against the wall
 

As some may know, my 40 year old son is staying with me. He is an alcoholic. this is the second time for living with me, in the last 5 years. I knew he would drink again, if he had money, and he did. he is unemployed, but did some work for a friend. He has been in his room, presumable drunk the last two days. I wasnt sure and tried to detach, in case i was wrong.
today i got home from work, and found an open can of soup- his favorite meal when he is drunk- open and eat. he was in his room. i waited, knowing. he came out, stumbled past me, and out for a smoke. I looked out, and watched him try to stand up after putting his smoke out . he stumbled forward toward my truck, twirled around and I saw he was totally wiped out. I was afraid. not knowing if he got paid in "pills", or money=booze. i asked him calmly, if he was ok. He said he was tired. He was so wasted, he could only tell me he was tired, and say ; "huh?" I followed him in to see if i should call 911. I am not used to seeing someone really drunk. it frightens me. i talked to him, and he tried unsuccessfully to sign onto the computer. finally, i begged him to tell me if he is ok- is it pills or booze. he finally said he had a screwdriver. One? I said, he said "a screwdriver".
he stumbled back out, fora nother smoke- five minutes from the last. I looked in his closet,a nd there was a big gallon jug of wine, empty. and his "screwdriver" a nearly half empty screwdriver, 25 proof. i have no idea if this is strong or not. I met him with the bottle and asked if i could keep it , and if he would rest. he hugged me when he saw how sad and worried i was. he said no. took the bottle, locked me out of his room.

I am just so damned mad that he is no doubt an alcoholic. I am going to have to make him go. He cant put me through this again. I cannot bear to see my son able to drink his self into a stupor. I fear for him, my heart is breaking. I just cant bear to lose my son to this .

I lost both parents to alcohol. and now my son? i just cant figure how to manage this . I hate so much to think of putting him out. he needs help. he doesn't see it. i have posted about him before and got multitudes of suggestions, put him out.

well, it is like ripping my heart out, to even think of my son having no home, because of alcoholism. I guess I ahve been trying to help- help him get help, and maybe I have been in some sort of denial. and am having to see this , and to face the truth, which will destroy me along with him.

I am afraid, i feel helpless, and fearful of the choices i have to make but more fearful of doing nothing.

I just need to scream. it isn't fair. why, when i love my kids so. when they are my life. i am so very angry, my son will die from this. I cant believe that he cant see this. I cannot accept that this is really what is happening to him.
It does not help to shut my eyes. it is real, and is still there when I open them.

Thanks you for reading this. and for being here. i am so very sad, to my very soul.

chicory

I'm very sorry you're going through such an upsetting situation. It is your home and your life he is upsetting. I suggest setting boundaries: that he cannot drink or be drunk in your home. There is nothing you can say to an active alcoholic that will make him/her stop drinking but your life is valuable and you have a right to have the life you want for yourself.

God bless...

I'm sorry, chicory. :hug:

Thoughts and prayers of strength go out to you.

I'm sorry Chicory, and I feel your sadness on the other side of the monitor.

No one chooses to have an adult child in addiction. I sure didn't.

I know that it is possible to love a child to death.

I refuse to take that path with my AD.

None of us know what the future holds. I didn't hit a bottom until there was nothing between me and myself. There was no one left to pick me up anymore.

That's when I cried out to God that I couldn't live that way anymore, and miracles started to happen in my life.

Sending you gentle hugs from stormy Kansas, dear! :hug:

I was just thinking of my parents, and how they drank like fiends. and how they stumbled. how they wasted their money on it. How my mom, before she became an alcoholic, divorced my dad. He moved away. I did not see him alive again. He ended up in Florida. and it just hit me- my dad quit drinking! My dad did quit. He joined the volunteer fire dept. spent a few years happy, before he died at 57. I guess 4 years of happiness, after a life of hellish alcoholism, is a miracle.

My mother quit too. after she lost a kidney. she had maybe 10 years sober, tho she never got really healthy. she died at 62.

But, they did quit. There is hope sometimes, i guess. But they did not quit until they lost nearly everything. but they knew life as sober people again.. that makes me very happy, even tho they died very young from the abuse, I find this gives me a lot of happiness. I had overlooked the fact that they had stopped drinking. I just always thought of the sadness of their drinking years. what a gift i just got.

maybe there is hope for my son, too. maybe his grandparents are watching and waiting for him to find his self. and for me to let go. God help me, please.

Thank you darling. I feel the love...

I just got goosebumps reading about your parents and the fact they did stop drinking.

I think it's a gift too that you remembered that, Chicory.

Hold onto those memories. :hug:

About 2 years ago, i got acquainted with a frequent customer, who always bought cat food in mass quantities. I love cats, have three, and a few strays. Found out she had cats indoors and out, and made shelters for them. the nearby junkyard was a breeding ground for them, and she fed them and helped all she could. she is poor, wears boots, flannel over flannel, and pulls a little cart to haul the cat food.
One day,months later as we were chatting, and she shared that her adult son, an alcoholic , lived with her. Boy- i felt like I was seeing myself in 20 years! I shared that my son too, lived with me,and that I believe he is an alcoholic. and I shared some of what I had recently learned . that we needed to put them out. She said that she could not, that he had no where to go. that she did not think he would ever be ok. Her life sounded so much like mine. As time went on, we talked and it was obvious that he was still drinking and would be there forever. A month or so ago, she told me that he was in hospice, that his drinking was killing his liver, that he was very sick. two weeks went by, and she said that he was still hanging in there, and that she was spending as much time as she could. that he loved the cats, too, and that they gave him something to care about and look after. he was concerned about his "boys".

Two weeks ago, she came in to my store, and as she walked up to me I knew what her words were going to be. She simply said " I lost him". We cried, and talked about how he was at peace now, and about how he had a good heart. About how she was going to deal with her sadness.

I often wondered if God showed me this to show me the future. How my son could end up just like that, and me, as worn and worried as my little friend has been for years. I dont want that for my son. why wont God give me the courage, to do what i must?
why do i only see in black and white, thinking that he will die if i dont help? i dont feel powerful or godlike, only responsible, i guess.

Big (((hugs))) Chicory. Hang tough girl, you can do this. Don't let yourself start slipping; let everyone here hold you up. :ghug3
xo

His mom helped, and it didn't keep him from dying. Sadly, these last few years probably took a lot from her life, too.

He will do what he will do, no matter what YOU do. I take it that "screwdriver" was a pre-mixed drink, if you knew the proof? Something that is "25 proof" is only 12.5 percent alcohol. He probably drank the jug of wine.

I dunno, Chicory. How much more of your life are you willing to give up, with no sign that he wants to recover?

yes, Lexie, you are right. it was 12.5%. i saw that on there and it was a mixed drink.
and yes, it surely shortened her life, as her health has suffered this past year or so.
I dont want to lose more life. I also more than that,I dont want him to lose more life , if letting him suffer consequences would change him. Right now, he does not drink except when he gets money, and he is not working so there is no drinking usually. but what kind of security is that, if he has to stay unemployed in order to not drink? that is no life for him or me. nothing has changed, and I had hoped a bit that it had.


L2L- thank you, I needed to hear that. I was thinking just a few minutes ago, about if I took a while to do the right thing, would my friends here still stand by me? NOT that I want to, but I worry about having the courage and strength, and how long will it take me to get there. maybe not long. maybe i just have to jump. is that how it is? have faith and jump?

Chicory, I read somewhere that courage isn't an absence of fear. It is acting in spite of the fear.

That has been so very true for me in my life.

More gentle hugs to you. :hug:

Sometimes we just have to jump
and let the faith do whatever, you know?
Being the ultimate reverse person...
it took me a lot of jumps
to learn that the 'faith' part
is just knowing you're going to get through it all anyway.

I got no advice or anything, hon.

just a :hug:

Why is it, that when a mother is being used by an alcoholic adult child, she is referred to as a "helicopter mom"? If my son has done this to all his friends, all family members that he lived with, why is it I am at fault (fault as in it being my desire to enable) if he is using me? were the others at fault too?Meaning ,did they say, hey, lets let him live here and use us for a long time till we have to get uncomfortable and throw him out.This is a case of being used by a selfish, lazy, mixed up adult son who is violating my very peace and breaking my heart. I do not want him here, i do not want any part of this, but it is so hard when you are the one person who cant stop loving him and wont ever.

are all spouses of A's blamed, and accused of keeping the A's from recovery, if they don't throw them out of the home? Not usually. It is usually a case of the non-drinking spouse being abused, as a side affect of alcoholism . No one says you are a helicopter wife, and when are you gonna let go and let him grow up.

This is something being done to me, by someone who latches on to a free ride cause he does not want to do the hard work life takes. I am insulted by the implication that I am choosing not to let go.
Fear holds my hands . Fear of death of my son. No, it is not good for him to be here. But for anyone who thinks it is a simple choice and an easy task , walk in a moms shoes.

I put this out here, cause I want help, not sympathy. I am a sick person too, who needs recovery. an alcoholic cant just quit drinking without help and a codependent cant just do the right things when their fears and habits have been ingrained from childhood.

this crazy kind of dysfunction was part of my everyday life as a child. we heard the ugly, saw the crazy, and the next day, everyone acted like it did not happen. we forgave and loved and accepted. we were not taught that we deserved peace and that there were boundaries. and now when my adult son walks all over my boundaries, it makes me angry, frustrated, and hopeless, and i feel trapped.he is not trapped, except by his self. i forgive and pray. but i have learned a lot here, and over the years, so I know it is not acceptable and it is ONLY going to get worse.

that is why i am here. my life has become unmanageable because of alcohol, and I am searching for the way out. I have to let go. i know that. I feel as helpless as I did when i was a child and my father who I loved walked over our hearts. my son is the one at fault here, as he is 40 and knows better, but does not care about boundaries. it stinks to get the blame here, but I will take the total blame for not teaching my son boundaries as a child. I am learning then now, so I could not teach something that was foreign to me.

guess all of us that he has lived with over the past 20 years have been enablers, but it is not like we all chose to hurt or control him. just wanted to help him. it hasn't worked. I can do nothing to help. giving him a roof, and friendship when no one else cares is not helping, that i can see. but i am not choosing this, as I can see.

He is living his life like a scavenger, and denial, selfishness, and his illness freezes him into inaction.
I hate being misunderstood, above all things, for some reason. guess that is a trigger for me.

This is in response to a private message to me. Suggesting I learn about "Helicopter moms", and asking when i am going to let him go to grow up. Fact is, he does not want to grow up, but that is my fault-how?

he gives me just enough bull$#!^, to make me think he is trying. But I am seeing that it is just that-bull$#!^.

So please, until you really understand all the dynamics, refrain from being a online psychologist. it hurts people sometimes, who do not need more hurt.

Chicory, sweetie,

I'm a mom, too. I do, I DO get how hard it is to watch one's children make horrible choices.

Yes, to some extent, he is using you. You are, however, permitting it. Maybe not willingly or completely voluntarily, but you are the ONLY one who can change the situation.

The only way to do it is to do it. Nobody is going to be able to give you a magic way to do it painlessly. It isn't likely that, one day, having gotten enough support and recovery here and at Al-Anon, you will be able to do it painlessly. It is going to hurt, no matter HOW much recovery you have.

My sense is that you are more afraid you will be unable to bear the pain, than you are afraid of anything else. I'm not saying you don't care about him. But I think it's your own fear of your own fear that is holding you back more than anything else. I've heard you say over and over how much you would worry, how you wouldn't be able to live with yourself if something terrible happened to him after you kicked him out.

It isn't so different from when I was still drinking and could not IMAGINE having to cope with all the stresses in my life, sober. You are in bondage to him, every bit as much as I was (and he is) to alcohol. The only way to stop is to stop. I think if you could only see that you WILL be able to survive the pain of kicking him out and doing what is best for yourself, you will start to have some faith in his ability to do the same with the alcohol, when the time is right.

Change is scary, uncomfortable, and often downright painful. You are a strong person. You have lots of support here. You have a HP who will get you through it.

But you gotta LET GO. Have faith that you will get through it. You can't stop him from drinking whether he is there or out on the street. This week has proved that, hasn't it? Your friend couldn't save her son's life. Are you so much more powerful than she was? Do you think if you love him harder than she did, it will make a difference?

Hugs, I know how hard this is for you. But I think you are stronger than you think you are.

I think that around here Helecoptor mom phrasing is used for hovering mother's mostly around teenagers who guard them closely, too closely, they smother the kids.

IDK if that applies to the 40 year old camping out for free in your house causing you extreme anguish and upset....but from reading your postings, he is sucking the life out of YOU....Self preservation always comes first in my book.

I divorced the first Mr. Fandy 25 years ago, lots of drugs, booze and rich food...He moved back in with his mother at age 49 or 50....She found him dead in his bed one morning...I always think that he died of stupidity...He had the $$ for dope and booze every single day of his life, but cried poormouth at taking himself to the doctor when he had neuropathy in his legs...IDK for sure, but I think he had a DVT that broke loose and traveled to his heart...He'll never get to see his future grandchildren or walk his only daughter down the aisle.

YOU can't fix him, you know this, but you sure can save yourself....it is very hard to know what's best, but you deserve some peace of mind and only you can protect yourself. I think you should make him leave and either he will sink or swim...anything is better than watching him do it....suppose he sets your house on fire smoking?

PS lexie and I posted at the same time....i notice we say very similar things.

[ I hope that you are right.
thank you so much,
love,
chicory

[QUOTE] if this was a man in my life, believe me, that would be so much easier. i have been divorced 4 times. lots of poor choices and denial in my life.

That is sad. But you took care of you and your child. no one was going to do that for you.
yes. i know I cant fix him. I was hoping he would fix his self, but life being made easier for him is only making the bottom farther away. This is one of the hardest things I have ever had to accept. and it is taking a long time, guess i am putting my head in the sand when things are calm. that is disgusting.
thanks Fandy. you are all very kind to take the time to talk to a floundering codie.

love
chicory