Support group for those affected by someone else's drinking - thread 3

[pointythings]

Link to previous thread here: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/alcoholsupport/5177307-continuing-support-group-for-those-affected-by-someone-elses-drinking?page=40&reply=147449407

Continuing our series of threads for people who have an alcoholic in their lives. This is a safe space to vent, look for advice and support and maybe find some strength.

And we are now stuck with 1000 posts of a thread with a spelling error in the title - I'll chase up HQ to see if they can help.

@pointythings@amlie8@Nogoodusername@Penguinsandspanielsthanks for the reassuring welcome it is much appreciated.

Have you given him any ultimatums ?

how long has been on drugs ?

@Penguinsandspanielsits getting on for 2 years (he’s 28) started off casually but ramped up over a year ago. End of last year Start of this year he was going to meetings/sponsor etc. Wasn’t ‘ready’. Stopped going on and off the last 3 months. In debt and spends every last penny on drugs. I’ve given boundaries and he ignores all of them. Said he would start again beginning this NY but I went into his bedroom this morning and found the drugs packets all on his bed. He’s no intention of stopping. I’ve told him he has to leave. I am struggling. This is very hard for me. I’m a single Mum and no support. I do not want to put him on the street. He’s not aggressive at all but my life is hell and changed so much.

end of/start of was 2024/2025

In my experiences, ultimatums weren't any help. I could only change my own behaviour and set my own boundaries. But it wasn't my child. That must be so hard.

I am so sorry you are going through such a nightmare. I watched a friend try and support her alcoholic son for years, insisting she needed to keep him under her roof, despite his increasingly awful behaviour. She was determined to save him, but he still drank himself to death. She couldn't change anything and hard as it is, you can't change things for your son. He is the only one who can turn this around. Maybe telling him to leave will be a wake up call. Maybe it won't. What happens next is entirely in his hands.

@CharlotteByrde I know that it is out of my control. I know I can’t save him. I am struggling to throw him out on the street. He has nowhere to go so it will be the street.

I get you don’t want to kick him out as he’s your child

equally you cant go on like this

what boundaries ? And if ignores (which seem he has) then you have to act tough and if need be say no more and tell him to leave /change locks etc

Every person I have known who has gone through what you are going through has ended up making their addicted child leave. And in over half of cases, their child has eventually found sobriety - with relapses and stumbles, but still. For all the others, their lives have also improved because they no longer have the chaos of life with an addict inside their home. It really is the only way, and without consequences there can be no change.

I know this is very hard to hear.

@Penguinsandspaniels no drugs in the house. Repeatedly brings/takes drugs indoors.
Gives me no housekeeping. Ignores my requests for money.
Cleaning his room. Lives in squalor.

@pointythings like I said. I am struggling to throw him out on the street. I know making him leave is the only way but I am really struggling with this.

I completely understand how you feel and believe me, I'm not judging. It took me almost 7 years to realise I needed to end my marriage because I knew my late husband would spiral without the framework of a family to support him. It will take as long as it takes.

Meanwhile, we may be able to offer you advice on small coping changes that will make your life a little bit better.

It is very understandable that you are struggling. None of us will judge or demand you do anything at all. We have all had struggles of our own. Keep coming on here and if you can access some real life support for yourself you may find that helpful too.

I think I have come to the end now. It is a new year and the prospect of living like this another year is unsustainable on my physical and emotional health. My fear is he will take his life. I have been living with this over my head like for almost 2 years. I have to accept this is a very real possibility. I am afraid. So very afraid.

@Isthisit2025 well done for reaching out for help. Can you help ds look for accomodation? It has been said on here before but you have to reach your rock bottom/limit before you will feel able to let go.

I think the first thing you need to do is seek support for yourself. These threads are one source. SMART Family & Friends is another. Therapy may also be helpful to you. You do not have to carry this alone. The loneliness of carrying an addict is the worst thing.

If you have family and friends, tell them. You do not have to hide. There is no shame in any of this for you, and not for him either - most addiction comes from a place of trauma and loss of wellbeing.

I totally agree with @pointythings: get professional support for yourself @Isthisit2025. Individual therapy, SMART recovery friends and family or Al Anon, and posting here.

I can firmly say that all of us on here who have either left an addicted spouse or partner, or cut contact with a parent or child in active addiction, have had the fear that it will make things worse or lead to suicide. It may very well cause the spiral to escalate, but that often needs to happen in order for the addict to get help or truly take responsibility. I tried to save my Ex for two years and I achieved no positive change overall but instead allowed him to remain in stasis and avoid truly taking responsibility and accepting he needed to fight. However, it came at great personal cost to me - I became a shell of myself. I also feared that if I left Ex he would commit suicide and I was too scared to do that. He didn’t, but he still might - for some, suicide is the way out from the grip of addiction. There are posters who have been through that. Ultimately, if your someone does decide that death is preferable to the seriously hard work of fighting addiction, it won’t be the fault of the person who loved them and had to put up boundaries. It will be their choice in response to their addiction. You can’t control or cure someone else’s addiction. You cannot save an addict. Enabling out of love and fear only really slows the inevitable in my opinion. But my god does it ruin your life in the process.

I’m a Mum too so I send you my heartfelt sympathies that the addict you love is your child. It must be the hardest of all. But you cannot fix him and professional support and peer support helps hugely to come to terms with this.

much love

He’s ignoring you and taking the piss

i get it hard. And you aren’t ready to make that final step - but one day hopefully you will

we were all like you. Some are still with their addicts. Some managed to say I deserve better or our young kids do

you think in your brain you have had enough but your heart says diff as you love him

we get it. We all do as been where you are now

so till you are at the bottom of what you can cope with - this thread and us are here for you 💐

@hoodiemassive he has no money at all. I cannot afford to rent somewhere for him. I am taking him to the council on Monday and also calling shelter (they were not open over the weekend)

@pointythings I was doing a Famanon zoom group. It is people (very nice people) sharing their experiences but no ‘advice’ per se. No discussion around coping strategies etc. I didn’t find them particularly helpful, just people nodding and saying thank you after sharing stories. I will look into SMART. Counselling is out of reach financially at present. My ‘friends’ have dwindled. Family are overseas or miles away but supportive. I am incredibly lonely and am actively isolating myself because of the people in my life who (I feel) have not been supportive, so I don’t ‘bother’ them anymore. I go to work which is my saviour (I love my job) Structure/routine and amazing colleagues.

I do have a partner (we don’t live together) but he is not supportive at all, no understanding and totally against any addiction. I also hide a lot from him so he doesn’t know the half of it.

@Nogoodusername I will try and go to Al anon because there are no f2f Famanon anywhere near me (I’m prepared to travel too!).

I am so glad that I am in the company of those that truly (but sadly) understand what it is like to live with the fear of losing a loved one. It is that fear that keeps me enabling my addict and I know that is not right. Everything is conflicting. All my emotions, morals, principles, everything. I am also a shell of myself.

You are so right and so understanding with everything you have said. I am slowing down the inevitable. I also feel I am going insane. I was not nice to him yesterday. I said some horrible things. I am at my wits end and the frustration of him not even trying (meetings etc) rendered me to this awful behaviour (which happens occasionally due to a build up) and I then feel absolutely dreadful (more dreadful than normal) I can categorically say I am not that person. I feel so out of control.

Thank you for your understanding and compassion. I need this so much right now x

@Penguinsandspaniels You are right, he is taking diabolical liberties with me and a total lack of respect. I think that’s one of the things that makes me so mad.

Yes my head says enough but my heart is not yet strong enough.

Thank you for your support. X

Thank you to all of you who have responded to me. I needed your kind, compassionate and practical advice right now. I cannot thank you enough, and just having this thread to vent/ask advice is priceless to me.

I honestly feel for you but I am also in the middle of coming to terms with an addict and their behaviour plus my own awful behaviour. So I cannot give advice but the people on here( I assume they are all women) have given me lots of support and it must be said a glimpse of a horrible future.
Things have been ok here for the past few days but I now know this won't last.
The advice to tell my son was the absolute best he has really helped me a lot.
My DH has an appointment with a psychiatrist on Friday I am hoping that might lead to inpatient detox rehabilitation.
I'm not sure how hard that is to get?
I am selfishly looking forward to some off duty time.

@wouldratgerbeunknown in some ways you have been through the worst time already, when you were trying to cope completely on your own. Your son's support will make such a difference. Other people may have more positive experience of their alcoholic doing NHS inpatient detox but mine wasn't great. My Dh had inpatient detox twice, for only a week each time. The first time, he stayed sober for a few months and seemed on the road to recovery. The second time, a year later, he drank as soon as he got out. The positive part was that for that week I knew he was safe and that he wasn't in the house.

I did online SMART friends and family as no ftf near me. I do know what you mean though @Isthisit2025, there is surprisingly little professional support available for families of addicts unless you are able to afford private therapy which is both really expensive and often hard to find someone with expertise in addiction. I became completely obsessed with reading everything I could on addiction from different rehab sites, Al Anon and SMART (there is a SMART handbook for friends and family) and just generally online. I still often re-read articles that really made sense to me like ‘why an addict cannot love you’.

I tried to ‘detach with love’ but I didnt really understand how to do it and it didn’t work for me - the more boundaries I put up/ the less enabling I did, the more Ex resented me, the angrier and more bitter he became, the more I got the endless diatribes of ‘you have failed me and it’s all your fault’.

It does go against all your instincts in some way - walking away from someone who is in escalating crisis. Especially I imagine when the addict is your child. But I give myself the grace of: nothing I did was curing or improving Ex’a addiction, but I really was ruining my life in the process. It’s only now that I have left and we are no contact that I realise just how hideous my life had become - constant anxiety, worrying, being on the end of verbal abuse, really just consumed by Ex’s addiction.

Dont feel guilty about the explosions. We have all had them. I don’t think it’s humanely possible not to have them! You are watching someone destroy themselves and are utterly powerless to fix it. It’s hideous. It’s such a rollercoaster too - there are the glimmers of hope, and the dashed hope, and so much fear all the time. I can remember two epics meltdowns I had where I was furious and said vicious horrible things and just went ballistic. I was so angry that my happiness was tied to Ex’a recovery and it was completely out of my control.

I really have felt so much peace since I stepped off the hamster wheel. I still feel a cycle of emotions of guilty, angry at him, sad, and worried that he will never recover. I still dread that one day I’ll have a phonecall from a friend or family member to tell me he is dead. But it was such a relief to surrender to the realisation that I cannot change it and I cannot live a half life. I chose to save me. If others who know Ex think I am selfish, so be it, they can take over (they won’t) but will eventually come to the same realisation as me too.