn't get help with them, sublimated everything in helping others but neglecting the terror and pain and anxiety and loss at the core of her - that can make for a lot of anger.
And so you grew up around this. I would imagine bewilderment, loneliness and anxiety, maybe also a tender resignation to the shadows.

My parents, particularly my dad, drank. I can't bear to touch the stuff, and being around people drinking makes me anxious, and I'll avoid it if at all possible. In my PTSD outbursts, strangers have accused me of being drunk or on drugs. Far from the case, except being dangerously intoxicated by a lifetime of trauma and abuse, alienation and violence.
I can gradually allow myself to 'breathe' now. It can be painful to breathe, because my emotional lungs have been constricted for so long.

barb dwyer

hi getr -

thank you for your post -

there's been a LOT of threads over the years about what is a "dry drunk?"

Your initial post ... is a wonderful description.

I've said for a long time that alcoholism is a personality before it's a substance.
My *own* drug of choice -
is horses.

*shrug*

But no lie - that's a fabulous descrtiption of the behavior.

Thank you for that.

getr345

You're quite welcome.

There is plenty more where that came from. That's just what sprung to mind about her in the context of alcoholic type behavior. Behavior that she obviously learned from her alcoholic mother. As much as I think my Mom would like to believe that she is NOTHING like her mother and learned from those mistakes, the fact of the matter is that she is a lot like her mother (and is a victim of her own mother's alcoholism) but instead of drinking alcohol to great excess and with devastating consequences, my mother smokes cigarettes in this way.

Her symptom/addiction is different than her mother's but the larger problem is the same, right?

That being said, and with my mother essentially being a de facto alcoholic (a dry drunk?), does that makes me the Adult Child of an Alcoholic even though she never drinks? This is important to me to understand because it might explain a few things.

getr345

Another example of my mother's "alcoholic" (dry drunk?) behavior....

"Addict behavior" perhaps a better term?

Anyway...

About 15 years ago, her partner (whom she shared a home with) was diagnosed with something or other and was told by her doctor she had to quit smoking immediately or face sudden death. So she did. She quit that day cold turkey and never smoked again after smoking her whole life.

How did my mother react to this?

Did she quit smoking? Of course not.

Even try? No.

Did she stop smoking in the house? No.

Did she stop smoking around her partner? No.

NoelleR

I guess I'll just have to be the voice of the minority opinion here.... (o:

After reading, and rereading in some cases, all the behaviors you've described attributed to your mother, all I can say is that they are sad, not what I want in my life, but are they alcoholic? (dry drunk?), addict behavior.....I say NO.

Many folks exhibit these behaviors (not just alcoholics/addicts), perhaps not all at once, but they're out there, and unfortunately, IMHO, they're just sad/bad choices in behaviors. Yes active alcoholics/addicts also exhibit some, or all, of these behaviors, but it's not these behaviors that, for me anyway, define them as alcoholics/addicts; some folks are just plain mean, insensative, cruel, judgmental, etc. Their behavior does not make them alcoholics or addicts (only their consumption of alcohol and or drugs does, along with their inability to quit).

I may not like someone's behaviors; the way someone lives their life. I may not want to have anything to do with some, if not all, of their behaviors, but I don't get to judge them as acting like alcoholics/addicts.....dry or otherwise. Just because someone doesn't fit into my definition of a normal person. a non-alcoholic, a non-addict, doesn't make them the opposite.....just makes them folks I don't want to emulate.


NoelleR

P.S. Just because your mother didn't quit smoking, to support her significant other, doesn't make that behavior alcoholic or addictive, just means that's the kind of person she is (after all the doctor didn't tell her to quit).........along with a whole string of other folks out there in the world. When I got clean/sober, my recovery was my responsibility, not anybody else's; I was the one with the problem, not them.