Adult children of alcholics/drugs,,,,,,,,how did you heal?

by LyinEyes 14 Replies latest jw experiences

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  LyinEyes

  My mother was addicted to prescription drugs, mostly pain pills and muscle relaxers. It was very hard growing up with a parent like that. I remember being 5 and having to do all the washing of the dishes, folding clothes and watching my baby sister. My mother, was very young,only about 21 when she found that the pills my aunt gave her for a bad migraine, made her feel good.

  So much of the very young years I have of my mom , are empty,,,,,,,, It is like she was there, in her body, but her heart, her mind was somewhere eles. She would lock me up in a room with her while she slept thru her drug haze , leaving me to change my baby sisters diapers. I used to watch the sun go slowly down, wishing so much my dad would come home to let me out of that damn room. There was no tvs in our rooms, or any kind of games like kids have today. I had just my imagination and my dolls. I hated to sleep when I was a kid and it was extreame torture to have to stay locked up.

  My mother was so out of it most of the time, that I dont remember her hugging me, holding me, or talking much to me durning those times. I really think I have blocked alot of it out.

  There were so many times she had "nervous breakdowns", running down the street in her nightgown in the rain,,,,,,,,high as a kite on drugs. There were many stomach pumpings , as she called out my name to help her and make them stop. There were so many overdoses , I thought she was like a cat with 9 lives.

  With my mother so neglectful and emotionally distance from me at that age,,,,,,I grew to depend on and practically worship my father. I thought he was right up there with Jesus. All the beatings and strickness he handed out, I took as love, that he was trying to make me the best person I could be and that I just had to be a better kid. Not only did he make me feel this way with the beatings, but by him showing me that he was disappointed. That crushed my spirit more than anything. I wanted so much for my dad to be proud of me and mostly he was,,,,, I was almost the perfect child that he molded with the belt and his sterness. But the times I did cross him, I suffered ...I learned to punish myself , even after my dad punished me with his hand and his words. I would be seriously depressed for days.

  My Mom never got better, there were some years she did, she struggled going in and out of rehab, only to come home to the same life that was driving her deeper in depression. But I can say as I got older we got closer , but it was never a mother daughter relationship, she was more of the child and I the mother. She would go into the hospital for a "rest" and leave me and my sister ,,,,,,,,,, to us it was hell, even as sad and drugged up as she was , we wanted our mama home. My baby sister used to sit in front of our big family picture , holding her teddy bear and sob. I would pick her up and rock her. I felt more sorry for my little sister than I did for me, after all I was the oldest and at the time, I felt I really didnt need my mom the way my sister did. ( I know now , I needed her more than she knew or even I knew at the time)

  In one of her last rehab stays , the one that was the longest..........we went to family counseling, and learned all about chemical dependancy, weither it was prescriptions drugs, street drugs, or alcohol, it did the same thing ,,,,,it tore lives apart.

  I learned alot about my mom there, and began to understand that she was really sick , that she had much deeper problems that I had ever known about. My dad never participated in any of her recovery.

  Well most of you know how my mom's life turned out , she ended it , thinking she could never find her way.

  As an adult , I still struggle with the issues of being raised by someone with a dependancy and the scars run deep.

  Leaving the controling JW's was the best thing to happen to me , ( other than hub and kids of course), because I wonder if I too would have turned to drugs or alcohol to dull the pain I was in so long. I am not saying that all of my problems were JW related, they were not, but being in that controlling cult, made it impossible to explore ways to find yourself, to think for yourself , to love yourself. The last 2 years have been the most healing in my life, I am finally moving on past alot of the past. I still feel effects from so much of it , but because I am free now, I have the power to walk on , to walk forward .

  It is never too late to heal, even after so many years have gone by. The only way to find happiness is to face the past , learn from it and for me, letting it rest quietly, filed in a locked box somewhere in the back of my mind. Everyonce in awhile, like right now,,,,,,,,,,, I open the box, to remember , to allow myself to understand why I feel the way I do at times, remembering that so much of my fears, can be traced way back to a little girl who's just wanted and needed her mother.

  I have made peace finally with my mother , and I guess you can say I forgive her, although I don't feel that she would need my forgiveness, or that I feel I even have a right to forgive her. But I look at my kids , and I know there will be things I hope they forgive me for.

  It really feels good to be able to see life, even the really sad things , thru my own eyes, and not that of an organization or anyone telling me how I should feel. That has been my salvation.
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  shamus

  Lyingeyes,

  You have been through so much in your life, no words can say how sad I feel for you and your mother. Thank you for getting it out. That is the key to healing.

  Please PM me anytime, Lyingeyes. Now I know why you named yourself that. You seem happy, yet you are sad. I sure wish you all the healing in the world, Lyingeyes.

  Shamus.
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  teenyuck

  {{Lyin}}

  My dad was an alcoholic. I never saw him falling down drunk until the very end. When we were kids he went out alot with friends and after he became a dub, he stopped that....for awhile.

  My mother constantly berated him and said what a lousy person he was. SHe blamed it on his parents who were also alcoholics. At the same time, she was an alcoholics nightmare I suppose. She would party it up with him, once in a while and then berate him for it.

  When I was in college I went to Adult Children of Alcoholics. I learned that his behavior was not my fault and nothing I could have done was going to change him. That is when I started to blame him. And my mother.

  They both were irresponsible. Neither was an emotional adult. My mother is still this way. My dad died last year. At his funeral were family and his drinking buddies. Everyone from his local dive bar came. That was creepy.

  I don't think you heal. You deal with it and move on. I am mindful of it when ever I take a drink.

  It is just so amazing that people have been soothing themselves with concoctions and drugs for thousands of years. This is not new. Just a different delivery system.
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  blondie

  Lying Eyes, I confronted my mother for the last time; she went into rehab; I started going to Al-Anon and finally ACOA. It was astonishing to hear my story coming out of the mouths of complete strangers. For the first time people who understood what I had been through, what I was going through, and what I would be going through.

  Adult Children

  ...guess at what normal is

  ...have difficulty following a project through from beginning to end

  ...lie when it would be just as easy to tell the truth

  ...have difficulty having fun

  ...have difficulty with intimate relationships

  ...overreact to changes over which they have no control

  ...constantly seek approval and affirmation

  ...feel that they are different from other people

  ...are either super responsible or super irresponsible

  ...judge themselves without mercy

  ...take themselves very seriously

  ...tend to lock themselves into a course of action without giving serious thought to alternative behaviors or possible consequences. This impulsivity leads to confusion, self loathing, and loss of control of their environment. As a result, they spend tremendous amounts of time cleaning up the mess.

  

  	We are the survivors of addiction and abuse in the family of our childhood. We have found, however, that some of the tools and roles used to cope with the crisis of alcoholism now interfere with our present lives.
  	By attending A.C.A. meetings and sharing our experiences, we find we can admit our powerlessness over the disease of addiction, begin to heal old wounds, lose the sense of being inferior or worthless and help ourselves weed out attitudes that disrupt our present lives. We begin to gain a healthy perspective on our feelings and the feelings of others. Through a willingness to pursue in depth the root of childhood feelings and experiences, we are able to begin watching for present-day self-destructive patterns, recognize these patterns, and make better choices for ourselves.
  	We encourage sharing and trusting with co-sponsors who can help us. We also find that trust, fellowship and service with our support group can aid our growth. Above all, practicing the principles of the Twelve-Step Program on a daily basis helps us to change sick attitudes and characteristics that have plagued us for years and made our lives unmanageable.

  I still go to ACOA meetings though not as often. It has been 20 years now.

  Blondie
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  LyinEyes

  Shamus , thanks you are a sweetie.

  Teenyuck, I think there are alot of on this board who went thru this,,,,,,,,I guess it is always going to be with us, but I loved what you said about not feeling guilty anymore, that it wasnt your fault. Amen.

  Blondie, when I read all of the points of how adult children feel,,,,,,,, I really feel that I will be fighting those feelings for the rest of my life,,,,,,but I am seeing these feelings for what they are,,,,,,not some character flaw that I have, but a byproduct of my childhood.

  I really love the last part, what the ACA part is saying. That is so true, and it proves it can be done, there are many who are getting past the childhood scars and are living happy lives. Thanks for posting that.
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  blondie

  Yes, LE, you find out that these were

  tools and roles used to cope with the crisis of alcoholism

  We needed those things then to survive. But now we need to learn how to live. You can do it. I thought I would never learn, but I did bit by bit. You can too.

  Blondie
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  happyout

  It was in one of these meetings that I learned the word "enabler". It describes my mom, and me to a T. I did not realize how much we were enabling my dad to continue with his chemical abuse. He always had a home to come back to, food to eat, and a family that would pretend everything was normal. I didn't know how much of that I had absorbed until I started looking at some of my relationships, and how I took responsibility for everything, and always tried to smooth things over for everyone. I still do that (although now I know to think things through before I spend money or time on others).

  I hope we are all heading towards healing, it is a journey, not a destination.

  Happyout
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  SheilaM

  Lying I read this book. I was always perplexed at the secrets in my family. Both my parents were rasied by alcoholics, its amazing although the didn't drink they had such strange behavior. This explains it all. I wish the dubs had enough humanity to have helped your Mom.((((((((Dede))))))

  

  Here in an expanded edition, Dr. Woititz, the mother of the ACOA movement, provides wisdom and information for all Adult Children of dysfunctional families. A Pioneer, Dr. Woititz broke new ground in our understanding what it is to be an Adult Child of an Alcoholic. Today she re-examines the movement and its inclusion of Adult Children from various dysfunctional family backgrounds who share the same characteristics. After more than ten years of working with ACoA’s she shares the recovery hints that she has found to work. Adult Children of Alcoholics has wisdom to offer Adult Children of any age from any place.
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  teenyuck

  blondie, happyout, great posts.

  The *enabler*....I shudder when I think of that word. I knew I was not as a kid.

  As an adult, I was. I wanted my dad to be a dad so bad I was willing to sit with him and watch him drink (the few times {maybe 7 total} I saw him after college.).

  I tried not to be judgemental. I tried to understand. I just don't understand how people can procreate and walk away from the life they helped form. They are more interested in the stuff (drugs, drink, gambling, etc) and give up family for that.

  All of your posts were very moving.
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  LyinEyes

  I havent read the whole book Sheila but many portions of it on the internet and excerts from my aunt. I was an enable and my father was even worse. I didnt realize how that hiding my mother's addiciton, covering over her, making excuses, literally picking her off of the floor so many times, and just trying to be the pillar of strength for so long. I didnt know that I had the right to stand up and say ,,,,,NO MORE!!,,,,,,, I am glad that I learned I did have that right, and I was helping her by standing in front of her and telling her that I was not going to ignore her problem anymore, I was not going to let her embarrass me or ruin my life anymore. For a few months,,,,,, she seemed to be getting better, and I felt that we had a major breakthru in our relationship. But things didnt work out for her, she didnt want to fight for herself anymore and gave up. I always felt guilty because I told her things that she needed to hear and I often wondered if I was part of the reason she felt so bad. Looking back and thru much learning and growing, I see that I would have done things the same. I think my mom could have kicked the drug habit if she would have had some kind of support system.

  So many things happened so fast to her , that were major life changes and I know she feared that she would go back to using drugs . I will never know what she thought before she died. I can't even imagine really, there were so many things going on , that are so hard to tell, or even explain in any comprehensive way.

  I really feel that if she would have stayed in counseling, instead of worring so much that Jehovah didnt love her anymore, she had just been d/f for smoking, she might could have made it. She was only at the beginning of her recovery, and those are the hardest days, that is why you have a sponser.

  She left the rehab thinking that if she could get her life in order , go back to the meetings, get reinstated, she might find a new way to live her life. But as you know , she was sick and needed the doctors help, she need support and even if she would have went to the meeting, she would have been shunned and no love, no support there.