Is your MOM addicted to drugs?
Additional notes:
* My Da was a binge alcoholic… the majority of my family see me (I’m guessing) as a really crappy daughter. I’m not easily led.
* He was a pilot… a very intelligent man… he could fix or better anything mechanical.
* He was musical… loved voice and guitar.
* He lived for women… he loved his good looks and influence.
* He was kind… regardless of how little he had… he’d give.
* He was shy, unless the drink was into him.
* I loved him.
daughter all the time and my mother-in-law hates me too.I am stuck living in her house and I’m so despondent. I feel like I’m losing it. I can actually feel a hindering spirit in this house. Help. It’s way worse than what I am telling.
He is on oxycontoin because he got hurt and had neck surgery. My daughter is 22 and in college.
My daughter is married and living in her own home.
He was often short, ugly and insecure. He would stonewall, and gaslight. He did three tours and Iraq. I have known him for seventeen years. I had no prior romantic interest in him and he put a tremendous amount of pressure on me after he was in divorce proceedings with his wife who asked for a divorce.
He only got married the first time because he got her pregnant after seeing her a month, and this baby I have by him was conceived in spite of birth control and condoms.
He didn’t speak to his mother for over a year after she kicked out his grandchildren over issues that involved control of grandchildren a few months after he got out of the Army. When this happened she focused her anger on me. She looked up my court history that was more than ten years old and mailed it to his ex. She spoke hatefully about me in a verbose manner in an e-mail she sent him and she made sure the pre-school his children attended got a copy of this. His (now) ex-wife had cheated on him and physcially abused him. She also assumed we were romantically involved when we weren’t when he was married and she sent me vulgar, hateful text messages and a year later starting harassing me via crank calls over a two day period. His mother had physically abused him as a child. I helped him care for his children and eventually he had to rent an in-law from my parents. His wife concealed an entire pregnancy from him and binge drank vodka when she was pregnant, and sought no medical attention. This was in part because of the fact she cheated -she didn’t know who the father is-we still don’t know and that child is almost 4. His children are troubled and he can’t see it. She is a very under-involveld/neglectful mother and yet he is supportive of this and intolerant of me. I feel that I am the only “safe” person to take his resentment out on. I no longer speak to him, but I find myself very angry at him for mistreating me. I am currently seeking counseling. I don’t worry about harming either one of my children. I just find myself withdrawn. I have read about emotional abuse and trauma. I have read that emotional abuse is sometimes more psychologically damaging than physical abuse because of its frequency. He was often so ugly and he would needle and needle and needle and I would finally say something hateful and ugly back to him. I don’t want to be that kind of person. My older child is fairly well adjusted. She is academically gifted, adults just love talking to her and she is personable and happens to be a successful child model. I gave a lot of attention to her when she was small-I nursed extensively and spent a lot of time bonding with her. I brought her to counseling when her father was no longer in our lives-the therapist was amazed at her vocabulary by three and after some time felt my daughter was ok to move on. I was always a single mother. She is now ten. I want to be able to give attention to my baby somewhat to the degree that I did my first child(which is impossible because now I have two). I feel as if I stayed there I would be further diminished with nothing left to give my children or myself emotionally. I don’t think it was wrong of me to leave the father of my child in another state. He wanted to get married-I said No. I just find myself so angry at him for mistreating me after knowing me so many years. Is it normal to feel this way?
My Mother In Law is an alcoholic. Retired, and sits around in her big ol’ house and drinks Crown all day… Yet expects us to allow her to baby-sit our daughter, and is offended when I tell her she can’t see her because of her drinking.
She has been to rehab twice & the family has been to AA meetings with her.
Our feelings have gone from compassionate and patient to aggravation and intolerant.
?
She has been a drunk for years!!! Not cause we are not letting her see the baby. What an idiot!
Thanks for all of your thoughts… I already knew the answer, I just wanted
some out side info.
At approximately 6:00 pm on Tuesday the 28th of April I was called out of work by the EMT squad to pick up my children from my ex-husband Dave’s care. Dave had had a severe seizure in the parking lot of Stop and Shop as a result of his attempts to detoxify from alcohol with no supervision. There were plenty of witnesses, 4 EMTs, 3 bystanders, one who works at the middle school. He had been drying out so that he could see his children. I came to the scene and found him covered in blood, surrounded by pools of red on the concrete where his face had smashed down. A mangled nose and forehead had taken the full force of the fall from his 5’11″ height.
Meanwhile his children, ages 14, 12, and 11 had seen the seizure in its entirety. By all accounts, it was a sight that would make a strong adult cringe. They were visibly shaken. I thought to myself, ‘tomorrow I will try to undo the damage of seeing such a sight- but I am not sure it is possible.’ I took the younger two to their aunts, but the older one would not leave his dad’s side. We picked up Dave’s mom and spent three hours in the hospital, where I could not convince this 80+ year old woman to leave her youngest son.
Sadly, my oldest son had grown up well beyond his years in those moments. In the car, he put all attention on brother and sister. Later it was on grandmom, and dad. I thought to myself, ‘he will hold out to have his own meltdown until tomorrow morning, when he will come to me too exhausted to go school.’ He lay awake in his bed that night- reliving the scene again and again in his mind. Then he came to me in the morning. Everything was predictable. It always is with Codependency. I was reliving the scene myself at 1:18 in the morning. You don’t stop loving someone, even though you divorce them. And you never get cured from Codependency, Second Hand Addiction, and the disease of caring for others more than for yourself.
This scene strikes at the core of what I call Second Hand Addiction. An ex wife goes with her ex husband to the hospital. A frail, elderly mother stays by her son’s side all night long so that he won’t leave the hospital when he wakes up. She actually causes him to leave prematurely because she is his only way out. He has no money, no keys, no equilibrium. But she will walk him out and take him home, out of her love for him. Then we have a son who has to grow up quick. He is witness to such scenes over and again. But still he won’t leave the bedside because he has seen the best of his father, and loves that best. Mom has seen this too, and ex-wife. And so they are all stuck.
I knew that night that the thing you do for an addict in order to help him is not to help him. But I went to the hospital and stayed too long anyway. Then I spent two days trying to heal the heartbreak. Then I spent another week trying to keep Dave from driving his children. He was determined to drive them, seizures or no seizures. His alcoholic brain is so altered from constant use that he does not see that his very love and need to see his children could kill them. Then in Dave’s eyes I became his enemy. And so I spent another week getting nasty emails and phone messages, trying to talk sanity into his craziness. My daughter, God bless her for a maturity well beyond her years, then sacrificed her school vocal concert. She loves to sing more than anything- but mom was working and she knew if she told dad he would drive them over to the school. She also knew that if I got someone else to drive her, he would fight with that person, and then drive them over to the school. The only answer was not to tell him. And so he sat all night in sweet oblivion, not knowing the pain he had just caused his beloved only daughter, and wondering why she was melancholy.
And I tell you truly that I know the heart and soul of Dave, and it is a good one.
Think of the person that you love and admire the most and then picture them doing the types of things that Dave does. The picture does not add up. So it is with those of us who love an addict. The picture does not add up to the person we know is there. We try to hate them- but we can’t. We know who they are and it just doesn’t make any sense.
There is no real cure for addiction. There is no real cure for substance abuse. The best we can hope to do is get them off the drug. Then we have to pray that they stay off of it. If we can get addicted people off the drug, and if they can stay off it, then they can become some of our greatest role models for living. But the trick is to get them off and keep them off long enough to get them thinking straight. And that’s one heck of a trick .
There is no real cure for addiction.
An addict in recovery will always wonder if he or she will fall into that deep dark hole again. If he does, he will take his loved ones with him, because there is no real cure for what they have either. So an addict’s life will have to be pristine. No guilt, no shame, no malice, no resentments. Any of these could cause a relapse. Hence a successful recovering addict is a role model. Because he knows he can’t fall like the rest of us. He doesn’t have the luxury of falling.
It has been said that drinking and drugging is like holding a loaded gun up to your head, playing Russian Roulette. The lone bullet in the gun is marked ‘addiction-a lifetime of heartache for you and everyone around you.’ We play and play and play that game, a society of risk-takers. And a lot of people get shot.
Personally, I don’t drink anymore. I never thought much of gambling with my life.
Lorelei F. is a speaker, writer, and registered educational consultant specializing in the topic of SECOND HAND ADDICTION. You can visit her blog at: http://secondhandaddiction.blogspot.com/
to me she is no different then any person if we are caught driving under the influence of alcohol why should she be treated different
ppl die from drinking and driving every year Paris has not hit the bottom yet and been lucky she has not killed anyone.
but if she did decide to drink and was not caught and killed some one that was some ones son or daughter how would it she be tried in court then?
my ex is getting my 15 yr old drunk..what do i do??
my 15 yr old daughter is on vacation w/ her dad in california. its been 6 weeks. so far i know of 3 different occasions where she has gotten VERY drunk and her dad supplied the alcohol. last night i saw a pic of her on her myspace with her dad and some other guys drinking in Mexico. WTF?? ive called him and yelled. at them both actually. they both promise it wont happen again. the first day she was there, she chipped her front tooth on a beer bottle. she’ll be home in 4 days, but im worried cause this will be her last wekend there, and i dont know what kind of parting theyll be doing to help see her off. anyone out there in california feel like hunting him down and kicking his a ss for me?? but really, what would YOU do? Im already never sending her out there again. this was the first time. here at home, she’s a good girl.
Additional Details
7 minutes ago
you all have great advice. thank you so much! this has really been bothering me. even my other children are upset by it knowing what their sister is doing. Youre so right about taking her to Mexico. We do have a court order saying he cannot take her out of the US, and I know what he has done is illegal. I told him that. I told him I will have the cops there, and have them put my daughter on a plane. And I will take her to the Dr’s. I know she has “gotten lost” with an 18 yr old while drunk, kissed a differnt boy while drunk, and who knows what else. This is heartwrenching:( She was still a virgin, I hope she still is. I wanna hurt that man. And WTF means what the *uck!! Thank you again, and please keep your answers coming. I’ll put them all together and nail that irresponcible loser.
I’D JUST LIKE TO ADD THAT YES MY STORY IS REAL. IM ALREADY PISSED, WHY DO PEOPLE HAVE TO BE RUDE A**HOLES ON HERE. IM ON HEAR FOR ADVICE NOT TO BE CRITISIZED. I AM A VERY GOOD MOTHER AND IM OBVIOUSLY VERY WORRIED AND BOTHERED. OR I WOULDNT BE ON HERE ASKING STRANGERS FOR ADVICE. I THOUGHT THAT IS WHAT THIS THING WAS FOR. AND I AM OFF MY *SS TRYING TO DO SOMETHING. I HAD 3 HRS SLEEP LAST NIGHT (LAST NIGHT IS WHEN I SAW THE PIC AND CALLED MY EX), IT BOTHERS ME VERY VERY MUCH, SO IF U HAVE SOMETHING CRAPPY TO SAY ABOUT THIS OR “MY” PARENTING SKILLS, KEEP IT TO URSELF, OR IT’LL BE UR *SS I’LL WANT TO HUNT DOWN NEXT.
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