Long distance detachment?

Old 08-25-2011, 05:13 PM
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Long distance detachment?

Hi, I'm new to this forum. I discovered it today after feeling at wit's end as to what has been going on in the latest crisis episode of my family. My mother is an on and off again recovering alcoholic. My younger sister and her baby recently moved in with my mother, because my sister has been struggling to make end's meet. However, my mother is as well. My mother is unemployed and has been living off money my stepfather left behind when he passed away a few years ago. She has blown through most of it and just last week I had to send both of them money for groceries. My mother recently sold her nice car and was to pay off debts (she has liens on everything) with it. My sister reports my mom has instead holed herself up in a hotel with an alcoholic man and is just on a binge. While on this binge, her electricity at home was shut off. Thankfully, my sister found my mother's debit card and paid it off. My sister keeps calling me to report the latest details of this crisis. I had been giving her advice and trying to calm her down, but she seems stuck on thinking there's something she can do to fix my mother and the problems she's made.

I read through a bunch of postings on here and cried to see how many people have shared the same experiences and feelings as me. I am pregnant with my first child and am more aware now than ever that I really can't let the stress of their problems get to me so much. I feel my mother is going to die from this disease as she's had so many chances to live a life of recovery and does not. There are periods where she is sober and she's the loving kind mother I grew up with, but after those periods it hurts even more when she becomes the crazy beligerent uncaring alcoholic. I don't live in the same state as my mother (she chose to move several years ago, I believe, so she could return to drinking without anyone's watchful eyes), so we have a long-distance relationship. I am wondering though that if she comes back from this binge, if I should cut off contact with her for awhile. There's obviously not much leverage I have with her living so far away and not seeing her often, but I feel like I should tell her that I can't continue to even talk to her over the phone when she's not taking her sobriety seriously. Not sure what to say or do....
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Old 08-26-2011, 06:59 AM
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This is would involve not only an active alcohlic but your sister and her baby.

If you go to Al Anon or ACOA or read about that you learn there if basically nothing that stops an alcoholic bent on drinking to destruction.

What about your sister? If you decide to keep sending the money you need make sure it only goes to her. How is your mom getting enough money for the liquor which is expensive.

Is there any way your sister would consider or you would her moving in with you?

Or is she working on getting something going with her situation? Has she contacted any resources for work, school, daycare (leaving the baby with the mom as babysitter is not a good idea).

Yes, it is absolutely awful the downhill slide that goes on. Watch how your relationship with your sister goes. It could be or quickly become dysfunctional. After all the idiocy I have gone through with my family I have little/no contact. And my sisters were my best friends.

Have you attended an Alanon or ACOA meeting? Your sister should attend some of the meetings also. You need to put yourself first and start a recovery of your own. And you are also pregnant which makes this even more important.

Also, check out the stickies - read the roles of people in a dysfunctional family. And how rescuing is a problem.

You have no leverage at all with an alocholic, and using help with money does nothing except divert funds to the alcohol. Don't talk with your mom as much or go no contact and learn detachment (very difficult but gets easier).
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Old 08-27-2011, 04:31 PM
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I cannot tell you what to do, all I can do is share my experience with you.

My mother is the main alcoholic in my life. She has been drinking for 65 years, and, I don't mean socially. She has never been in recovery, and, never will be. She will die an alcoholic, there is no hope for her.

There were 2 times in my adult life that I went no contact, once for 4 years and another for 10 years, the most peaceful years of my adult life.

I set my bounderies and she now knows that I will enforce them, for my well-being, for my sanity. If she crosses them today, I am history.

Sending money is enabling, it will not solve anything, except make you broke, and, I am sure that is not your goal.

Going no contact, for me, was a win win situation it allowed me to regain my composure,
my peace, my life.

Do what is best for you, this is not a dress rehersal, this is your life, your one and only chance to live your life to its fullest...don't waste it.
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Old 08-27-2011, 07:33 PM
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Please take care of you and your baby, if you could take your sister out of that environment that would be wonderful too, maybe you could share childrearing in a safe and healthy home.

My mom is an alcoholic (she has been for going on 40 years) it will kill her, she has been hospitalized twice in the last year with heart issues directly related to her alcohol consumption, my father will not leave because whe he is there she only drinks four bottles of wine a day instead of 6 or 8.

Nothing you can do will change anything, all you will do is stress yourself out, there is a buddhist saying "it is what it is" meaning you can no more change your moms drinking than you could change the tides or the weather.

Please take care of yourself and the blessing that has been sent to you, nothing else matters.
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Old 12-04-2011, 11:44 AM
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Sounds funny, really...how to detach from someone you live far away from but I am in the same position and oddly geographical distance makes it harder in some ways.

I speak to you in part as someone who has been in recovery from alcoholism for many years and worked with many other alcoholics who have gotten sober. If your mother is in and out of recovery it means unfortunately that she hasn't had enough pain yet to get really serious. She knows what she needs to do,she just doesn't want to do it. How much pain it takes, is unfortunately widely varying. Alcoholics can have a tolerance for a huge amount of pain and most go to their deaths without getting sober.

The best thing that you can do for her is get out of her way and not help her in ANY way until she makes the decision that she is serious about getting help for herself. It is hard to see,but important to know that they ways that we try to help them actually hurt them.

Recovery for an alcoholic involves a whole lot more than not drinking, so I wouldn't make whether she is drinking or not the issue. My Mother periodically quits drinking...mostly to convince herself that she isn't an alcoholic. I have cut contact....and will not be back in touch with her unless she gets into a solid RECOVERY. I will know that she is by major changes in behavior faaaaaaaaaar beyond not drinking. I'm not holding my breathe...my bet is that she will die a drunk.

IMHO best thing that you can do for your unborn child is to take good care of yourself in every way that you can. He/she is your future/the future....one that you can choose to create in a totally different way than in your FOO. No child deserves to be born into the kind of unhappy chaotic emotional environments that alcoholics create.

There are times in life when it is appropriate to be selfish. Pregnancy is one of them.
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