lucybooz

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i'm desperate. my son is 37 years old and seems to be determined to kill himseslf. kill himself or end up in jail for the rest of his life. he's coming to the end of his being without his license for a year due to a dui. the last dui was his 4th!!!!! it dawned on me the other day that my son has been an alcoholic for almost half of his life. what a rude awakening that realization was. you go day by day, week by week, year by year - ups and downs, drunk then sober, losing jobs and getting new jobs. then you come to realize how long this nightmare has been going on. probably the best time was when he was in rehab for nearly a year. i realize now that that was the best time just because someone else was babysitting him. he's been married for 5 years - has 2 beautiful children. nothing matters to him. he seems to want nothing good in his life. right now it's work all week and be drunk every weekend. his wife means nothing to him. right now all she is is a taxi for him because he can't drive. i've accepted the fact that he and his wife really have no marriage anymore, and she will probably be better off without him - they would both be better without each other. he seems to have turned into someone i don't even know anymore. he's stolen from all of our family, used my 83 year old aunt (his great aunt) for money problems - she's now in a nursing home dying of alzheimer's and a multitude of other old-age problems. he doesn't visit her anymore - doesn't even ask about her anymore. he's become someone i don't like anymore. i feel so guilty for the feelings and the anger i feel towards him. i'm mostly angry at what he's doing to himself. he has a job that pays good money - only problem.....he lays tile and is paid by check where nothing is taken out - he has to pay all taxes at the end of the year himself. that isn't as bad as the fact that he nas NO insurance on himself - hospitalization or life. if he were to die tomorrow there would be no money to bury him!!!!! he's never thought of anything - anything but his drinking.

i'm sure this may sound all to familiar to many of you. my question is this: is there ANYTHING i can do to save him? even tho i have awful feelings about him, really don't care if i see him or not right now, he's still my son and i don't want to bury my son. i don't even want to think about his life in december - that's when he will be able to get his license back. it will just be a matter of time until the inevitable happens. i've told him his luck will soon run out. with all the dui's he's had, noone has been hurt. he's on more than one occassion driven after drinking with his children in the car. he just doesn't seem to care - even about them. i guess if you don't care about yourself, it's impossible to care for others.

well this goes on and on. i just wanted to vent and get some advice from others who are in this same mess.

anything anyone can tell me will be greatly appreciated.

thanks for listening to me.

Dee at Mt Bully

Hi lucybooz--First of all no you can't really help him---you can help yourself.
You have come to the right place.There are a lot of people here that will give
you hope and encouragement. If I were you I would try to get his wife involved with alanon with you. You both will find caring people and tools to help you. Those two
children need you both. The effects of your sons alcoholism will effect them also.
First and formost take care of yourself and then those babies and there mother.
Please keep coming back to this sight we are all here for you. My heart really goes
out to you. I actually think it is easier to have an AH than an AHS.
We are here---Dee

Karivan

(((lucy))) No, you can't stop him from drinking. All you can do is take care of yourself. Go to Alanon, post on this board, and seek consolation from your HP.

My son is 26 and I don't know where he is or what he's doing. The last I heard, he is doing meth and drinking too much. He lives in Tucson and I live in Colorado so at least I don't have to see it. And no... I don't like him very much. I love him unconditionally but he doesn't make it easy to like him. I prefer not to be around him until he gets his act together, if he ever does. Does that make me a bad mother or a cold person? No... I don't think so. I've been through this too many times with him and I can't let him make me crazy again. I've lost too many people to alcohol and drugs and I have to take care of me. I've learned that I didn't cause it, I can't control it, and I can't cure it. It doesn't do anyone, including myself, any good for me to be a crazy codie and to have stress related health problems.

So find an Alanon meeting and take care of yourself. Put your son in Gods hands and trust him. He can do a lot better job than you can.

lucybooz

thanks for your replies. karivan, i can sympathize with you. in all honesty, i wish he would just move away and it might be easier to not be thinking EVERY DAY about what's happening.

in all honesty, his wife is really enabling him right now. i wish she would leave - move to her mother's or somewhere. you see, my son takes a cab to the local hooters, then has the nerve to call his wife to pick him up when he's snockered - she does it!!!!! if it were me, i'd tell him to either stay there or find his own way home. she took him to a local foodmart this past weekend, dropped him off there and then went on her way. it would seem to me that if he wanted to go "shopping" that badly, he could have walked!!!!! any idiot knew what he wanted to go "shopping" for!!!!

i pray every night for God to help him before it's too late. that seems to be the pray i've been praying for most of my life as his mother.

i, too, love him, but i do not like him any more. he's a liar, a thief - he's also addicted to lottery tickets. i don't think i could believe him anymore even IF he told the truth!!!! his wife said he blew $300 one weekend between booze, lottery tickets and snuff. i question alot of how she is handling this, but it's really none of my business. the children ARE my business. she claims she and my son have plans that after christmas they are splitting. seems to me it's worse to play this silly game for that long.

i'm so glad i have you guys to vent to. just talking about it makes my heart feel a bit lighter. i know there are millions in my shoes, but it's so hard to realize your son may now be on "death row" - just waiting.

you're right tho and i know it from all the years we've been dealing with this mess - there is NOTHING MORE i can do but pray and hope he sees the light before it's too late.

thanks again for being there for me.

cwohio

lucybooz - prayers to you and your son.

gelfling

Hi Lucy,

Sorry to say, there is nothing you can do to help him. He chooses to drink, neglect himself, his family and everything else negative you said. It's up to him to make the decision to get clean and sober and get his life together.

The only thing you can do, is take care of yourself. Alanon meetings, prayers, the 12 steps and God.

My A son is 24 and I am grateful that he lives 300 miles away. I was blessed when I didn't see him going through DT's and jaundiced and possibly on the verge of death. I have learned to detach and I think the reason that I could do it was because I didn't have to look at him and see him destroying himself.

I'd also been through all there is with my A husband. And knew that if I was to keep what sanity I had at the time our son confessed to being an A, I had to detach and accept the fact that he was sick and he was the only one who could make it right.

Please take care of yourself. His decisions are his own and there's nothing you can do to make him better.

Blessings, Kathy

Daffodil

Lucy, Please consider yourself hugged by another mom. Yes, it is hard to watch our children grow up to be an alcoholic BUT there are worse things they can be. I truly believe that in my heart of hearts. It still doesn't change the fact that it is I who must learn to detach from the problem because it isn't mine. I refuse to take the responsibility for a grown adult's behavior and choices. Do I love my son yes I do but I will not accept unacceptable behavior. Can I protect my grandchildren from the effects of alcoholism NO I can't but I can help educate them about the family disease of it. I can share what I have learned with them.
As for your daughter-in-law she too must find her own way out of the maze of the sickness. What she does she does probably is the very best she knows how just like the rest of us do.
You have the awareness now that your son is probably very ill. You can stay in the problem or you can find a way to accept him as he is rather than the way you'd like him to be. Some of us here at SR have found that going to alanon meetings, reading the literature, working the steps with a sponsor had helped us find solutions to even more than having an alcoholic in our lives.
Do take care and keep coming back. We're open 24/7.
Love and prayers from one who cares.

pixiegirl69

lucy my heart & prayers go out to you and your son