Hi,

I'm very new here. Thought that maybe this would be the place to start.

I am 33, married for almost 13 years and have 2 kids (almost 10 and almost 7).

My mother is an alcoholic, my father was/is a workaholic. Growing up I was always the "responsible" one. School came first, I had few friends and generally did as I was told.
I now look back and think that my mother's problem fed into my sister's dysfunction and my sense of guilt over doing things that are in the best interest of MY family not everyone else. My sister is highly irresponsible, is married to the laziest man I have ever met and I suspect that he is also a closet drinker (just like our mother).

I am venturing out into the work force again after 5 years of being roped into family businesses that either we were forced to sell or just were ill managed to begin with (2 businesses in that time...my father has always worked a full time job and had a side business since I was a baby one was very successful for 30 years but he felt it was time to move onto something else). I feel guilty saying no to my parents...I have gotten over feeling guilty about saying no to other family members...I need to work on standing up to my parents but because I am living in a home they owned up until a month ago (we bought it to help them and ourselves out), and I found that suddenly when we moved back to be near them and my inlaws that I was a child again wanting to please everyone.

I am now to the point of saying enough...I need to do what I can to keep my family on track and not feel like I have to play secondary mother to my sister's 5 kids.

I know this is long but I can express myself better in type than I can speaking, I have never spoken well and group situations make me very anxious.

Hi Nightwind,

I have been there and done that. So much things we do to help them and we end up always too attached and dependent... We start out feeling responsible and that we have to do whatever we can to help... soon to discover now we need something back and finding out it is not there.

I am ACoA and I am also an alcoholic myself. I thought I would never be one, but o well... Now, be in the two side of the coin, I can tell you this is a disease, We alkies do not control and neither our family or friends will do that.

I read your other post and if your mother is an active alcoholic, thats where she is and you have no control over it.

If you bought their house to help them and now find yourself needing her to take care of you children, I hope it work out fine. But we ACoA are over responsible and think we can control everything around. And we need to control. Only to find out we don't. Specially our beloved alcoholics.

Somehow I was a child for long time on my life, was 30 something and still expecting my mother to be... my mother! and take care of me and all this things we think a mother is... I did not have that as a child. Like you I was on my own very early in life, I had parents to pay the bills and make sure there was food and etc. material stuff at home, but that was it. And now it is just too late. Starting work the programs (for me both AA and ACoA) I see I have to give it up. What I did not have as kid, I am not going to have now. My mother is so distant today as she always was. Today like 30 years ago she is doing what she wants to do and is not giving a second thought about how it would affect me.

Hell, I am not and was not the center of her world.

I start to understand, not without pain, that I myself did not treated me right for a long time. That I did not allow myself to have things I needed, to have other conections and people in life, to be good to others, because I was too busy trying to won that love I did not have, or not as I wish it to be.

I feel I am starting a new life. I know and I accept today that some people I love dearly will not be there for me and that they can do pretty well without me therefore I am free to go on with my life trying to make the best I can for myself and for the new people I have on it.

Thank you for being here and post. Made me think about my own moment. Thanks for share.

Hugs,
Lucia

Hi Nightwind,



If you bought their house to help them and now find yourself needing her to take care of you children, I hope it work out fine. But we ACoA are over responsible and think we can control everything around. And we need to control. Only to find out we don't. Specially our beloved alcoholics.

Hi Lucia,

This part of your post made me think, in regards to the control thing. I actually have realized that I can't control her drinking etc. she will have to work on that, but I will be laying out ground rules...some apply to her others apply more to the teen agers that we can find on rare occasions to watch the kids when we go out in the evenings....I can hope she will follow the rule of no alcohol while taking care of the kids...and hubby and I have already agreed first time that rule is broken she is gone (she wants to be involved in their lives and did watch my sister's kids for 5 years for free...we plan to pay her for this).

I actually never connected with my mother. Even as an infant according to my mother, I preferred Dad. I used to sit in his workshop for hours helping him in small ways and talking the hours away. My sister has always in my eyes been "Mommy's favorite" and we still tend to have many childish fights. I have finally noticed that my Dad has tendancies towards very controlling behaviour similar to my mother's only his is all related to work.

After our last failed family business I have decided that no amount of begging etc. will get me to invest in another venture. I am now going to try to stay focused on my business (what ever it may be...personally, professionally etc.) and no one elses. I refuse to enable my sister's irresponsible choices (she was the first to feel my "new attitude"), she always asks to borrow money and expects that the answer will always be yes....I am also not going to enable my mother to drink in a closet, almost everyone in town knows she drinks (one of the many pitfalls of living in a small town) and I refuse to lie to cover her short comings anymore.

Reading the stories of other people here I have come to the conclusion (and my hubby has been telling me this for years) that I can't control others I can only control myself...I think this was the epiphany I needed to kick my butt into action.

oops

hiya.
sorry about the previous post.
i don't come here often and i always forget how this place works.
i am an alcoholic and it's been a few one days since the last time
i got drunk. but, getting drunk, drinking, is what we do.

i spent a lot of time when i was growing up with alcoholic grandparents.
my mother learned the behaviors without ever developing the disease.
my grandmother sat for us on a fairly regular basis and as such we were
around her when she was drunk, quite a bit. my mother admonished her
to not drink while watching us, but, one of the things i remember was her
holding onto my brother and i's shoulders as we 'walked' with her to the
liquor store. where she gave the proprietor a piece (all she had to spare)
of her mind for being so snippy as to refuse to continue to allow us to
come and get her wine. she had very strong hands and i can still sometimes
feel those fingers gripping when she would sway or totter. i tell you this as
background only. i saw it from grandchilds point of view. it was not always
like that. there were times that we laughed and just enjoyed being together.
but, yes, there were times that were just terribly frightening, and i knew i
would never be like them. and i wasn't. nor am i. they were drunks, i am an
alcoholic. lol

she did ultimately get sober after having her oncologist tell her to go home and
die, because she sure as hell wasn't going to die on his treatment table. she was
drunk and he had told her that she had to be clean to take the treatment.
it's what alcoholics do, we drink. he died of cirrosis and lung cancer. watching him
go thru dt's to die was pretty shocking. but, not being 'like them' it was not a
'sobering event'. he went from about 180 to 75 pounds and looked like a banana.

setting boundries for your mother is only prudent. stipulating appropriate behavior
for an employee is your right, as an employer. to cut her from your childrens life
for unappropriate behavior as an employee seems to me to be punishing her and
them for something she is, at this time, not in control of.

it's not really my place to give you suggestions about how you should handle your
relationship with your mother, but, i highly recommend that you find an alanon
meeting, or three, that you can attend. it seems as though you do understand that
you can't control another person over the age of majority, and few of those under
that age, for that matter. (chuckle.) but, you can meet with and get to know other
people that have had the same issues arise in thier lives. they can help you learn
how to seperate the behavior from the person. your mother has a disease. and it
makes her 'nuts'. and yes, there is treatment for her disease.

she has chosen to not take that step today. alanon and acoa can help you learn
about how that disease has affected you and what you can do to allow her to be
part of your lives without creating havoc.

i don't know if this is of any help to you, but, i sincerely hope that some portion of
it can be of use. having 'been there, done that, and seen that' from both sides of
the fence, i just wanted to let you know that you appear to be on the right track.
but, i strongly recommend alanon and/or acoa meetings for you. i know they have
helped uncounted numbers of people to find a measure of peace and understanding.
and, it's really nice to be around people that 'know' what you are talking about
when you do talk about it. but, they don't need you to 'spill your guts' to them to
let you hold down a seat. they have been where you are.

i hope that your mother does again chose to do those things that have helped
so many of us 'problem drinkers'. possibly, your chosing to establish boundries,
where it appears that others have chosen to just accept her behaviors, will give
her pause to consider those things she did before to stay dry. and maybe she will
be able to achieve a more serene and sustainable level of sobriety some day.
and maybe not. some never do.

i wish you well in your efforts and hope that you can come to an arrangement that
allows her to be part of your lives. seems that you may have to chose between
having her as an employee or a mother and grandmother. and in the mean time i
would just counsel you to keep the 'serenity prayer' close to heart and hand.

yours in recovery,
don