middle kiddo and issue with drinking

[Zoe Girl]

so i am ready to kinda talk about this. my daughter called me pretty much as soon as i was home and in bed from my retreat and said she wanted to come home because she needed to go to rehab. She came home that night and stayed about a week. we decided that she was probably better with support and not necessarily a rehab center. She was pretty sick for awhile, i had just returned from the retreat and didn't have as much time as i really wanted to be home with her. over the weekend we both felt moderately sick and just were lazy around the house. then this monday she suddenly moved back to her apartment with her boyfriend. i was rushing home to make her dinner and then take her or loan her the car to go to an AA meeting. it sounds like he took her, i am checking in daily. Honestly i am very concerned about her keeping up with not drinking with being back living with him. i told her to come over this weekend and stay or stay during the day so she is not home alone or with roommates that are stressful the entire time. i have a no-alcohol home which helps i think.

So that is what is going on, lots of worry, lots of wanting to tell her what to do, and despite feeling pretty good about my mom skills still having some guilt here. i do tell her things she needs to do however pretty much all my kids have a highly developed sense of passive aggressive. Above and beyond the regular teen/young adult range as i have seen. all my kids have refused all teams, clubs, church groups, etc. vehemently. So i am very concerned she is not going to get to AA groups. for that reason i am thinking we need to work more with a counselor than a group,

[Reyes]

Zoe, you said she initially wanted to go to rehab. I wasn't quite sure from your post if you supported rehab or not?

[ApatheticNoMore]

Maybe she needs to go to rehab, I wouldn't scoff at a desire to go to rehab. In fact if someone I cared about with a substance problem wanted to go to rehab, I'd help them check in as soon as possible (as in, oh hallelujah! that's a hallelujah moment there, most of the time with addicts it's denial etc.) .

Maybe a sober living house would be a better living situation, it's often used when people get out of rehab. Now I recommend all that tentatively, as people sell drugs in the parking lots at rehabs, people use in the sober living houses. That's the truth of what goes on, so it's a lot on individual fate, and that is so whether or not one lives in Rat Park, but there is at least the support in rehabs and sober livings that your not supposed to be using, that your there to get better (at least if you are there voluntarily). But rehab especially I think sometimes makes positive changes if it's attempted enough. Health insurance may even pay for rehab these days (because yes it's all entirely unaffordable of course).

[ctg492]

Sorry, my heart is with you and her.
Admitting one has an issue is a huge step. Asking for rehab, is a monumental step. What I learned way to late with my son was that I was not a counselor, I was not a Doctor, I was not the support group or his peers. Which he needed those. I was love, I was Enableing.

[rodeosweetheart]

Sorry, my heart is with you and her.
Admitting one has an issue is a huge step. Asking for rehab, is a monumental step. What I learned way to late with my son was that I was not a counselor, I was not a Doctor, I was not the support group or his peers. Which he needed those. I was love, I was Enableing.

There is a lot of wisdom here. I was thinking of commenting on the addiction post in another thread, that I thought the article was actually quite dangerous is that it promoted the idea that you, the person who loves the problem drinker, is somehow responsible for fixing the problem through love.

I don't think that can be done, unfortunately. If it could be done, there would not be many problem drinkers out there, as most have people who care about them very much.

I have known a lot of alcoholics who have been able to find sobriety through AA. Other alcoholics will understand and work with your daughter in a way you cannot. Most counselors will recommend AA, although some work from a different model. Check out the CRAFT model, if you are interested in being involved in your daughter's treatment.

But ultimately, it is up to your daughter to select what program she will follow, or what rehab. Rehab can be great when someone is receptive and willing.

You are going to need support, too. You might want to try at least a couple of Al-Anon meetings, to see what you think.

[catherine]

There is a lot of wisdom here. I was thinking of commenting on the addiction post in another thread, that I thought the article was actually quite dangerous is that it promoted the idea that you, the person who loves the problem drinker, is somehow responsible for fixing the problem through love.

I don't think that can be done, unfortunately. If it could be done, there would not be many problem drinkers out there, as most have people who care about them very much.

I have known a lot of alcoholics who have been able to find sobriety through AA. Other alcoholics will understand and work with your daughter in a way you cannot. Most counselors will recommend AA, although some work from a different model. Check out the CRAFT model, if you are interested in being involved in your daughter's treatment.

But ultimately, it is up to your daughter to select what program she will follow, or what rehab. Rehab can be great when someone is receptive and willing.

You are going to need support, too. You might want to try at least a couple of Al-Anon meetings, to see what you think.

+100

As much love and support you'll get in these forums, a better forum for you in this case is the Friends and Family forum over at SoberRecovery.com

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...ly-alcoholics/

[mtnlaurel]

Hugs ZoeGirl.

AA saved my life.
For me, that is where the day in/day out living without a drink boot camp happens for me... and the life beyond it - cleaning up the wreckage of the past, living in honesty, taking responsibility for my side of the street, and being of use in the universe.

In no way do I want to discourage rehab, but beware of the Recovery Industry.
I always ran into Treatment to get out of hot spots I had created for myself. Definitely seeds were planted there for me, however I always found my way back to a drink. That's just me though... very often one might need medical assistance to detox and there are lots of people that need to be extracted from their current situation to finally put down the drink.
My Dad paid for 1 rehab stint, then the second one I paid off every month for YEARS! Boy did I feel like a fool writing that check every month with a big old hangover.

I had a moment of awakening of sorts and finally got it that this body I am in on this planet will never process alcohol correctly to let me live a whole life. And the only thing that got me to that point was getting the snot knocked out of me over & over & over again by alcohol.
I was a slave. Being in active addiction was what I would imagine being possessed by the devil would feel like.
When I had that lightbulb moment, I was too afraid that that may never happen again for me.
(lightbulb moment not a requirement for recovery, that's just what happened for me)

I knew Alcoholism was deadly. I watched my mom die with it (it was the cigarettes that took her out, but by then she was drinking milk & rum as that was all her stomach could take).. and she was a beautiful, intelligent, creative woman.
On the other hand my dad got sober via AA when I was 10 - and he buried almost all of his drinking days closest friends due to alcoholism.
Cirrhosis of the liver, one drowned in the bathtub, one passed out and choked on their vomit.

My suggestion for a woman interested in sobriety would be to try a BUNCH of different AA meetings to find some with a solid group of women with extended sobriety.
These are all things that your daughter is going to have to do.
You cannot get her sober.

Above is just what worked for me.
AA definitely has a LOT of fallible human beings in it and you have to beware of the kooks, but there are lots of totally solid people there too not drinking one day at a time together.

And this is just to address drinking issue.
There are other things that can be better addressed by professional counselors.

[Zoe Girl]

thank you all, my daughter started off strong in calling and asking for everything and then lost some energy. that is okay except she has not shared much with me and then moved back to her apartment. So i am fine with rehab, but i also see the issues you also are talking about. for counseling i used to take her to a place that was sliding scale at a university but her copay is lower. the insurance has not called her back with listed counselors so i want to work on finding her some options. when my son was going through his stuff i purposely took sick time and put it on record even though i worked a lot because i have a lot of pressure with deadlines, it is really hard for me to get time to help her right now which is my major issue.

i like refuge recovery the best, it is only out-patient in LA right now. it is based on buddhism and the work of Noah Levine. i went out and got her the book the first day she was with me. our local meditation group would love to start a refuge recovery group but we have the experience in meditation and not in recovery. AA seems to be what is in this area and i know a fair amount about them. i did go to one al-anon meeting, didn't seem like what i was looking for at all. i wanted to know how to dispose of all the pot crap i was finding without being at risk since i work in schools. my daughter and i went back and forth for a couple years with the pot and alcohol i would find and dispose of, then talk to her about, back then i got her to counseling for awhile and when she turned 18 her counselor moved on and she decided that counseling was BS. last summer it came to a head with her boyfriend and i told him to leave and she went with him. i was thinking she was doing better there because she seemed so happy to be responsible on her own.

i will keep you updated, i am hoping to have her here on the weekend and do some cooking or crochet.

[catherine]

mtnlaurel, posts like yours have me wishing there was a "like" button here. Thank you for your candid, helpful post.

[sweetana3]

Can I also gently suggest AA for families again. You also might need to investigate more than one group or attend a number of meetings. Not every meeting or suggestion might work but the support is valuable. The group gave such great help to my best friend whose family had serious alchohol addiction in its background and was affecting her daughter (almost the same age as yours). Even though my friend was a great parent and lawyer, she knew she needed help in learning how to help her daughter and so she went to the family meetings. Her daughter got 2 DUIs and was going to jail. The mother had to let the daughter get into a diversion program on her own and work thru it on her own. It was so very very hard but both of them survived.

The mom learned valuable coping skills from these meetings and got good support from others going thru the same thing.