Alcoholic Son Getting Help -- Finally!

I am so thankful on this Thanksgiving Day that my 26-yr-old alcoholic son is in a men’s Christ-centered recovery center!  I took him on Monday to start a 6-12 month program at The Way Inc.

My son had been living with me for the past year.  We even moved to another apt in Sept so he could continue to stay with me.  After he quit his 3rd job in that year due to drinking, I told him he had until Jan 14 to get some help or find another place to live.  He found The Way on the internet and sent in an application.  They had openings, so we met with the director and he was accepted.  The fee for the first 30 days is $1000, which I didn’t have.  I put out a plea with all of my son’s immediate family members for them to invest in his recovery and they came through with flying colors.  I am very thankful for caring, generous family.  Where God guides, He also provides!

I know the process of recovery is going to be hard for my son.  He has never been one to talk about his feelings and will have to learn to open up and share the things that are keeping him from being able to “do life” successfully.  Hopefully, he will learn to fill his God-shaped hole with God instead of with alcohol and drugs.  I will have no contact with him for 30 days, but get to see him again right before Christmas.  I can’t wait to meet the man that God created him to be without the influence of alcohol.

He started drinking in high school, flunked out of college his first semester, and has quit numerous jobs since then.  I have had to watch my handsome, intelligent, funny son totally waste his life because of alcoholism.  He is not what people call a “functioning” alcoholic.  That is good in a way because it has forced him to seek help earlier in life.  My main prayer the past few months has been “God, please don’t force me to put my only child on the streets.  I don’t think I could bear that.  Please don’t let his bottom be jails, institutions or death.  Please make a way for him to get Christian help!”

Thankfully, God opened a door for my son at The Way Inc.  My son chose to walk through that door.  Whatever happens from here is in God’s hands.  I’ve not been taking his being gone as well as I thought I would.  I seem to be on edge… fears trying to get the best of me.  Fear that my son will walk away from this when the going gets real tough.  He has always been a quitter… he has quit everything he ever started… college, jobs, walked away from Army basic training (twice) and ended up with an Other Than Honorable Discharge, recovery program at the Downtown Rescue Mission 2 years ago.  I made sure he understood before going through this door that if he left or was asked to leave before he graduated the program, that my door was not open to him… that he was on his own.  He said he understood.  But he has loser friends that would come get him, if he called and asked them to.  So I’ve got to turn these fears over to God daily and trust that He’s got everything under control.

Now that I am alone again with my 2 cats, it’s time to work on me and the issues in my life that keep me from progressing in my own Christian walk.  Maybe I can work up the courage to attend Al-Anon meetings and Celebrate Recovery meetings, so that I too can grow and be better support for my son when he graduates from The Way.

Happy Thanksgiving from The Anonymous Alcoholic!

Sins of the Mother (or Father)

I just finished watching a Lifetime movie called Sins of the Mother.  Graduate student Shay Hunter (Nicole Beharie) reaches a crossroads in her life when she finds herself broke, burned out and unable to cope with the stress of school. With nowhere else to go, she embarks on a journey home to Tacoma, Washington, to face her abusive, alcoholic, estranged mother, Nona (Jill Scott). When she returns home, Shay finds Nona living life as a recovered alcoholic, with a new daughter and completely transformed. Thrown by her mother’s new path, Shay must now accept Nona’s changes and influences, including her sponsor, Lois (Rogers) — all forcing Shay to move past her pent-up anger and awaken her own relationships.

It was a great movie, a real tear-jerker.  I sat here wishing my son was watching it with me.  I remembered how my late husband’s 2 daughters severed their relationship with him after one particularly nasty night of drinking during which he spit on them and really scared them.  It took several years of sobriety before they started trusting him again.  It was the same with the rest of his family.  The alcoholic actions of one or both parents has a tremendous affect on a child’s ability to trust; in themselves and in others.

The daughter in this movie had a very hard time accepting her mother’s apology.  She thought her mother should have to pay somehow for her terrible childhood, not realizing how much her mother had already paid for her alcoholic lifestyle.  She wanted to stay a victim, instead of rising above her childhood and forgiving her mother.  This movie did have a happy ending.  Too bad real life doesn’t always turn out like in the movies.

Emotional Roller Coaster

Anybody else tired of riding the emotional roller coaster caused by living with an alcoholic?  I know I am.   I have gone from trying to “detach with love” from my son’s disease to controlling his drinking again.  He’s been sober for 3 days after going on another binge, missing work to go off with friends.  I told him this was absolutely the last chance if he wants to stay living with me.   When he said he wanted to walk home from work this morning instead of me picking him up, I knew he would stop and get beer and I was right.  I checked his backpack when he got in a found 4 tall boy Steel Reserves.  I poured them down the kitchen drain.  I have been making him go to AA meetings, but I know his heart is not in it.  It’s just a matter of time before I am faced with the decision once again of putting him out on the street.  I pray and pray for him to stay sober, but my prayers seem to be falling on deaf ears.  Sorry God.  I pray for someone in AA to take him under their wing and help him find sobriety.  I pray that I won’t be forced to put my only child out to live on the streets with the other homeless.  In reality, I know this may be the only thing that helps him in the long run, but I don’t know if I have the strength to carry through.  It would be easier to put him out if he were verbally abusive or a danger to me.  But he is only a danger to himself when drinking.  My greatest desire is for him to one day have a life and family of his own, but that will never happen as long as he is drinking.  He goes from job to job and has no real friends.  I really hate this stupid disease and what it is doing to my handsome, smart son.  Please stop this ride, I want to get off!!!

Blackout in a Can

Four Loko Company Defends Caffeinated Booze

Student Illnesses at Party Blamed on Four Loko

Colleges Sound Warning on Four Loko

These are just a few of the news stories I found about the new 12% alcohol malt liquor type, high energy drink that has been my son’s drug of choice lately.  They have been called “blackout in a can” and “liquid crack.”  I haven’t tasted one of them myself, because I have already branded them as E-V-I-L.

These drinks are dangerous because of the high alcohol content to which they have added 150mg of caffeine.  Men’s Health Magazine answered the question in this article “What am I Doing to my Body When I Combine Booze and Caffeine?“  The Four Loko and Earthquake are made by the same company, Drink Four Brewing.  They both have 12% alcohol but the Earthquake does not have caffeine.  College kids are drinking the sweet flavored Four Loko and don’t realize how much alcohol they are getting until it’s too late.  I have seen what they do to my son and it’s not pretty.  When I took him to a treatment center earlier this year, he had been drinking Earthquakes and his BAC was .394 (which is critical).

Colleges are banning these E-V-I-L drinks and the manufacturer is being asked to stop sales until they can be studied by the FDA.  I hope they remove them from the shelves in my town before my son ODs on alcohol.