Looking for Advice
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Jan 2021
Posts: 2
Looking for Advice
I'm new here, so I'll give you a little background. I have an adult son (30) who is an alcoholic. Due to the pandemic, lease ending and job loss, he is currently living at home and the situation has escalated. In June, he literally almost drank himself to death. If not for getting him to the hospital he would have died. That episode enabled me to get him into ~30 days of his first stint in rehab.
We all know the first time rarely works, and of course he is drinking again. He's had a few temp positions since then but is currently unemployed. I can see him going severely downhill again, I'm very worried for his health and want to get him back into rehab. Like most addicts, he continually lies when confronted and then avoids me. I see swollen ankles, face, yellow bloodshot eyes, decreased comprehension etc... I'm hoping someone has some advice on ways to talk to him without alienating him - I need some lessons learned. I know he has to make the decision on his own, but am still hoping I can influence him before he ruins his body, mind and/or kills himself or someone else.
We all know the first time rarely works, and of course he is drinking again. He's had a few temp positions since then but is currently unemployed. I can see him going severely downhill again, I'm very worried for his health and want to get him back into rehab. Like most addicts, he continually lies when confronted and then avoids me. I see swollen ankles, face, yellow bloodshot eyes, decreased comprehension etc... I'm hoping someone has some advice on ways to talk to him without alienating him - I need some lessons learned. I know he has to make the decision on his own, but am still hoping I can influence him before he ruins his body, mind and/or kills himself or someone else.
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Join Date: Dec 2015
Location: Blue Ridge Mountains
Posts: 816
Muddypelican
Im so sorry for what you are going thru, it is the most difficult of places to be....
I'm not sure if it's allowable, but I would suggest calling LaHacienda in Hunt TX.
These people have been doing this 30+ years and they have an amazing program.
I'm sure you could talk to a counselor for recommendations. There is a community
of recovery in the town as well, half way houses are all over. My son was able to turn his life
around with their help. Prayers your son will find his way, because you can only
suggest, if they are not willing, then they are not ready.
Im so sorry for what you are going thru, it is the most difficult of places to be....
I'm not sure if it's allowable, but I would suggest calling LaHacienda in Hunt TX.
These people have been doing this 30+ years and they have an amazing program.
I'm sure you could talk to a counselor for recommendations. There is a community
of recovery in the town as well, half way houses are all over. My son was able to turn his life
around with their help. Prayers your son will find his way, because you can only
suggest, if they are not willing, then they are not ready.
Member
Join Date: Oct 2017
Location: uk
Posts: 2,428
Hello MuddyPelican
So sorry to read of your situation. You are right in what you say that only your son can make the decision to get well.
Alcoholics will rarely listen to anyone until they are ready, as you say he will lie and deny. My husband is drinking and he too is very ill from it.
I encourage you to step back from him. Seek help and support for yourself. Maybe counselling or the Al-anon program. Dealing with a loved ones drinking is an enormous stress, as I am sure you know. Sadly they are going to do what they are doing to do. Anyone who is in the way of their drinking is seen as the enemy.
So sorry to read of your situation. You are right in what you say that only your son can make the decision to get well.
Alcoholics will rarely listen to anyone until they are ready, as you say he will lie and deny. My husband is drinking and he too is very ill from it.
I encourage you to step back from him. Seek help and support for yourself. Maybe counselling or the Al-anon program. Dealing with a loved ones drinking is an enormous stress, as I am sure you know. Sadly they are going to do what they are doing to do. Anyone who is in the way of their drinking is seen as the enemy.
Member
Join Date: Sep 2018
Posts: 436
Hello muddy pelican
i'm sorry to hear about what brings you here. My qualifier is my husband, I cannot imagine the extra layers of pain dealing with an alcoholic child. The thing is your child is now an adult, although he may not seem to be behaving like one. It's important at this stage that you seek some support for yourself. The programmes of Al-anon and families anonymous may be useful to you.
you say "We all know the first time rarely works". It doesn't matter if it's the first time or the tenth time, rehab only works when the addict actively seeks recovery for themselves. You cannot influence him I'm afraid and all your motherly concern, influence, love, caring and good intention will only be perceived as meddling, controlling and judging.
There are many tools available through the programmes I mention to help you to look after yourself while also encouraging your son to take responsibility for himself. Boundaries are a good place to start. Is living with you at this time really the best option available, for you and for him?
i'm sorry to hear about what brings you here. My qualifier is my husband, I cannot imagine the extra layers of pain dealing with an alcoholic child. The thing is your child is now an adult, although he may not seem to be behaving like one. It's important at this stage that you seek some support for yourself. The programmes of Al-anon and families anonymous may be useful to you.
you say "We all know the first time rarely works". It doesn't matter if it's the first time or the tenth time, rehab only works when the addict actively seeks recovery for themselves. You cannot influence him I'm afraid and all your motherly concern, influence, love, caring and good intention will only be perceived as meddling, controlling and judging.
There are many tools available through the programmes I mention to help you to look after yourself while also encouraging your son to take responsibility for himself. Boundaries are a good place to start. Is living with you at this time really the best option available, for you and for him?
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jan 2021
Posts: 2
Thank you
Thank you for your responses. I appreciate it and value your advice. I guess what I'm really looking for is success stories. Have any of you figured out how the push them along to get help or is it really impossible to have any influence? This disease runs rampant in our family so I am very familiar, and am not looking for support for myself. However now that it's my child, I'm just trying to find the right way to help him. Maybe I'm grasping at straws hoping someone else has has had success with getting them into sobriety before they ruin their lives.
Member
Join Date: Nov 2016
Posts: 8,628
Originally Posted by muddypelican 
Like most addicts, he continually lies when confronted and then avoids me
He lies when confronted and avoids you, so no, there is no way to approach him which won't have him running for the hills, there are no magic words. If you could love someone enough for them to recover or to seek treatment, these boards would be very quiet.
Addiction contains a HUGE dose of denial and a HUGE dose of protecting that addiction at any cost. You are probably too close to this at the moment. Is there anyone else that he trusts that might speak to him? It's worth a shot but he will not quit until he is ready and not one moment before.
Member
Join Date: Jun 2017
Posts: 190
Your son really reminds me of my qualifier. My AXBF and I were together for ten years, and we have a 4-year-old daughter that he hasn't seen since she was three months old because that was when I finally decided that I didn't need an active alcoholic in my life or my child's. Since then, he has done three stints in the hospital, like your son. He has been mostly unemployed, like your son. And other than the year or so he found another woman to leech off of, he has been living with his mother, like your son.
I have always wondered: Why does she let him live with her? Is this not the same as subsidizing his choice to drink? If she didn't give him a warm bed to sleep in at night, might he actually hit his rock bottom?
I don't mean to sound harsh. I'm a mother, so I get it. We want to help and support and protect, but sometimes our best intentions can do more harm than good. In my experience, there is no amount of love and no combination of words that can help someone to stop drinking. I agree with the folks who have suggested Al-Anon. Even if you can't make him stop, you can learn to set healthy boundaries and stop yourself from potentially enabling him.
I have always wondered: Why does she let him live with her? Is this not the same as subsidizing his choice to drink? If she didn't give him a warm bed to sleep in at night, might he actually hit his rock bottom?
I don't mean to sound harsh. I'm a mother, so I get it. We want to help and support and protect, but sometimes our best intentions can do more harm than good. In my experience, there is no amount of love and no combination of words that can help someone to stop drinking. I agree with the folks who have suggested Al-Anon. Even if you can't make him stop, you can learn to set healthy boundaries and stop yourself from potentially enabling him.
Member
Join Date: May 2010
Posts: 674
Dear Muddypelican, I am sorry for what brings you, but am glad you have found this wonderful site. My son will be 30 this year, and I have not seen him in over 2 years. We haven't spoken or been in touch at all in almost as long. I questioned his behavior around alcohol, and I set boundaries, and I have been banished from his life. It is heartbreaking, and surreal, and the most difficult thing I have ever dealt with.
I am involved in Al-anon, and I also see a therapist regularly so that I can live a happy life regardless of what my son does or does not do. I have come to understand, that it is possible that my higher power, or the universe if you will, has determined that not having my son in my life at this time is perhaps best for me and for him. What I want is not always what is best, I have learned.
My son is employed, and has his own place, and although it is hard to know with absolute certainty what I would do, I believe that if he lost his home and his job, I would not allow him to live in my home. He is an adult, and his decisions will lead to consequences, and it is only in feeling those consequences fully will he perhaps decide to make better choices and seek recovery. For now, all I can do is pray for him, and take care of myself. I am happy everyday, I find joy in so many people, places and things, and I believe that my son has his own higher power, and his own journey, and it is his to experience in all its joy and heartbreak.
I cut and pasted the post below for you from the other family forum on this site. I have read it so many times, and I have shared it as well. I keep it in my phone so it's there if I need to be reminded that there is nothing I can do to help my son, and that in leaving him to his life I am actually helping the most. I hope that someday we will have a wonderful relationship and he will be healthy in mind and body.
Alcoholism is a terrible disease, and it destroys people and families. I am so sorry that you are dealing with this heartbreak, and I hope that you will stay with and read and learn and find hope, and most of all get help for yourself. You deserve to be happy, we all do.
The Battle Isn't Yours To FightYou can't make me clean though I know it is what you want for me to be, but until I want it. I won't be. You can't love me clean because until I learn to love myself. I won't be. I know you must wonder how can I learn to love myself when I am caught up in a lifestyle of self-hatred and self destruction.
I can learn from my own experience. I can learn from the things that happen to me along the path of my own mistakes. I can learn by being allowed to suffer the consequences of my own choices. Life has a funny way of teaching us the lessons we need learn.
I know it devastates you to watch me hurting myself. I know you want to jump in and save me. This helps ease your pain, but I don't think you understand just how damaging it is to me.
You see although I look and sound like your loved one. Me, the person is locked away deep down inside my being. What you see before you is a addict ruled and reigned by my addiction.
The main focus of a addict is to feed the addiction. Every effort you put forth in the name of "helping" me, the person ... falls prey to the addict giving more power to the addiction to shackel down the person in me a little more each time.
I feed my addiction enough ... please don't help me.
The only way for the person in me to get free is to be free. Free to fall in order to find the strength to get back up and fight back to break free.
How can or will I ever be able to get clean.
The same way I gave myself over to my addiction is the same way I can give myself over to my recovery. BY MYSELF
By allowing me to reach rock bottom you move over and allow me to find the my own way back. It is in the fight to break free that I will find myself. It is in the fight that I learn to love myself. The more I learn to love myself the more I will do to better myself.
I am aware that when I use I am playing russian roulette with my life. I know this, but that is a chance we take when we use. The addict in me is willing to take that chance in the name of getting high.
Rock bottom is but a circumstance away. I can't get in if you are blocking the entrance ...
Please for the sake of the person in me, move out of the way and let me fall as far down as I have to in order to reach the bottom. Pray for me that when I do hit that is not with the impact that leaves me for dead (I know that is your greatest fear), but if it comes to that, be sure to tell my story so that others might learn and live.
Nytepassion
Recovering Addict
I am involved in Al-anon, and I also see a therapist regularly so that I can live a happy life regardless of what my son does or does not do. I have come to understand, that it is possible that my higher power, or the universe if you will, has determined that not having my son in my life at this time is perhaps best for me and for him. What I want is not always what is best, I have learned.
My son is employed, and has his own place, and although it is hard to know with absolute certainty what I would do, I believe that if he lost his home and his job, I would not allow him to live in my home. He is an adult, and his decisions will lead to consequences, and it is only in feeling those consequences fully will he perhaps decide to make better choices and seek recovery. For now, all I can do is pray for him, and take care of myself. I am happy everyday, I find joy in so many people, places and things, and I believe that my son has his own higher power, and his own journey, and it is his to experience in all its joy and heartbreak.
I cut and pasted the post below for you from the other family forum on this site. I have read it so many times, and I have shared it as well. I keep it in my phone so it's there if I need to be reminded that there is nothing I can do to help my son, and that in leaving him to his life I am actually helping the most. I hope that someday we will have a wonderful relationship and he will be healthy in mind and body.
Alcoholism is a terrible disease, and it destroys people and families. I am so sorry that you are dealing with this heartbreak, and I hope that you will stay with and read and learn and find hope, and most of all get help for yourself. You deserve to be happy, we all do.
The Battle Isn't Yours To FightYou can't make me clean though I know it is what you want for me to be, but until I want it. I won't be. You can't love me clean because until I learn to love myself. I won't be. I know you must wonder how can I learn to love myself when I am caught up in a lifestyle of self-hatred and self destruction.
I can learn from my own experience. I can learn from the things that happen to me along the path of my own mistakes. I can learn by being allowed to suffer the consequences of my own choices. Life has a funny way of teaching us the lessons we need learn.
I know it devastates you to watch me hurting myself. I know you want to jump in and save me. This helps ease your pain, but I don't think you understand just how damaging it is to me.
You see although I look and sound like your loved one. Me, the person is locked away deep down inside my being. What you see before you is a addict ruled and reigned by my addiction.
The main focus of a addict is to feed the addiction. Every effort you put forth in the name of "helping" me, the person ... falls prey to the addict giving more power to the addiction to shackel down the person in me a little more each time.
I feed my addiction enough ... please don't help me.
The only way for the person in me to get free is to be free. Free to fall in order to find the strength to get back up and fight back to break free.
How can or will I ever be able to get clean.
The same way I gave myself over to my addiction is the same way I can give myself over to my recovery. BY MYSELF
By allowing me to reach rock bottom you move over and allow me to find the my own way back. It is in the fight to break free that I will find myself. It is in the fight that I learn to love myself. The more I learn to love myself the more I will do to better myself.
I am aware that when I use I am playing russian roulette with my life. I know this, but that is a chance we take when we use. The addict in me is willing to take that chance in the name of getting high.
Rock bottom is but a circumstance away. I can't get in if you are blocking the entrance ...
Please for the sake of the person in me, move out of the way and let me fall as far down as I have to in order to reach the bottom. Pray for me that when I do hit that is not with the impact that leaves me for dead (I know that is your greatest fear), but if it comes to that, be sure to tell my story so that others might learn and live.
Nytepassion
Recovering Addict
Member
Join Date: Apr 2017
Location: Long Island, NY
Posts: 821
Originally Posted by muddypelican
Have any of you figured out how the push them along to get help ..
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