iwh

ok throw your tomatoes and then maybe give us a new place to thread, on SR I hope.

this is not all about the person who ends up the alcoholic! it's not!

i've been doing a lot of work and research on the friends & family of "alcoholics" in the psychology section of the libraries of the world & it's not so simple!

not all alcoholics are the same!

if you saw a clear cut victim of an abusive family and that person became an alcoholic, you would still place the blame on them?

things are much more complicated in real life.

i come from a very dysfunctional family.

the classic symptoms of an alcoholic, addict, abusive person, have been the psychology of my parents since i was a child, though they barely drink & don't use drugs illegally.

every symptom of what is supposed to be describing me describes them and how i was treated my whole life by them.

i have worked very hard to not be like that before i i ever drank, still do & still ended up with this addiction. i just need to get them out somehow and alcohol works while i find something healthier.

i am only now realizing how serious my problems are, especially since i am now in a position where i need their support, yeah....

anyway, it's upsetting to see this blame it on the one who drinks attitude still prevalent in recovery when you could predispose someone toward these addictions by raising them dysfunctionally, to put it simply.

even in certain recovery programs the addict is to self blame, when really in anything you can only take so much blame/credit for your self for anything, that it serves to make the person more sick or submit to another addiction or mind-numbing activity.

anyway, we need a place to discuss the natural causes of addiction from dysfunctional families because most of us still have to deal with them.

sorry to bring this up mom & pop loyalists; hey i care about my family too and want to take care of them, but my situation involves a psychology that i was raised with and know that many addicts share the same.

i wish i could say something fun or humorous or upbeat about it, but i'm bringing it up; let's talk

Hammer

All sounds reasonable.

Why the High Drama approach?

OnawaMiniya

Hello and welcome.

I'm no apologist for parents, trust me. But I do recognize that everyone, including my own parents, have been through difficulties.

Ultimately you have to take responsibility for yourself.

For the record my mother and I aren't really in contact currently.

Does that mean she hasn't been through anything? No. Does that invalidate all of the nightmarish years I had growing up, with both of them? No. Am I affected by my upbringing? Yes. Do I try to grow beyond it? Yes.

Self awareness is a great first step. No one is 100% perfect and self aware. But an effort is better than none.

I do have some anger from my upbringing.

Then again as an adult I have made some poor choices myself. So, is it ok just because I had an abusive upbringing? If it is, then I guess how my parents were must be ok too, since they too experienced struggles.

CarryOn

I do not disagree with the things you say about family of origin. I enjoy psychology and the debate of nature v. nurture. I also believe (very strongly) in personal responsibility. So, you have come to these realizations about yourself, your parents, and your upbringing...is this a legacy you wish to carry on or do you wish to change it? It is not easy, it is a HUGE struggle - you could liken it to a personal war with many battles to be fought over the course of many years. But, ultimately, the end result is up to you - not your parents, not your family, just you and your choices.

Onawa just asked about Alcoholism as a disease...I believe it is. RAH comes from an A father & codependent (probably A) mother. Both are now deceased. We have worked hard for & achieved a very nice, very comfortable life. Our life was also drama-free until his relapse. I believe RAH can overcome the things he learned from his FOO & upbringing, but I cannot do it for him, he has to do the work.

BlueSkies1

Are you the drinker in this story?
I understand you may very well have legitimate reasons for your baggage from your family of origin, don't we all.
I think though the important thing then, is to seek help in whatever form you can find it. Therapists, books, groups, meds if applicable, just not alcohol as it is a depressant and makes things worse, not better.
There is help, there is an answer, and alcohol is not it.

Blame isn't even the question, not even on my personal radar...remove it from yours perhaps?
How to live a good life for yourself is the question, and the answer!

LexieCat

I have known hundreds of alcoholics in my life, but I've never known anyone who became an alcoholic because of his/her upbringing.

And I'm not about to blame anyone for being an alcoholic--I'm five years sober, myself. Nobody asks to become an alcoholic.

Still, it doesn't really matter what "made" you an alcoholic--the solution still requires hard work by YOU to change. And having a dysfunctional family doesn't make you an exception to that. Plenty of alcoholics recover despite having dysfunctional families. What are you doing for your own recovery?

Ipanema

I pray for all my family members each day that they will find the Peace and Serenity I am also striving for. In order to help myself, I keep contact to a minimum, excuse myself early from drinking get togethers, and always try to be supportive in whatever their current issues are. My guess is at least 3/4 of my family members are possibly Alcoholic (who am I to say for sure). Only one has asked for my suggestion on a drinking problem. So, I leave it alone and pray. I am so grateful for what I have and I have all I need!!!

Carlotta

Knowing he had diabetes, my boss was not taking care of himself, he got terribly sick and we almost lost him. He now eats properly, monitor himself and take his insulin. He does not blame any of us for bringing junk food at the office or being difficult to manage (stressing him out) and therefore making him eat "bad food". He just realized that he screwed up and needs to be always aware of his disease.

I am an alcoholic and know it therefore there is no excuses for me not to take care of myself and be abstinent no matter how crazy and dysfunctional the people in my environment are. Whether it's my alcoholism or my codependency, I can only take responsibility for myself. Blaming others will only make me sick and miserable.

iwh

This is all a lot to respond to; this thread. A lot. Thank you everyone for responding, I know it helps me and yourselves to just post on here to ask for and offer help.

Lexie, I am presenting something of course from the here by finding that it is very possible to become an addict/alcoholic because of your upbringing.
I apologize for sidetracking tradition, but I have seen in my own very real experience that I was raised by almost by the book mentality of an alcoholic/addict/codependent/enmeshed relationship, though my parents weren't not drinkers. maybe they were raised to abhor alcohol for good reasons. they still have the stinking mentality of it & now i'm in a poor situation.
i could call them right now, give you the play by play & you'd see a clear description of this, you could listen to the call if you don't believe me. also my father was a heavy smoker when i was a kid, then a heavy eater, my mother will not discuss, bother their fathers died before i was born, but she is very bad with every thing enmeshment & ocd & all kinds of craziness and when i read about boundries and what is healthy in a family or any relationship, actually
when i read what is UNhealthy in a family or a relationship everything describes mine.
when i read about the addicts mind or the alcoholics mind or that of their families, this is how i was treated!

some people want to say that alcohol is the symptom of a disease. that's a lot for me to stomach. maybe i will at some point.

it has been seeming more & more like a mentality to me, a thinking. and this is agreeable with AA.

however, i'm seeing much of this mentality in how i was raised. i'm not copping out here.
i'm in a very real situation as an adult where i have to ask them for help again & the problem is so big & wide that this is going to take a while to get out of.

i appreciate your help i really do, but i also think that there are many people out there who didn't have this upbringing or did and now became those people, there is are politicals that actually sign things in this order, bad.

i understand what everyone said here. it's ME. it's for me to do the work. easy enough.. this is so apart of how i feel about everything and now i have to deal with them to survive for a few. one sentence from them goes through my ears and i can't not not hear it in someway like i always did or just totally ignore.
i come from an totally dysfunctional and psychologically abusive family.
i haven't had a billion dollars to spend on professional help, but cheap alcohol got me away from that and i was certainly predisposed to alcoholism based on my raising.

to answer the question, i'm on SR, i've stepped up going to meetings (i've been going everyday the last few weeks, this is new for me) i've gotten my parents to agree to help for professional help-but i've got to sort that one.

again, i am who i am and at where i'm at. i want to get better. i've asked for & looked for help many times before and have seen that many people use that as an opportunity to take advantage & kick you while your down, obv because of how i've been raised i'm predisposed to that as well, but i'm learning and know i have a lot of good people and wisdom on my side and finding that helpful in getting the help i need.

i am in no way looking to conquer my family or harm them in anyway. but i'm getting older now and life goes around once here. i need a life. a sober one. a healthy one. it's sad that i need them out, but now need their help. it's ****** actually, more then, but damn i need out, i need wellness, i need the best i can be, it's just sad how much of what they've done & continue to do is so unhealthy & wrong - by the books even!

maybe i should have kept what i just typed to myself, i dunno.

there are other people in my situation, there must be.

i care about you people. i care about the other guys too, but we're here for support. in some of our cases, family support is sadly not appropriate.

sorry for not proofreading, i just wrote a lot.

Tuffgirl

I get this. We don't get to pick our family members. But we do have complete control over how much influence we let them have in our lives and choices.

FireSprite

I'm another vote for self-responsibility.

Look, my father was an alcoholic before I was ever born. I have no point of reference for growing up with a sober father & never will. My mother had such a dysfunctional life before & during their marriage that (now) I can wonder at how she put one foot ahead of the other some days. She was as emotionally unavailable as my AF and more in many ways.

None of that defines WHO I am or WHERE I go in life unless I LET it, and that's not happening. There's no doubt that I AM impacted by it, but I choose not to let it rule my decision making whenever I have the awareness to realize that it "might" be.

My RAH's FOO is full of nasty dysfunction - compulsive lying, manipulation, the absence of any structure or true foundation, yet surprisingly, no alcohol abuse at all.

On the outside looking in one might expect me to be the addict & him to be the codie based on what we were raised around, but the opposite is true in reality. And even though his family seems to be a major source of his pain & issues that led him to abuse alcohol, it wasn't as direct as all that. They provided him no tools to handle life & the stresses that come with it, but they didn't MAKE him an alcoholic.... utimately he is the one that made the decision to use alcohol to numb his pain and isolate himself away from other solutions. JMHO.

OnawaMiniya

I'm glad you are getting help and are honest with yourself that you have a problem.

I think it is the case often that when we don't know how to cope with, say, our upbringing, and the unhealthy influence our family has upon our lives, it can be easy to turn to a mind altering substance to escape the pain we feel.

As children we are helpless. It's different than when we as adults make a choice (even if it is the best we know how to do at the time, this is a whole other discussion really) to have any relationship with someone. So it can be easy to just stew in anger over our childhood. We didn't have a choice.

But even your parents are the way they are for a reason, right?

Once we are adults ultimately it is up to us.

I understand. There have been many falling outs in my family. And though I understand that they are the way they are for a reason just as I am, sometimes I have to minimize contact and even break it completely.

I think because you need their help right now your anger is raw. That is a difficult situation.

Keep posting here.

iwh

while i'm at it. i totally get the need to simplify things in recovery. this helps very much.

i also get the need to over push alcohol/dugs as an addiction rather than all the others for public health reasons.

I TOTALLY BELIEVE THAT THERE ARE FEW OF US, IF ANY, THAT TRUELY GET TO 100% WITH ANYTHING, THOUGH CAN BE A GOAL WORTH HAVING.
I'VE YET TO SEE IT POSSIBLE TO TAKE FULL CREDIT OR BLAME FOR ANYTHING, MAYBE MUCH, MORE OR LESS, BUT NOT FULL.

SORRY TO NOT SERVE THIS WITH DONUTS & COFFEE, BUT RECOVERY CAN'T ALWAYS BE ABOUT DUMBING DOWN.

I think the goal here is just to help each other get sober, for those who want it.

Thanks,

xoxoxo

OnawaMiniya

Well, I can see you have a sense of humor, even if you are using it as a defense right now . Humor is great. Laughing is great.

Ultimately, ask yourself which you want more: To be happy, or to be right.

Kandi25

Hey, I get where you are coming from. I thing there is always a reason that someone starts drinking. For you, it was your family. That might be what caused you to start drinking, but now it is on you to be responsible for continuing to drink once you realize you have a problem. We can blame what we do on others or our back-grounds all day long, but in the end it is up to us to change things. You can't change the past, or what your family is like for that matter, but you can learn to deal with it in a healthy way. Have you ever looked into therapy to resolve some of the issues with your parents? I grew up in a highly dysfunctional family, both of my parents being addicts as well as all three of my older brothers, but I don't allow their abusive behavior to dictate how my life is today. They controlled how miserable I was growing up, and it's almost a rebelliousness that makes me live a sober, well functioning adult life. We are all in control of our own destiny. Ya just gotta take the reins.

iwh

i typed my posts while others were posting & could not see. i don't know how much time i have today for this, but i appreciate your responses. thank you.

BlueSkies1

My FOO was quite a bit messed up. There was abuse by one parent and alcohol abuse by the other, along with lots of other horrible junk thrown in for good measure!

Here's the thing. There is the nature vs. nurture argument. We have nature--easier predisposition for some genetically to become "alcoholic". We have nurture--FOO, or lack thereof. We can have both (or neither) and they can work against making healthier choices. But notice I used the word "choices"...

We then get to the next stage of the argument, which becomes in philosophy Free-will vs. Determinism.
Determinism is a fact of life too. We don't end up very often far from the apple tree, so to speak. I do look like my parents, for example. It isn't often for example, that we end up as a Monk in a Buddhist temple in Tibet if we were raised in a strict Catholic family in Italy. However, it is very scary to think that we are not at all in control of our own lives.
This is where Free-will comes into play. It's something we all WANT. The question comes in do we exercise it?

I sure don't want determinism to be in full-control of my life, although I realize and accept that this apple hasn't fallen miles from the tree it came from.
I want to be able to exercise free-will and, just for my example, be able to choose to become a Monk in Tibet instead of the Catholic I was raised.
(I am neither, that was simply an example.)
So adulthood is where we get to exercise those free-will choices, or simply let determinism dictate for us.
Education. Skills. Smarter thinking. Personal responsibility. Healthier living. These are choices to grasp or not, it's completely up to us.

lillamy

I'm not sure I follow all of the above but here's what I know:

People in recovery need to change. People are usually very much opposed to change. That goes for people in recovery AND their families. So I think the fact that you realize that your FOO is a hindrance to you finding sobriety is great. It's a huge insight. It's painful.

But you don't have to assign blame. All you have to say is "where I'm at right now, here's what I need" and go from there.

I'm a codie in recovery. I've dumped so many people from my life -- including close family members -- who simply did not want me to change. People who take the reins of their own destiny are often perceived as a threat by people who won't. Because if you can change your life for the better, it means they could, too. And that can be a dangerous thought.

Last thought from me: FOOs, like spouses and children, can be loved from a distance. Or hated from a distance if that's what you need to do. You have no obligation to stay or stay in touch with ANYONE who is an obstacle to you leading a healthy life.

OnawaMiniya

Well, there is no time limit as far as when you respond. Sometimes I post, respond to replies, and either don't have the time or am too stressed out to revisit the thread right away. Sometimes I can't talk about it long.

Take the time you need. Respond as fast or as slowly as you like.

But keep posting.

I think others will agree also that they are interested to hear from the side of someone who is drinking.

So, all in your own time. There is no pressure to respond within a specific time frame, or even at all if it's too much.

Peace.

atalose

I see where you identify that your upbringing was dysfunctional. Your thinking is that because of this highly dysfunctional environment it may be the cause of your alcoholism.

I also see where you say………..you need the support of these dysfunctional people. Can you explain that? What kind of support are you hoping to gain from dysfunctional people?