What is the right thing to do?
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Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Arizona
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What is the right thing to do?
The Correct Reaction?
So what is the best way to react to the situation described? How do you react when the alcoholic has pulled another one of his stunts? The answer is to not react at all! Pretend as if nothing happened!
If the alcoholic wakes up the next morning and comes into the house where everything is going on normally -- the kids are getting ready for school, you are doing your hair and the coffee's on the stove -- then the only thing left for him to face is his own behavior.
Any embarrasment or shame brought on by him passing out in the front yard for all the neighbors to see, belongs to him and him alone. It's his problem, not anyone else's. His behavior is the problem, not your reaction to it.
If you greet him with a "Good morning, dear, the coffee's ready!" just as if nothing unusual had happened, you have done your part right. You did not allow someone else's inappropriate behavior to provoke your own inappropriate behavior. You have not given the alcoholic the opportunity to "change the subject." He is left alone to face his own pain and shame by himself. When that pain gets to be strong enough, he will be ready to get help.
Until he is ready to reach out for help with his drinking problem, all the scolding, manipulating, and controlling efforts on your part are not going to do any good whatsoever and will only cause you to get pulled further into the family disease of alcoholism.
So what is the best way to react to the situation described? How do you react when the alcoholic has pulled another one of his stunts? The answer is to not react at all! Pretend as if nothing happened!
If the alcoholic wakes up the next morning and comes into the house where everything is going on normally -- the kids are getting ready for school, you are doing your hair and the coffee's on the stove -- then the only thing left for him to face is his own behavior.
Any embarrasment or shame brought on by him passing out in the front yard for all the neighbors to see, belongs to him and him alone. It's his problem, not anyone else's. His behavior is the problem, not your reaction to it.
If you greet him with a "Good morning, dear, the coffee's ready!" just as if nothing unusual had happened, you have done your part right. You did not allow someone else's inappropriate behavior to provoke your own inappropriate behavior. You have not given the alcoholic the opportunity to "change the subject." He is left alone to face his own pain and shame by himself. When that pain gets to be strong enough, he will be ready to get help.
Until he is ready to reach out for help with his drinking problem, all the scolding, manipulating, and controlling efforts on your part are not going to do any good whatsoever and will only cause you to get pulled further into the family disease of alcoholism.
So this is what I have really been trying to work on the last few months, and I was doing ok. But today I came home (I guess earlier then he expected) and he (my dad) was sitting there, drinking his beer. I am letting him stay at my house to get back on his feet, he is not paying any rent or helping with any bills. I am trying to get my house ready to sell, and he helps keep it clean- at times. I want to tell him he needs to find another place to stay in the next 2 weeks and I don't want him staying with me anymore, but then am I going against the "correct way to react" by doing that? Because then I am not "acting like nothing unusal happened"? I am just tired of this dance we seem to do and honestly, I am tired of being the parent to my parents. I don't want that job anymore.
Don't get undies in a bunch
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: South Shore MA
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Until he is ready to reach out for help with his drinking problem, all the scolding, manipulating, and controlling efforts
Setting boundaries and holding to them is what we do to keep "our" space and life in order. If you feel you need ask him to find another place that is a boundary, not a reaction. Doing what you need do for your own peace is not a control on him but a control for you. (a condition to regain peace in your space)
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Best is right. And I also think the part of the sticky post you quoted is one of the most misunderstood. The point is to go about your life. I think sometimes it gets interpreted to mean "pretend as if nothing happened." Pretending is not good. Reacting out of anger is also not good. But making a change after careful consideration that will improve your situation IS good. If you had booted him out immediately upon finding him drinking, that would be a reaction. You have obviously considered the options and decided it would be best for him to stay elsewhere while you sell your house. As Best said, this is a boundary, not a reaction.
Sorry for your pain.
L
Sorry for your pain.
L
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Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Lake Luzerne
Posts: 1,786
This is a concern for me. Two reasons. I recently had a 13 year old overdose patient who said she did this because she was sick of her mother not doing anything about her alcoholic father. She said if he came home drunk and ranted, fell down, threw things or embarrassed her in front of her friends, her mother ignored him and just went about her business. I have also come to wonder if detaching isn't the ultimate enabling. It would seem that it boils down to a boundary becoming the ultimatum to quit drinking or else.....my husband is having a hell of a good time. He hasn't worked since last October but he's in the bar everyday and played cards until 3:30am last night, I detached. I have to work the whole holiday weekend. Since I started detaching, he does whatever he wants. We don't fight, we just come and go and there is no bottom, there is no ultimatum. The money is evaporating. I'm working more to compensate. The other day I had to find him because his sister had emergency news and she needed to contact him immediately. I hunted him down and when I walked in the bar room, his buddy made some smart ass comment about "hiding on me", but I found them anyway and the whole bar laughed. I felt like I was just enabling the whole bar to make a jackass out of me. I gave him the message and he just sat there. It's all very confusing. What scares me the most is that I miss the company of a man. How do you explain that to your alcoholic husband? I don't see much in him anymore and I do find myself flattered at the attention of other nice men, thinking what if......I don't want affection I request.
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Join Date: Jan 2006
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In my thinking, the difference between an ultimatum and a boundary is the desired results. The ultimatum is an attempt to get the other person to change because of a threat. The boundary is realizing the other person has a choice, and we have the choice to accept or not accept their choice. An ultimatum is a punishment for the other person, a boundary is a reward for ourself.
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Join Date: May 2006
Location: Perth, Western Australia
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I have a similar issue with my mother in that I've always been too scared to react or set boundaries, or even mention the problem. If I do she reacts so badly that I'd learnt to pretent or just go and sit on the closed toilet for space! She just thinks I go to the loo alot 
Now I am making a stand and setting boundaries but I don't even want her in my life anymore. Is that bad? I pretended for so long that I've had enough and I don't like her anymore. I figure I'll get a call one of these days to tell me she's overdosed and I will just shrug, what a loss.
I feel I've let the pendulum swing too far by lack of responding earlier. Now we don't even know what the issue is, I just can't stand her, full stop.
Now I am making a stand and setting boundaries but I don't even want her in my life anymore. Is that bad? I pretended for so long that I've had enough and I don't like her anymore. I figure I'll get a call one of these days to tell me she's overdosed and I will just shrug, what a loss.
I feel I've let the pendulum swing too far by lack of responding earlier. Now we don't even know what the issue is, I just can't stand her, full stop.
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