Sometimes no matter how much we want people to sort themselves out

Bretrick

Bretrick

Well-known Member
Location
Perth Western Australia
it is just not going to happen.
Watching getting their life back together, making forward progress gives me a good feeling.
Then there is a break of months where there is no contact.
Contact is reestablished and I find out that person has crashed again.
Gone back to old habits, drinking, drugging, jobless, directionless.
Eventually one needs to let them go to get through life how they see fit.
As difficult and sad as that is.
 

Totally agree. I have known a few people that continue to make decisions that lead to a bad outcome. Or even the same outcome that has always been. WTH?

Had a friend/neighbor, my age, whose adult son was a drug/alcohol addict. He lived with her until such time as he would be very abusive and she would throw him out. He would go to rehab, come out in a couple of weeks, she would let him come back to live with her. The last time, she had to call the police. I gave her new locksets, installed them for her, and two months later she had given him a key and he was back. What was she thinking?
 
Yep I've had to walk away and not look back with regard a couple of family members, I spent years trying to help

You can only do so much for them, until it start affecting your own health, then you need to just walk away.....


if people are not willing to help themselves despite all their promises and continue to destroy their own lives, there comes a point where you have to stop them destroying yours too..
 

I walked away from my 2nd husband when he would not even try to stop drinking. I went to Al-Anon and they were even telling me to leave him when they don't usually do that. Our marriage counselor did the same. I told him I could not stand by and watch him kill himself. He died before his 52nd birthday. Alcohol came first with him.
 
It's a near universal consensus by all alcoholics in recovery, that an alcoholic will not stop drinking even if he already recognizes that he is miserable. There is nothing anyone can do to help them until they come to that point where they are serious about stopping, and even then, quitting won't be a walk in the park, at least at first. If they make it out of active addiction, it almost seems like a miracle, but there is no guarantee they won't start again.

The frustrating thing for the rest of us, as Bretrick points out, is that expecting them to get better is... well, frustrating. For those of us who have made the leap, we can explain to them what we had to do, which is frequently exactly what they don't want to do. No matter that others have found the answers, help can fall on deaf ears until they are ready. Often times when an alcoholic begs for help, what he really wants is to keep on drinking, but avoid the negative consequences of his actions. Usually, they want to learn to control their drinking, which doesn't work.

But once in a while someone breaks free, and it's wonderful to watch that happen.
 
I wanted to marry a guy who was on pot. There was an older man online on a christian forum. He used to preach. He was wise. My mom said: No please he's horrible this and that but I didn't listen to my mom. He just said: Take it veeeeery slowly. No accusations, no telling me not to do it. He said he always tried to save damsels in distress and it came back to bite him. I broke up the same week.
 
Sadly, you cannot fix those who do not want to be fixed.
I never understood what they got out of being almost unconscious from alcohol and or drugs.
I have not spoken to siblings since our mom died in 2017. they lived in town but only came to see her in hospital 2 times while I took time off job and traveled there and sat for 12 hours a day for 11 days so she would not be alone and to support stepdad.

I always thought they would just end up dead from their issues but like cockroaches they may outlive me.
 
Jeni said:
Sadly, you cannot fix those who do not want to be fixed.
I never understood what they got out of being almost unconscious from alcohol and or drugs.
I have not spoken to siblings since our mom died in 2017. they lived in town but only came to see her in hospital 2 times while I took time off job and traveled there and sat for 12 hours a day for 11 days so she would not be alone and to support stepdad.

I always thought they would just end up dead from their issues but like cockroaches they may outlive me.
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I had similar issues with a family member. No-one would believe how much they drink in a day and yet are still highly functioning. For years I;ve thought they're going to die, they must..they can't possibly continue drinking on this level and live long... but here they are in their 60's, still drinking, still highly functioning, still working, and still alive....

I'm beginning to think all the alcohol has literally pickled them for prosperity!
 
It can be hard to let go, especially if your co-dependent. Codependency can keep the person with the addiction from fully owning recovery. It also traps the supporter in chronic stress, fear, and resentment as they may feel they have failed if the addict relapses.
 
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My Late Husband was an alcoholic and he fought it endlessly. He had his ups and downs.
His great paying job when he got a promotion unfortunately put him into the situation
of traveling the country, attending lunches and dinners where of course, drinks were always
temping him.

His main trigger was missing his family and then after he quit that job and we moved to
Missouri right smack before the recession of 1980 when jobs folded, his feeling of failing his family.
He wasn't a party hardy drinker when it hit. He would get serious and just drink till he passed out.
Never abusive or running around, just losing himself into unconsciousness.

I realized as time went by what the triggers were and stuck with him BECAUSE, sober (which was
majority of the time) he was a damn good man, husband and father.

He was not the stereo type of alcoholic, I had seen plenty of those. It was hard not to let it upset
me. Two times in our 17 years together I lost it with him but it was not just his drinking that hit me.
It was the pressure of stress we were all living through.

Knowing what his triggers were and why helped me understand. I am sure if he were to have been
drunk for long periods of time I may have chosen differently.
I guess in his case it was better to get lost in drink than for him to cry in front of me for feeling
like he was a failure. I never regretted standing by him and sticking with it.
For me living with someone cursed with being an alcoholic worked better than many others.
 

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