Am I enabling my alcoholic sister?
 

Getting right to the question, I need to know if I should continue to give my sister a place to sleep.

Getting to the back story.. in a summarized version, my mother and sister are both alcoholics. My sister has been struggling with issues related to her drinking for years, including losing multiple jobs/apartments/pets/significant others(who also had issues with drugs or drinking). Her pattern actually seems to be that she will get a new place/new job and then no one hears from her for a week or longer and she is found to be binging in her apartment or is in the hospital. She has been to the hospital multiple times for drinking too much, and more recently, for twisting her ankle because of drinking and then maybe a month later, breaking her leg (which she thinks her ex caused while they were both binging).

Every member of the family has allowed her to move in with them so that she can get on her feet. She ends up drinking and/or abusing pills and is told to leave. She has been to all different types of facilities..rehabs or free places to live (although never a shelter per say), but for whatever reason, even if she's on the path to a good sober life, something makes her depressed and she drinks.

She lived with me 2 years ago to sober up, but it did not work. I gave her one more shot. I brought her to hospitals and rehab. She drank again and I made her leave. I think she left fairly easily because she had another place to go stay. From there she did the same pattern of living with someone, drinking, getting kicked out, finding a place to live, drinking, getting kicked out, losing jobs, etc.

2 years ago she was still saying things like she thought she could drink a little, so looking back, I believe she didnt really think she was an alcoholic and wasnt ready to understand she cannot drink. Some time passed and she seemed to admit it more readily, and that she needed help. That's why this year, when she had a broken leg and was going to be kicked out of her apartment that she could no longer pay for (couldnt work or get a job because her leg), I decided I'd give her one more shot with me.

My one stipulation was of course that she can't drink. I drove 14 hours to go pick her up and found her drunk. Took her to the hospital, sobered her up, cleaned up her disgusting apartment, etc. Some family members thought I should leave her there. I couldn't do that because it's my biggest fear that I will leave her and she'll accidentally kill herself. I read this website and how it said that all we can do is be support and I knew she wouldn't have that if I just left her there.

So I helped pack her up and drove her to live with me and things were going pretty well. She was helping me with my work, and just keeping me company which I crave because I do not live near family. I always had in the back of my mind that she would probably drink again, but I was just hoping she would realize her chances for help and of being successful were getting close to non existent.

She's lived with me for 2 months, I found her drunk today and have to figure out what to do. I told her she would have to leave if she drank. Do I stick to that and kick her out to live on the streets or in her car or in a homeless shelter (something she's never done..would that be her wake up call?) or would the lack of support just make her go into a further depression? Would I be enabling her by going back on my word and giving her another chance to live with me?


It's hard to get through to her and make her realize I want to help her, but I can't enable her. I am very vocal with her, telling her how I feel. We're not the most verbally affectionate family, and definitely not physically affectionate..but I have tried to explain to her numerous times that I want to help her because I love her and that I want the best for her and that I think she can have whatever she wants in life if she stops drinking and strives for it.

I'm not sure what else I can do. I am afraid it will be the same cycle over and over again if I let her stay with me, and at the same time, I want to give her a chance, I guess because I've always had to give chances, it comes naturally to me to forgive people and think they will do it differently next time.

Any advice is appreciated.

Strictly speaking, you are enabling her if you let her stay. You set a boundary, she didn't respect it. If don't make her leave, you are protecting her from the natural consequences of her actions. If you make her leave and she becomes homeless, maybe she will finally hit her rock bottom.

All of that said, I know how hard it is to throw someone out onto the streets when they are a mess and you love them. But I honestly think if you can find the strength to do it, it's the right move.

I'm so sorry for your situation.

Hugs to you.

I am really leaning towards helping her find a place to stay. Her insurance should be coming through soon, so maybe she can find a rehab or facility to go for awhile. Again though, she's been through this and what's to say the same pattern wont keep continuing. Ive given her self help books, tried to have "talks" with her, and suggest therapy.. what else can I do? I think I'd like to try going to counseling with her. Any other suggestions?

Just to clarify, do you mean that I should kick her out and if she stays sober, I take her back? It is something to consider, although she does not have her car right now. Would it be a good or bad idea to take her money away from her as well?

if she is willing
 

As long as you continue to keep her from facing the consequences of getting drunk, then she will continue to use you and keep getting drunk.
Has anything you have done for her stopped her from drinking?
If you said she had to go if she drank, why is she still there?
She knows what you say and what you do are two different things.

Insanity, doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results.
Nothing changes if nothing changes.

So, yes, in my opinion (in recovery from alcohol myself) you are enabling your alcoholic sister to continue to drink, even when she has been given an ultimatum from you.

Have you heard of AlAnon? It is for the family of alcoholics and they will show you the way to wellness for yourself. You cannot do it for her. Giving her a place to drink will not help her.
You do not need a front row seat to her self destruction.
Take care of yourself sister. I have a sister too, addicted to pain killers. It is hell.

Beth

Nothing changes if Nothing changes. If you read your initial post to yourself, you can see that her pattern has never changed. Even though others have stepped in with ideas to get her help, her own pattern remains the same. She is an adult. I learned that we have to respect that the A has the right to make their own choices, and also experience the full consequence of those choices. As long as someone is there to take her in, things remain the same. You didn't Cause it, can't Cure it, can't Control it. The only thing you can do is set clear boundaries. But you have to respect your own boundaries, or the A learns not to respect them. Giving her 3 days to sober up does not solve the problem. I would bet $1000.00 she could not drink for 3 days if it got her back in your house. Lather, Rinse, Repeat.
You told her she would have to leave if she drank. She drank. Keep your boundary. There are shelters she can go to. If you read some of the posts on here, you will soon realize that A's are actually pretty good at figuring it out when they have to. They can manipulate their way through things. If she sleeps in the car, maybe that will be what it takes to wake her up. Get out of the way of your sister's Higher Power, you don't know what the plan for her is.
Turn your focus on you. You can't make her sober. But you can take care of yourself, and learn that you matter too. Get to an AlAnon meeting, read "CoDependent No More" by Melody Beattie. Take care of yourself.

Nothing changes if Nothing changes.

My sister begged me for hours yesterday to buy her beer as she was sobering up from a bottle of vodka. I refused. She kept saying she needed it because she felt sick and couldnt sleep without it. I didnt give in of course. I wanted to talk to her when she was sober and see if she still felt that the beer would have helped her, to see where her mind is at. She is just feeling really depressed about herself, and I am not sure that she is ready for my help. I asked her to look for an AA meeting tonight and she does not want to go. I know I can only do so much. She is saying things like, "maybe I should just go out on the street, maybe I deserve to die, maybe I should just kill myself".

Does anyone have experience with this..is it the alcoholism or depression or both?

She has taken depression and anxiety medication in the past and said it made her want to drink more.

As a note, I am not actually in fear that she will hurt herself, at least not intentionally, but I am just looking for suggestions about the depression affecting/causing one to drink/etc.

At this point I've told her I am doing all I can do to help her, but she needs to help herself. I am having her look into every option for herself, but I need to wait for her car to get here (a friend out of town is borrowing it) so she can at least sleep in the car. I live in a really small town and own a local business, so I do not feel comfortable having her wander around town. I am going to have her call some shelters as well.

The ONE thing that time and time again for YEARS that got me to let my xAH come back or let him stay when I swore I'd make him leave was the talk you wrote above.

I believed that if he was SO down how could I as a good, caring person really kick him out. I was more concerned with showing I was loving toward him no matter what than I was concerned with loving myself and our kids.

I now believe at least with my xAH that the maybe I should just kill myself talk was TOTAL manipulation. Whether intentional in the moment or not it was manipulative. Alcoholics have more self pity than anyone (though I had a lot of it as the spouse of one and codependent so maybe I was a close second!) and want others to act to make them feel better.

Don't be guilted into lowering your healthy boundary.

She drank and you told her if she did she had to go.

Certainly you can let her stay but if you do, then this is a slippery slope of her knowing that your word and your boundaries are flexible. And you could say "well just this once" but I can tell you from my experience that just this once of making a flexible boundary out of a set one turns into a pattern.

I believe the most caring thing for you to do is to have her leave. She won't see it that way but it's the only way she might possibly have to look at herself and decide if drinking is really worth it. If she doesn't lose anything then it's not a problem, (her thinking I bet)

Alcohol is a depressant right? Drinking to excess creates anxiety and depression.

To me that sounds like BS. Sounds like excuses and grasping at straws to justify not doing anything that might help. She doesn't want to stop drinking. That's what I hear from what she is saying.

Thank you everyone for the responses, they are sort of things I know, sort of things I don't know, sort of things I need to be reminded of.

Overall she self pitys a lot and complains and sees things in a negative light..even when she is not drinking and hasnt drank in awhile. It's been really hard for me to get her to talk positively or see things in a positive light. I understand to some degree depression and anxiety, but I also tend to see hope. Her and my mother are a lot more "hopeless".

She said she drank because she told some counselors her story and it made her feel depressed about her life. It's really hard for her to get out of this depression/funk/cycle and that is why I am curious for suggestions of things that worked for other alcoholics if this is the general way they see/saw life?

I would like to second those that say to get yourself to an Alanon meeting. You cannot make your sister sober up, but you CAN (and NEED to) get some help for yourself. You will learn a lot there about what's up w/your sister.

Also, keep reading on these forums and check out the stickie'd topics at the top of this section. Many, many, many folks here have heard that same song and have a lot of experience, strength and hope to offer you if are willing to listen.

Glad you found SR, altho sorry you needed to....wishing you well!

Yes allowing her to stay even after she drank would be enabling.

You have already given her another chance and allowed her to come stay with you again. You have done everything you can do and continuing to give her second chances when she refuses to even a little effort into helping herself.

I know it is hard to tell her she has to leave but you aren't the one that made this decision, she did. You were clear and upfront with her from when she first arrived and told her if she drank then she would have to leave. She knew that if she drank she would be homeless and she decided that drinking was more worth it than being homeless. She is an adult and she made her decision. It is best to treat our A's as adults and respect their decisions and allow them the dignity of seeing those decisions to the end ..consequences and all.

She is most likely depressed because of her drinking and she prob. claims she drinks because she is depressed. It is a vicious cycle that will not end until she decides that she wants recovery more than anything she has ever wanted in her entire life. Until then, there is nothing more you can do to help her.

As an update..

I wanted to sober her up. She begged me for hours to buy her liquor or beer. Claimed she felt sick and couldn't sleep without it. I just kept saying no, took her wallet, and tried to make her go to sleep. I wanted her to sober up so that she could reflect on what she did with a clear head (as far as I know, she's been sober for 2 months,) and we'd discuss options.

Yesterday morning came and she was sober. She seemed depressed, self pitying, regretful, angry and most of all hopeless..which to me said that maybe she is not ready to stop drinking. I think there needs to be a glimmer of hope? I said everything I could think of to try and get through to her..to make her realize what alcohol has done to her life and to make her want to help herself. I kept telling her that she needed to want the help and I was here to give it in whatever ways I could, but that I wanted to look at options of places for her to go because I did not want to enable her.

She was going back and forth between saying a shelter wouldnt help her, to saying, fine, put me on the street, I deserve it. I know she is very manipulative with her words. But I also know she feels very depressed and hopeless. I gave her a lot of tough love and it just seemed to put her into a deeper depression. She actually got a call about a job! I thought that might make her realize she needed to stop, while we looked at her options. She wasnt quite at the bottom yet, but I think she felt like it. I gave her one tiny ounce of freedom and she went right back to buy some more vodka.

I left her alone and maybe 30-40mins later and she was extremely intoxicated. I found her vodka and took it from her. At this point I had basically implied that I might give her another chance but just that we needed to look at options and she still went right back to drinking.

I found a shelter that was all women because I heard that some in my area with men and women are dangerous. They said on their website they help with everything so I was kind of excited about bringing her there, but the problem is that it is an hour away in a different county. I took her anyway, not knowing what else to really do. She seemed okay with the idea at first, but when I actually brought her there, she complained about it and said some very negative things to me..like she couldn't believe I was leaving her there, that she couldnt stay there and that she was just going to stay on the street. I stayed with her for a little but I knew I had to leave. She started to go for the door so I walked quickly ahead of her and got to my car and just went. It was really hard because I was worried she would really leave the shelter and be stuck outside in a city she doesnt know, while intoxicated, and could very easily get taken advantage of. At the same time, I knew this is what I had to do. She called me and said if anything happened to her it would be my fault. I knew it was manipulation, but it was hard to hear.

I wasnt even positive she ended up sleeping there, so I was happy to hear from her this morning. Problem is, the case manager she spoke with said that they could not help her because she has opened a case in a different county and the case manager said I should pick her up. I wasnt sure if I should.. but I didnt like the idea of leaving her in a county where she cant get help if she wants it.

We spoke and she was still angry, depressed, hopeless, said she should just die/didnt want to live and that it was my choice to come get her or not (After I said I still wanted to take her to a shelter). I went to go pick her up and she was no where to be found. I searched for hours and had people helping me. I knew that she probably went to the liquor store and got vodka and hid somewhere. I called her phone over and over. Nothing. I finally left and came back to my town where I decided the last thing I can do..so that I feel comfortable knowing where she is if she is found, is file a missing persons report. They let me do that and right away got a call that she was found highly intoxicated and taken to a hospital.

I know I am making this a lot more detailed than I have to.. but I am basically seeking people that have had similar experiences..either being the alcoholic or the family member. Do you think she hit her rock bottom? The problem for me is that I want to help her get on her feet, so I want to make help accessible for her.. and I feel like leaving her in a shelter is maybe not the answer for her, since it made her go missing. But then again, maybe she has in the back of her mind I will just keep taking her back in. How do you know when too much help..is too much help?

I have not called the hospital yet, because I somewhat know the drill. I think if they know she has a family member who will pick her up, they will want me to do so. I don't want to do that. I want her to get into some type of facility or rehab, but I am not sure that she will be able to or that they will help much. I feel like I have been running around in circles and talking to everyone, trying to find an option for her, because I do not want to put her on the street where she might get harmed or for her to feel so hopeless she wants to kill herself.. and there is no good answer. I want her to know the help is here, if she wants it.. does she not want it yet? I am assuming she will sober up and call me tomorrow and I am trying to think about what I should do.. thinking out loud and seeking opinions.. thank you.

Seekinghelp, my heart breaks for you. I don't have any experience with your type of situation; others will come along here who do. I just want to tell you how sorry I am. You are dealing with A LOT and it sounds like you are doing a really good job of handling everything. I'm not sure trying to stop her from drinking by taking away her alcohol is the "right" move but this is all a learning process. I admire you for trying so hard and for coming here to seek advice.

Thank you Dreams.

As a sort of side question..is saying so many negatives things about her drinking to her.. trying to "scare her straight", worse for the situation? What are the right things to say?

Honestly, I don't know. I'm kind of a newbie here. I don't think scaring her is enabling her. At the same time, I don't think it works either. I tried to scare my exabf all the time. He was so in denial, it just went in one ear and out the other. Just take one day at a time, sweetie. And don't forget to take care of YOU. Don't let this becomw your entire life. Easier said than done, I know.

She certainly knows the help is there. SHE has to want it and apparently does not yet. It seems she is showing you this pretty clearly.

Seriously, if there is an Alanon group in your area, please go and talk to some of the folks there. As you are learning, you cannot control your sister. Alcohol is controlling her. The only one you CAN help right now is yourself. Please do some reading of the stickie'd topics in this forum and again, get to Alanon. Do this for YOU.

There is nothing you can do or say sadly, except let her go. Nothing. If you believe in a higher power, visualize placing your sister in that higher power's loving hands. That is all we can do for them.

Please read Codependent No More and find your nearest Alanon meeting. You can then focus on you and your recovery.