Sheneedshelp

My AD Amber starts her court ordered AA meetings Monday, she needs to spend in at least 10 hours in alcohol awareness classes as a result of her past history of drinking related arrested. She also has plenty of community service she'll be doing in the coming months.

But I'm just worried about how seriously she'll take AA. I'm worried that she's still in party mode where all alcohol is too her is a tool she can use to help her have fun and I know that's what she thinks because she's told me "I've had more fun in the last year when I'm drunk then I have in my whole life sober" I really hope AA helps her see the other way, but my fear is she won't take it seriously.

High Hopes

Justfor1

I apologize if this is too blunt but I have been following your posts. With all the consequences alcohol has brought your daughter do you really think 10 hours of alcohol awareness classes will help? The classes will teach her the dangers of alcohol & she will most likely treat it as a joke. Hopefully she will get involved with AA. They have AA meetings geared towards young people in most major cities. They are typically late teens & 20 year olds that attend & it might help. College students "party" but only alcoholics get arrested repeatedly for alcohol offenses.

suki44883

In all honesty, she probably won't take it seriously. She isn't attending because she wants to quit drinking; she going because she has to in order to stay out of jail.

I know that's not what you want to hear, but maybe hearing it will keep you from getting your hopes up. Considering her recent behavior and the things she has said to you regarding it, the chances are better than good that once she's free of her legal obligations, she's going to go right back to "having more fun" than she's ever had in her life.

dollydo

To me, she and her friends will be making a joke out of AA and her classes. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for this to have any impact on her, she is not the one wanting to get sober. In order to embrace recovery she has to want it more than anything else in the world and here's the kicker...she has to stop drinking.

This won't end until she reaches her bottom, and, I doubt that she is even close.

Sorry that I cannot be more positive, however, her recovery cannot be forced, it has to be volantary.

Are you going to meetings? You and your husband both should go.

XXXXXXXXXX

Yeah, sorry not to be positive, but when my exabf went to the court ordered classes, he would come home drunk. He tookno part of it seriously, nor did anyone else there.

StarCat

I remember driving on a major highway with XABF once, and traffic moving at a crawl because of an accident blocking two of the three lanes.
The accident wasn't really an accident, it became apparent upon seeing it that someone was driving too fast around the turn, hit a puddle left by a brief but heavy rainstorm that morning, and completely flipped the car (several times, judging by the shape of the car) to the point it was laying sideways blocking the two lanes. There were police and firetrucks everywhere, and an ambulance taking away the passenger of the car (that passenger side was a mess; the driver side was miraculously almost untouched). The car was clearly totaled.

We had our windows down, since it was a lovely day outside, and happened to overhear part of the driver's conversation on his cell phone. "Dude, you shoulda been here, it was friggin' awesome!"


That driver reminds me of an alcoholic who isn't ready yet to quit.
It doesn't matter how severe the accident, how big the trouble they get into, it's not a warning, it's another badge to brag about, another medal to pin to their drunken jersey.
And it doesn't matter who suffers as a result of their addiction, either. Their friend gets hauled away in an ambulance? Sucks to be the friend, if they were as cool as the alcoholic, they wouldn't have gotten hurt.

Dude, it's friggin' awesome, you shoulda been there.



I'm sorry to sound so cynical.
Just, please don't expect this to teach her anything, because right now, it won't in all likelihood.
The plus side, of course, is that they will teach her where to turn when she does want to get help, and so when she reaches that point where she recognizes her problem and wants to fix it, she'll have more awareness of the tools and assistance available to people like her.

Right now, though, there's a very good chance that nothing will change.

Freedom1990

I've had personal experience with very young ladies being court-ordered to AA, and I can tell you all they did was get their papers signed and once the court deal was over, they disappeared from our meetings, out drinking again.

I offered to sponsor several of those ladies, and they weren't interested in anything more than "serving their time" in AA and appeasing the judge.

Hope is an emotion based on the potential outcome of future events, and I highly suspect your high hopes will be dashed.

I prefer to have faith rather than hope, faith that things are as they should be and that my HP is at work.

I held onto hope for far too long with my AD. No more.

Sending you hugs of support!

Fandy

Your daughter was once an extrememely intelligent young woman with a scholarship and bright future. She chose to throw all this away including her family and support.

I hope that her intelligence wins out and she wakes up before worse things happen. maybe something in her court-ordered classes will point her back to reality. You could have faith in that. Please don't hope, just be OK with the rest of your family. as a parent i know how hard it is to NOT step in and try to guide them...but you've got to cut your support to the bare minimum for her to WANT sobriety and a better life.