Grrrrr.......
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Grrrrr.......
Well my sister continues on. She has managed to stay in the detox center even tho I didn't pay what they wanted. Funny they were going to kick her out unless I paid, but she's still there.
I copied info for 15 different place in her area that could maybe offer her some help. When I just called and told her about them she had either already called that place or they don't really help.
There was something wrong with every single place.
She ask me if I would pay for her to stay there a week. I said no I would not. She then told me that if I wasn't willing to help her then there wasn't really any reason for us to keep talking.
I told her I WAS helping her by NOT helping her. She gets her SSI check on the 3rd and I have no doubt she will check into a motel....after she buys a bottle of vodka!!
I ask her if there were no treatment places for her now what was going to change in a week, and what if its still the same then....am I supposed to pay for another week???
The conversation ended by me telling her that I was sure she regretted doing what she has done to get where she is now and that I was sorry that I could not, and would not do anything to prolong her continuing to do what she is doing. I will support her when she begins to take advantage of some of things that ARE out there for help.
My gut feeling is she is just not ready!! The tone of her voice tells me that she still has her cavalier attitude that these treatment places are beneath her. She commented a while back that if she could get into this one place 'at least it would be a place to crash for at least 6 months"
She said, I need help.....I'm waiting for the day she says I WANT help!!!!!
THANKS for letting me vent!! There's a little less steam coming out of my ears now! LOL
I copied info for 15 different place in her area that could maybe offer her some help. When I just called and told her about them she had either already called that place or they don't really help.
There was something wrong with every single place.
She ask me if I would pay for her to stay there a week. I said no I would not. She then told me that if I wasn't willing to help her then there wasn't really any reason for us to keep talking.
I told her I WAS helping her by NOT helping her. She gets her SSI check on the 3rd and I have no doubt she will check into a motel....after she buys a bottle of vodka!!
I ask her if there were no treatment places for her now what was going to change in a week, and what if its still the same then....am I supposed to pay for another week???
The conversation ended by me telling her that I was sure she regretted doing what she has done to get where she is now and that I was sorry that I could not, and would not do anything to prolong her continuing to do what she is doing. I will support her when she begins to take advantage of some of things that ARE out there for help.
My gut feeling is she is just not ready!! The tone of her voice tells me that she still has her cavalier attitude that these treatment places are beneath her. She commented a while back that if she could get into this one place 'at least it would be a place to crash for at least 6 months"
She said, I need help.....I'm waiting for the day she says I WANT help!!!!!
THANKS for letting me vent!! There's a little less steam coming out of my ears now! LOL
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Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Litterbox City
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She ask me if I would pay for her to stay there a week. I said no I would not. She then told me that if I wasn't willing to help her then there wasn't really any reason for us to keep talking.
you did good by telling her you would not pay. it's horrible to stand by and watch but take care of yourself and let God take care of her. ((the sister))
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hey jen, christie here - this is an awesome place isn't it! hugs and ears 24/7! when my husband was in his last stint in court ordered outpatient therapy for DUI, he kept saying, "only 2 more sessions and i'm done"! i knew then that he was "going thru the motions" and not serious. unfortunately, he kept drinking, heavily, and accidently drowned in the hot tub 5 months ago - .4 alcohol and pot in his system. you truly do have to let go or it will suck in down the tubes.
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Join Date: Jan 2006
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Christie I'm sorry you had to go through that!! It's he!!.........The hardest thing is to sit back and watch someone you care about destroy themselves.
Wow .4 alcohol.....someone found my sister one time in a motel room and called 911. Her BA was 4.3. They could not believe she was alive.
Jan is just not ready......her attitude and the tone of her voice tells me that.
She probably told me 4 times that she would be sleeping on the street. Yep, she probably will.
I'd bet money tho that as soon as she gets that check she drinks! She isn't looking for a treatment program to help her get sober, she's looking for a place to crash!
I'm glad she got mad at me!! Makes it easier on me!
Jen
Wow .4 alcohol.....someone found my sister one time in a motel room and called 911. Her BA was 4.3. They could not believe she was alive.
Jan is just not ready......her attitude and the tone of her voice tells me that.
She probably told me 4 times that she would be sleeping on the street. Yep, she probably will.
I'd bet money tho that as soon as she gets that check she drinks! She isn't looking for a treatment program to help her get sober, she's looking for a place to crash!
I'm glad she got mad at me!! Makes it easier on me!
Jen
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Minnie...thanks...after about 15 years of dealing with her you would think I'd have got it right before now!!
She's not done with drinking and I doubt she's done with me.
I just keep telling myself...I cannot fix her!!
And I know that is the truth!
Jen
She's not done with drinking and I doubt she's done with me.
I just keep telling myself...I cannot fix her!!
And I know that is the truth!
Jen
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I sit here wondering if I will hear from Jan today. In a way I hope I do and then I hope I don't.
I would like to be able to tell her that I really do understand that this is hard for her and about to get harder. That I will pray for her. That I will think about her and where she is. And that in spite of all that I will not make this week easier on her.
I say 'this week' because after tomorrow she has no where to stay but the shelter if they have room. It will be like that till Friday when her SSI check comes. Then she will have money for a motel....and Vodka.
So for 5 days she may be sleeping on a cot in a shelter and walking the streets from 6am till 6pm...if they have no room she may be sleeping on a park bench in the cold and rain. She will be cold, wet and hungry....and craving a drink. But she will have no money to buy it.
It will be probably one of, if not THE, worse times of her life!!
My feelings are tho, that IF, and I mean IF she survives these next five days, maybe, just maybe it will have been so horrible, so scarey, so uncomfortable and so absolutely humiliating that it is some place so bad that she never, ever wants to go there again.
Then maybe she will be ready for a better life.
I think she has to get to a place in her life that it is so absolutely horrid that she never, ever wants to go back there again.
I just pray that these next few days will be that!!
Thanks for listening.........
Jen
I would like to be able to tell her that I really do understand that this is hard for her and about to get harder. That I will pray for her. That I will think about her and where she is. And that in spite of all that I will not make this week easier on her.
I say 'this week' because after tomorrow she has no where to stay but the shelter if they have room. It will be like that till Friday when her SSI check comes. Then she will have money for a motel....and Vodka.
So for 5 days she may be sleeping on a cot in a shelter and walking the streets from 6am till 6pm...if they have no room she may be sleeping on a park bench in the cold and rain. She will be cold, wet and hungry....and craving a drink. But she will have no money to buy it.
It will be probably one of, if not THE, worse times of her life!!
My feelings are tho, that IF, and I mean IF she survives these next five days, maybe, just maybe it will have been so horrible, so scarey, so uncomfortable and so absolutely humiliating that it is some place so bad that she never, ever wants to go there again.
Then maybe she will be ready for a better life.
I think she has to get to a place in her life that it is so absolutely horrid that she never, ever wants to go back there again.
I just pray that these next few days will be that!!
Thanks for listening.........
Jen
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(((Jen)))
My sister drank daily and smoked pot for over 25 years... then she got into meth. It was my discovery of this that finally got me here to Sober Recovery. I was lucky because she lived a little too far away to see her very much, and I could "pretend" she was ok.
Then in November 2004, she moved close by and called me one day not long after my birthday. She was clean and sober and determined to stay that way.
She says that it was a combination of things that got her sober... one being that she tried to file a restraining order on her ex for threatening the lives of her children and her... but was so scrambled from the meth that she didn't make sense and the judge threw her out of court. The other was her inability to get even a minimum wage job waiting tables because ALL the employers drug test now days.
Those were HER bottom... and none of those things were what *I* would have suspected ... she had lost 3 marriages, the relationship with her only daughter, several good career-type jobs, but those weren't the things she mentioned.
Anyway... she has over a year clean and sober, now. She has met a man who is in Alanon, and is more beautiful than she has ever been. I love her so much and am so grateful that she found, for her own reasons and in her own time, a way to get and stay sober.
Miracles happen. And I don't have to participate for them to occur.
Don't give up five minutes before the miracle occurs. I hope you can find Alanon and maybe learn a way to still love the sister beneath the addiction/alcoholism. They helped me more than I can say.
I wish you the best.
My sister drank daily and smoked pot for over 25 years... then she got into meth. It was my discovery of this that finally got me here to Sober Recovery. I was lucky because she lived a little too far away to see her very much, and I could "pretend" she was ok.
Then in November 2004, she moved close by and called me one day not long after my birthday. She was clean and sober and determined to stay that way.
She says that it was a combination of things that got her sober... one being that she tried to file a restraining order on her ex for threatening the lives of her children and her... but was so scrambled from the meth that she didn't make sense and the judge threw her out of court. The other was her inability to get even a minimum wage job waiting tables because ALL the employers drug test now days.
Those were HER bottom... and none of those things were what *I* would have suspected ... she had lost 3 marriages, the relationship with her only daughter, several good career-type jobs, but those weren't the things she mentioned.
Anyway... she has over a year clean and sober, now. She has met a man who is in Alanon, and is more beautiful than she has ever been. I love her so much and am so grateful that she found, for her own reasons and in her own time, a way to get and stay sober.
Miracles happen. And I don't have to participate for them to occur.
Don't give up five minutes before the miracle occurs. I hope you can find Alanon and maybe learn a way to still love the sister beneath the addiction/alcoholism. They helped me more than I can say.
I wish you the best.
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I think she has to get to a place in her life that it is so absolutely horrid that she never, ever wants to go back there again.
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Join Date: Jan 2006
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Big Sis......what a great story about your sister. I am so happy for you both.
Jan has had so many good things and good opportunities in her life. But every time things start going well and she is having a 'better life'....she messes it up. It's almost as tho she feels she doesn't deserve to have anything good in her life. She thinks she is just a hopeless alcoholic and doesn't deserve anything else.
She isn't married, has no children, our parents are both dead. We have a couple of distant cousins and that's it.....just her and I.
She lives about 100 miles from me now in Woodland, Ca. She was in Reno for many years until she ran out of rehab places that would take her. Then she moved to So Lake Tahoe for a while. She ended up where she is now because some detox center in Tahoe sent her to a place called Walters House in Woodland. She was there for 6 months, got sober, found a low income apartment and was doing great....that lasted about 3 months. She drank up the rent money and got evicted...was in such bad shape she was put in a nursing home for 6 months...she had/has so much damage from alcohol that she needed care. Her memory is shot, she is incontient, unstable on her feet....and on and on and on.
She got better in the nursing home. Things improved. Then they told her she no longer needed 24 hour care and she had to leave or start paying. She went out and got drunk and never went back.
She has no friends. Well except for some guy she met at AA that is absuive verbally and physically to her...she had a sponser so she says, but turns out "Millie" is her best drinking buddy.
I have no earthly idea why I am sitting her telling all this......except that I guess I just needed to........
It's nice to have people to listen to me rant! LOL
I'm grateful.
Jen
Jan has had so many good things and good opportunities in her life. But every time things start going well and she is having a 'better life'....she messes it up. It's almost as tho she feels she doesn't deserve to have anything good in her life. She thinks she is just a hopeless alcoholic and doesn't deserve anything else.
She isn't married, has no children, our parents are both dead. We have a couple of distant cousins and that's it.....just her and I.
She lives about 100 miles from me now in Woodland, Ca. She was in Reno for many years until she ran out of rehab places that would take her. Then she moved to So Lake Tahoe for a while. She ended up where she is now because some detox center in Tahoe sent her to a place called Walters House in Woodland. She was there for 6 months, got sober, found a low income apartment and was doing great....that lasted about 3 months. She drank up the rent money and got evicted...was in such bad shape she was put in a nursing home for 6 months...she had/has so much damage from alcohol that she needed care. Her memory is shot, she is incontient, unstable on her feet....and on and on and on.
She got better in the nursing home. Things improved. Then they told her she no longer needed 24 hour care and she had to leave or start paying. She went out and got drunk and never went back.
She has no friends. Well except for some guy she met at AA that is absuive verbally and physically to her...she had a sponser so she says, but turns out "Millie" is her best drinking buddy.
I have no earthly idea why I am sitting her telling all this......except that I guess I just needed to........
It's nice to have people to listen to me rant! LOL
I'm grateful.
Jen
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you're telling us because we need to get that "stuff" out instead of letting it churn inside of us. that's the best thing about this site - we can come at any hour of the day and let it loose!
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Christie...I hope it is HER bottom. Lord knows she has reached what I thought was bottom long ago.....
I think the deciding factor if she really wants to get better and change her life will be what she does when she gets that check on Friday.
She has been in detox almost two weeks, she is clean and sober for now. She could put all her effort into finding a program and a place to live, or keep doing what she's been doing.
You know, the old, "if you always do what you've always done, you'll always be what you've always been"
I have told her to put as much effort into living as she has put into dying.
It's all her choice.
I think the deciding factor if she really wants to get better and change her life will be what she does when she gets that check on Friday.
She has been in detox almost two weeks, she is clean and sober for now. She could put all her effort into finding a program and a place to live, or keep doing what she's been doing.
You know, the old, "if you always do what you've always done, you'll always be what you've always been"
I have told her to put as much effort into living as she has put into dying.
It's all her choice.
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She tells me over and over, and has for years that it is NOT her choice.
That I don't understand the alcoholic. That when that urge to drink comes on her that she is totally unaware of anything or anyone. That it is like she is in a dreamlike state and is SO possesed by the need for a drink that it is totally out of her capability to make the choice to NOT drink. That it is so overpowering that nothing else matters.
That is what she has tried for years to get me to understand!
That is what I have a hard time with.......yes I believe it is a disease. A very bad one, but I still think that there are choices involved.
She makes that choice every time she pours a drink.
She has choices, so do I!
I choose not to walk that so fine line between helping and enabling.
That I don't understand the alcoholic. That when that urge to drink comes on her that she is totally unaware of anything or anyone. That it is like she is in a dreamlike state and is SO possesed by the need for a drink that it is totally out of her capability to make the choice to NOT drink. That it is so overpowering that nothing else matters.
That is what she has tried for years to get me to understand!
That is what I have a hard time with.......yes I believe it is a disease. A very bad one, but I still think that there are choices involved.
She makes that choice every time she pours a drink.
She has choices, so do I!
I choose not to walk that so fine line between helping and enabling.
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she's right in that we cannot understand the obsessions about their addictions, but she has not yet come to the place where she realizes she does have a choice and surrender.
you are making a wise choice that so many of us work at daily to practice.
you are making a wise choice that so many of us work at daily to practice.
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I am sure AA has got across to her that it is the first drink that sets up the craving.
They have to plan and be alert to not taking that first drink. Once they take it thats when they have no choice. It is a fight not to take that first sip or gulp when every nerve in the body and the brain is begging for that drink. The craving wipes out the memorey of the last bottom. nothing matters.
They have to plan and be alert to not taking that first drink. Once they take it thats when they have no choice. It is a fight not to take that first sip or gulp when every nerve in the body and the brain is begging for that drink. The craving wipes out the memorey of the last bottom. nothing matters.
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