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Join Date: Aug 2012
Location: Chicago
Posts: 5,450
Originally Posted by FarmhouseGal 
I just can’t seem to figure out why he acts/thinks this way about me!?
There's no magical decoder ring for an addict's behavior. Addiction follows it's own internal logic and we should all just be grateful we don't understand it. The chaos it inflicts upon those burdened with addiction is torturous. And it really has nothing to do with us--with what we've done, said, NOT done, NOT said, or anything within our control. I think it's tempting for loved ones to believe that "if we'd only done/said _______________ they would have seen the light!" because it affords us the illusion that we are in control.
The light they need to see is within them, and only they can find it.
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Sep 2019
Posts: 134
trailmix
Im sorry, seems you’ve had to overcome some huge obstacles in your life and I don’t know you but believe me when I say you’re a strong women. Strong for getting out of a bad situation but also for sharing a little of your life with us 💜
I’ve read a lot on children with alcoholic parents, thankfully I was not raised around it but I can imagine the damage done. My daughters are young women but they only talk to their father when they have to. Every invite, dinners, birthdays go thru me because they can’t deal with their dad. They love him but only because he is their father. My son though idolized this man and now I see that is no more. He came home a few nights ago after he left to go spend the night with him with tears in his eyes. We’re close enough and live in the country so he rides his 4 wheeler there. Mind you it was only 7:20 and he says “Dads drunk already and saying stupid stuff and I don’t want to be around him like that. What’s wrong with him? Why does he do this? I feel so bad for him mom all I want is for him to come home but I know he can’t”
All this from my son as I stood there getting angry, upset and trying to comfort him as well. I have always tried to shield him from the drunken nights, fighting etc. I know he always knew what was going on. Now he says he wants to be home with me and only see his dad during the day 🙁 this is killing me. It also makes me see that my son does need some outside guidance, which I will definitely try to get him to reconsider.
Im sorry, seems you’ve had to overcome some huge obstacles in your life and I don’t know you but believe me when I say you’re a strong women. Strong for getting out of a bad situation but also for sharing a little of your life with us 💜
I’ve read a lot on children with alcoholic parents, thankfully I was not raised around it but I can imagine the damage done. My daughters are young women but they only talk to their father when they have to. Every invite, dinners, birthdays go thru me because they can’t deal with their dad. They love him but only because he is their father. My son though idolized this man and now I see that is no more. He came home a few nights ago after he left to go spend the night with him with tears in his eyes. We’re close enough and live in the country so he rides his 4 wheeler there. Mind you it was only 7:20 and he says “Dads drunk already and saying stupid stuff and I don’t want to be around him like that. What’s wrong with him? Why does he do this? I feel so bad for him mom all I want is for him to come home but I know he can’t”
All this from my son as I stood there getting angry, upset and trying to comfort him as well. I have always tried to shield him from the drunken nights, fighting etc. I know he always knew what was going on. Now he says he wants to be home with me and only see his dad during the day 🙁 this is killing me. It also makes me see that my son does need some outside guidance, which I will definitely try to get him to reconsider.
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Join Date: Aug 2011
Posts: 16,246
FhG…...I think that if you give your children copies of the literature/books on "Adult Children of Alcoholics"....they can/might read it at their own leisure ...and, I am sure that a lot of it will resonate with them.....
Definitely, the counseling for him, also......
Definitely, the counseling for him, also......
Member
Join Date: Nov 2016
Posts: 8,617
Originally Posted by FarmhouseGal
Now he says he wants to be home with me and only see his dad during the day �� this is killing me. It also makes me see that my son does need some outside guidance, which I will definitely try to get him to reconsider.
I didn't hate my Father when I was growing up either. Children don't really get that their parents are "good" or "bad" they just "are". As they get older and can reason all this out, it become obvious that everyone is affected and everyone is unhappy and none of this is "normal".
Then they distance themselves and that IS normal. He is doing what is best for himself by staying away from his Father when he is drunk. He is making a very healthy boundary for himself and good for him.
You might want to let him know how good that is, that he is looking out for himself with a strong boundary.
Member
Join Date: Oct 2014
Location: Nashville, Tennessee
Posts: 348
FarmhouseGal.
I really hope you reconsider attending at least six Al-Anon meetings before you decide the meetings are not for you.
My father was a violent alcoholic for the first 10 years of my life, didn't drink for the next 10 or 12 years, started drinking again and died at the age of 54. Back in the early '50s and '60s alcoholism was considered a weakness, and the way I grew up, it was also looked upon as a "sin." That's what my mother taught me, at least, that it was a moral issue. I later married an alcoholic and on down the line started drinking alcoholically myself. I've learned in both AA meetings and Al-Anon meetings that alcoholism has nothing to do with being weak or sinful, that alcoholism is a disease and the whole family gets sick.
I've been sober for 22 years and I'm so grateful that my disease, although it's not curable, is treatable. I sill attend AA meetings along with Al-Anon meetings. My 46-year-old son is also alcoholic and has been sober for 6 and-a-half months, for which I'm so very grateful.
Again, I hope you'll consider/reconsider attending Al-Anon and picking up some literature. This is a terrible disease. What I love about both programs is they got me out of the "why" and into some solutions. Oftentimes, when the wife and family start getting some help for themselves the alcoholic will see that they have to change their behaviors, which puts the ball back into their court, and then they'll seek help for themselves. A lady I attended meetings with was married to a violent alcoholic, she started attending Al-Anon meetings and he got into AA a short while afterwards. I can't say that's true in every case, but I know Al-Anon sure has helped me with my past and my current relationship with my son and some other family members who have the disease.
Good luck to you.
I really hope you reconsider attending at least six Al-Anon meetings before you decide the meetings are not for you.
My father was a violent alcoholic for the first 10 years of my life, didn't drink for the next 10 or 12 years, started drinking again and died at the age of 54. Back in the early '50s and '60s alcoholism was considered a weakness, and the way I grew up, it was also looked upon as a "sin." That's what my mother taught me, at least, that it was a moral issue. I later married an alcoholic and on down the line started drinking alcoholically myself. I've learned in both AA meetings and Al-Anon meetings that alcoholism has nothing to do with being weak or sinful, that alcoholism is a disease and the whole family gets sick.
I've been sober for 22 years and I'm so grateful that my disease, although it's not curable, is treatable. I sill attend AA meetings along with Al-Anon meetings. My 46-year-old son is also alcoholic and has been sober for 6 and-a-half months, for which I'm so very grateful.
Again, I hope you'll consider/reconsider attending Al-Anon and picking up some literature. This is a terrible disease. What I love about both programs is they got me out of the "why" and into some solutions. Oftentimes, when the wife and family start getting some help for themselves the alcoholic will see that they have to change their behaviors, which puts the ball back into their court, and then they'll seek help for themselves. A lady I attended meetings with was married to a violent alcoholic, she started attending Al-Anon meetings and he got into AA a short while afterwards. I can't say that's true in every case, but I know Al-Anon sure has helped me with my past and my current relationship with my son and some other family members who have the disease.
Good luck to you.
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Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Boston
Posts: 2,936
Hi FarmhouseGal"Now he says he wants to be home with me and only see his dad during the day. "
I agree with Trailmix that you should affirm his wish as a very good decision. If someone had told me it was a good idea to protect myself AND that protecting myself didn't mean I didn't love my Dad, and that his decision to drink didn't mean he didn't love me, it just meant he was an alcoholic, that knowledge would have spared me a lot of twisted thinking and suffering.
All the rules of normal relationships get upended by addiction and understanding that concept has been a huge gift for me. To truly accept the 3 C's: I didn't Cause it, I can't Control it, and I can't Cure it, gives me the freedom to take care of myself and put my energy on something I can control: my own peace of mind. Again I could have used this information when I was a kid.
You can find info on AlAteen meetings/resources here: https://al-anon.org/for-members/grou...urces/alateen/.
Your son is very lucky he can speak to you openly, and hopefully you can become a good role model for him of detaching with love. When I was 13 and got teary and told my mother that (gasp, DUH) I thought Dad was an alcoholic she slapped me right across the face. Message received, thanks Mom. I finally walked into an AlAnon meeting in my twenties and learned how to use the tools to be able to cope with all the As in my family. I hope you can find some help there too. And here!! Welcome!!
Peace,
B.
I agree with Trailmix that you should affirm his wish as a very good decision. If someone had told me it was a good idea to protect myself AND that protecting myself didn't mean I didn't love my Dad, and that his decision to drink didn't mean he didn't love me, it just meant he was an alcoholic, that knowledge would have spared me a lot of twisted thinking and suffering.
All the rules of normal relationships get upended by addiction and understanding that concept has been a huge gift for me. To truly accept the 3 C's: I didn't Cause it, I can't Control it, and I can't Cure it, gives me the freedom to take care of myself and put my energy on something I can control: my own peace of mind. Again I could have used this information when I was a kid.
You can find info on AlAteen meetings/resources here: https://al-anon.org/for-members/grou...urces/alateen/.
Your son is very lucky he can speak to you openly, and hopefully you can become a good role model for him of detaching with love. When I was 13 and got teary and told my mother that (gasp, DUH) I thought Dad was an alcoholic she slapped me right across the face. Message received, thanks Mom. I finally walked into an AlAnon meeting in my twenties and learned how to use the tools to be able to cope with all the As in my family. I hope you can find some help there too. And here!! Welcome!!
Peace,
B.
Member
Join Date: Dec 2017
Posts: 356
Glad you found us, I think you will find a lot of support and guidance here.
I would recommend individual counseling with someone that has addiction experience. I did go to alanon a few times and while I was in crisis mode it was helpful but it just wasn’t for me. I did have a friend who had gone through this several years before me and she was a lot of help. She had done a lot of Alan on in her life. I guess I just do better one on one.
One thing I realized once I no longer had the dirty secret that my XRAH was an alcoholic a huge weight was lifted off my shoulder because I had been terribly lonely for many year with this secret. No one knew around us including my friends. Only 3 people knew about it, my 2 BfF who live 1.5 hours away and one of my tennis friends who would never meet him anyway. Once the cat was out of the bag and I could talk to people it was so nice. I also realized how many people are affected by alcoholism. One of my BFF here has a father who is a recovering alcoholic but she never talked about it until we started talking about my ex....and there are many more examples like that. Unless people have lived with alcoholism they are not going to be able to relate. It is hard for people to understand that alcoholics cannot just quit because we ask them to.
It took me a lot of counseling to be ok with wanting out. My XRAH got clean after I gave him an ultimatum once I had hit rock bottom. He went to rehab and is now almost 3 years clean but I think I was done when I gave him an ultimatum (which btw only worked because he himself had gotten to the point he felt something needed to be done, just needed that final kick in the butt to make it happen) but wanted to give him one more chance since we had a then 6 year old. Then he got sober and then I felt guilty for not being able to get over it and make it work with him, Truth is, all the crap I put up with over the years just really affected my feelings for him and once I hit rock bottom I was disgusted with him. Every night I went to bed I would get a whiff of stale alcohol when I entered the bedroom. It seems to me that people who are alcoholics somehow metabolize alcohol differently because it was gross. And yes he had also had accidents in bed and only later did I realize that that was due to his drinking. All those years I bent over backwards for him and the last couple of years I started to unknowingly detach from him. He isn’t a bad person but he has changed since getting sober. He had too in order to stay sober. And you can’t force someone to love another. I have now been divorced almost a year and I have no regrets. It was scary to give up that financial comfort especially and hard to do this to our child but I also knew that our kid would be better off with two divorced parents that ar e happy than having two parents together who are unhappy. Plus I’m no spring chicken and I didn’t want to stick around only to divorce once she is out of the house and have wasted 10 years of my life.
Your H doesn’t seem to have any m’interdit in quitting so things will not get better for you, only worse. Do you really want that for you and your child? And even though your kid says hope is ok I would still get him counseling and keep talking to him as well. At rehab they said that the best predictor of if someone will turn to substances is how well they have learned to express there feelings and « empty their backpack of emotions ». Since most kids that grow up with addiction tend to grow up in a dysfunctional household it makes them very prone to addiction since they have the genes and they never learned good coping skills or communication as there was not much of an example.
If you can find it I highly recommend Pleasure Unwoven. It is a documentary about alcoholism that we watched at rehab and it is really good. Your kid needs to learn that alcoholism is a disease and that your son is in no way shape or form for any of his fathers drinking problem. Nothing he did made his dad drink. Alcohol controls the brain of the alcoholic and nothing anyone says or does has any effect ont that, kids often end up thinking that someone they have done something that made their parent drink. I would find him some books specifically geared towards teens. And if there is an Alan on teen that would be a good idea, if only to meet other kids in the same situation so that he doesn’t feel like he is the only one. My kid was 6 when she went to the Betty Ford children’s program and it was really awesome. She learned a lot about addiction in an age appropriate way. They need to learn about it. That way they understand st least. Not knowing will likely make it a lot more scary for them.
Good luck with everything, at this point stop worrying about your H and start taking care of you and your son. And if he doesn’t want to see his dad respect that. It is very unhealthy for him to be around a drunk. Either your h will wise up or continue his downward spiral, either way it is completely out of your control, as hard as that is to accept.
I would recommend individual counseling with someone that has addiction experience. I did go to alanon a few times and while I was in crisis mode it was helpful but it just wasn’t for me. I did have a friend who had gone through this several years before me and she was a lot of help. She had done a lot of Alan on in her life. I guess I just do better one on one.
One thing I realized once I no longer had the dirty secret that my XRAH was an alcoholic a huge weight was lifted off my shoulder because I had been terribly lonely for many year with this secret. No one knew around us including my friends. Only 3 people knew about it, my 2 BfF who live 1.5 hours away and one of my tennis friends who would never meet him anyway. Once the cat was out of the bag and I could talk to people it was so nice. I also realized how many people are affected by alcoholism. One of my BFF here has a father who is a recovering alcoholic but she never talked about it until we started talking about my ex....and there are many more examples like that. Unless people have lived with alcoholism they are not going to be able to relate. It is hard for people to understand that alcoholics cannot just quit because we ask them to.
It took me a lot of counseling to be ok with wanting out. My XRAH got clean after I gave him an ultimatum once I had hit rock bottom. He went to rehab and is now almost 3 years clean but I think I was done when I gave him an ultimatum (which btw only worked because he himself had gotten to the point he felt something needed to be done, just needed that final kick in the butt to make it happen) but wanted to give him one more chance since we had a then 6 year old. Then he got sober and then I felt guilty for not being able to get over it and make it work with him, Truth is, all the crap I put up with over the years just really affected my feelings for him and once I hit rock bottom I was disgusted with him. Every night I went to bed I would get a whiff of stale alcohol when I entered the bedroom. It seems to me that people who are alcoholics somehow metabolize alcohol differently because it was gross. And yes he had also had accidents in bed and only later did I realize that that was due to his drinking. All those years I bent over backwards for him and the last couple of years I started to unknowingly detach from him. He isn’t a bad person but he has changed since getting sober. He had too in order to stay sober. And you can’t force someone to love another. I have now been divorced almost a year and I have no regrets. It was scary to give up that financial comfort especially and hard to do this to our child but I also knew that our kid would be better off with two divorced parents that ar e happy than having two parents together who are unhappy. Plus I’m no spring chicken and I didn’t want to stick around only to divorce once she is out of the house and have wasted 10 years of my life.
Your H doesn’t seem to have any m’interdit in quitting so things will not get better for you, only worse. Do you really want that for you and your child? And even though your kid says hope is ok I would still get him counseling and keep talking to him as well. At rehab they said that the best predictor of if someone will turn to substances is how well they have learned to express there feelings and « empty their backpack of emotions ». Since most kids that grow up with addiction tend to grow up in a dysfunctional household it makes them very prone to addiction since they have the genes and they never learned good coping skills or communication as there was not much of an example.
If you can find it I highly recommend Pleasure Unwoven. It is a documentary about alcoholism that we watched at rehab and it is really good. Your kid needs to learn that alcoholism is a disease and that your son is in no way shape or form for any of his fathers drinking problem. Nothing he did made his dad drink. Alcohol controls the brain of the alcoholic and nothing anyone says or does has any effect ont that, kids often end up thinking that someone they have done something that made their parent drink. I would find him some books specifically geared towards teens. And if there is an Alan on teen that would be a good idea, if only to meet other kids in the same situation so that he doesn’t feel like he is the only one. My kid was 6 when she went to the Betty Ford children’s program and it was really awesome. She learned a lot about addiction in an age appropriate way. They need to learn about it. That way they understand st least. Not knowing will likely make it a lot more scary for them.
Good luck with everything, at this point stop worrying about your H and start taking care of you and your son. And if he doesn’t want to see his dad respect that. It is very unhealthy for him to be around a drunk. Either your h will wise up or continue his downward spiral, either way it is completely out of your control, as hard as that is to accept.
Member
Join Date: Aug 2011
Posts: 267
How old is your son? Mine is 11. I remember a former boss who had this book in her office. I bought it for my son and looked at it with him even though he's slightly old for picture books. https://www.amazon.com/Banana-Beer-C...gateway&sr=8-3
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Sep 2019
Posts: 134
[QUOTE=Thlayli;7270499]How old is your son?
He is 14. He may laugh at me if I bring him a picture book! Thank you for the suggestion. He is quit grown up for his age so I am looking at some other books online that have been recommended. Thank you though 😊
He is 14. He may laugh at me if I bring him a picture book! Thank you for the suggestion. He is quit grown up for his age so I am looking at some other books online that have been recommended. Thank you though 😊
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Sep 2019
Posts: 134
Originally Posted by ChloeRose63
How are you today, FhG?
Friendly Folk
Join Date: Feb 2014
Location: Powers Lake, Wisconsin
Posts: 21,698
Sounds like you are getting smarter and stronger! Great post! I would be very careful letting a drunk driver on the road. Maybe getting pulled over with beer in the truck will wise him up but, there is also a chance he may hurt/kill someone.
Member
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Virginia
Posts: 469
FHG,
Way to go with standing strong and telling him your boundaries. You should be proud of your self. At 14 your son is old enough to know what is happening and its good that you included him on everything that is happening. Just be honest with him and yes don't sugar coat it. You did the right thing. Keep staying strong and we are here for you.
Way to go with standing strong and telling him your boundaries. You should be proud of your self. At 14 your son is old enough to know what is happening and its good that you included him on everything that is happening. Just be honest with him and yes don't sugar coat it. You did the right thing. Keep staying strong and we are here for you.
Member
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Virginia
Posts: 469
FHG,
I have only PM a couple people. They have been so friendly and helpful. If you don't feel comfortable talking about in the main topic group then yes go ahead and PM somebody. I hope you have a great day and we are here for you.
I have only PM a couple people. They have been so friendly and helpful. If you don't feel comfortable talking about in the main topic group then yes go ahead and PM somebody. I hope you have a great day and we are here for you.
Member
Join Date: Nov 2016
Posts: 8,617
Originally Posted by FarmhouseGal
My son and I have to be honest and open about what’s happening here. Son agreed and said he knows I told his father no drinking here and we had a talk about respect, boundaries and consequences for AH actions. One small step at a time I suppose.
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