Alcoholic Son!!!!

lemontree

My Son is 40 and for the last 3 years he has turned up at my home several times ill and destitute. Each time I have taken him in obtained librium from GP to avoid the convulsions he has had when he has stopped drinking suddenly.When he appears to be betterI have paid for flats and bought all he needs to start again.
Each time he has not paid rent and abandoned all the items I have bought including clothes. When he left last year it was with 600 pounds to set up another flat which was a lie and I never saw him for months.
I forgave him and took him in and set him up in yet another flat. He should be able to get work as he is a Tradesman.
Due to surgery and Radiotherapy I have not worked for 6 months and cannot afford to help him forever.
I have just had a call from his Landlord saying he owes 5 weeks rent which is 18.75 per week with Housing Benefit.(I paid the first 2 months rent.
I have told him that if he turns up destitute again I will not let him in the house.
Ifeel very upset and guilty but still love him as much as my other 2 children.
My Son and Daughter are angry and feel he has lied and cheated me out of thousands of pounds which he has.
What should I do now?

lemontree

Thank you for your reply. Yes as a Bricklayer he can earn at least 100 pounds a day but for the last 10 years he has seldom worked and has conned money out of friends and me. It may as well be thousands he owes because he will not pay it. He has always expected to live free at girlfriends and my house. He has never paid bills or owned anything. He only stops drinking when he can no longer con money from anyone and comes back to me on the verge of collapse. He drinks a full bottle of whiskey a day at least.

Dora_the_Explorer_5

This may be hard for you, but I'd like to suggest that you stop helping him. For as long as you continue to help him he knows he can get himself into a mess and rely on you to put things right. He sounds like he needs far more help than a GP can give, and certainly far more help than you can give him. Just because you won't support him doesn't mean that you don't love him, and just like when he was a toddler standing back so he stands on his own two feet is how you can express your love for him.

notakid

Hi
I know how you feel as my husband has a problem with drink and has been retired due to `ill heath'. Try AL ANON there should be a local meeting group near you. They were a life saver to me when my husband was acting up. The best thing is talking to people who will not make judgements on your son and will not make you feel the victim. Its true you are, but its not helpful for people to be angry on your behalf when you just want to help your son. The people at the group will listen and share their stories, its really helpful, believe me. The best thing I learnt was you can love someone but you have to detach yourself for your own well being. You can't change him only he can. Look at the website http://www.al-anonuk.org.uk/
I need to go back to the meetings really, but I'm a head in the sand type.
Good luck and please try to go to a meeting you will be suprised how many people are affected by drinking. And its for you not your son. :grouphug:

susiesaver

Hi Lemontree

I'm so sorry about your problems with your son, it must be so hard for you. I think what everyone else has said makes sense. Of course you love him dearly whatever he does but he has to face up to the consequences of his actions and he won't do that while he has you to fall back on. My daughter got herself into terrible financial trouble and in the end was stealing from me when I had nothing left to give her. It was the hardest thing I ever had to do when I started refusing to bail her out any more (and hiding my handbag when she visited) but she has just about sorted herself out now.

Dors is right about him needing more help but he has to ask for it himself and he may need to get to rock bottom before he does that. I do hope things get better for you both.

fsdss

lemontree i totally empathise with you, looking at it from "another side of the fence", i started another thread last week and there was some really useful advice.
just incase it puts another perspecive on your situation.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=182462

big hugs to you

lemontree

Thank you fsdss, I just hope I can be stronger! I read your link and it was most appropriate to my circumstances.

harrie_2

stop it know my family struggling with my addiction
if the feed the addiction i will carry on i will milk them till its gone

sarymclary

Hi,
my husband was an alcoholic, although I didn't realise it for a number of years. Addiction makes them the master of disguise and deceit, whether they want to be or not. We were together for 12 years, with a period of about 2 dry years in the middle. We had 4 children together, but around the time my 4th son was born, the tell-tale signs of him secretly drinking began to reappear.

It is terribly confusing for those friends/family members around the addict, becasue they often seem to slip off the wagon when things seem to be going well for them again. In my husband's case we'd gone from deep debt, and facing losing our house and our marriage, to him earning over £100k self-employed as an IT consultant and us moving to our dream home without increasing our mortgage, sports cars on the drive, and all the trappings around him he'd ever aspired to have, plus a loving and devoted family around him. I adored my husband, and after 10 years of marriage would still be reduced to tears when he left for work some days because I missed him so much. It wasn't enough.

After 12 years together, realising that my 2 older boys were beginning to notice the change in their dad, and challenge him about his behaviour, I knew something had to be done, so I asked for a divorce. It was the hardest thing I ever did, because I did still love him so much, but it was becoming unsafe for my children, and with my youngest under 2yrs it wasn't a risk I could take.

We separated, and his parents supported him financially (since he refused to work once we parted, so as not to support me). They paid for everything, and he borrowed thousands from them, they rented a 4 bed house for him and paid all the bills (as a means to prevent him moving in with them - since they realised how hard it would be to live with him), but all this did was enable him to feed his addiction. Despite them paying for him to live, he still ran up debts of more than £20k in less than 2 yrs.

Within 20 months of me asking for the separation my husband had died. We never even got through the divorce proceedings. He was never in a position where he was forced to hit a rock bottom (unlike years earlier when he did get dry), because his parents bankrolled his addiction, rather than facing up to the fact that he was an addict. They were as much in denial about it as he was, so the three of them kept up the pretence that all was OK. He died alone, in his parent's house, whilst they were on holiday abroad.

Unfortunately, they are still in denial about his addiction, and blame me and the children for their son's death, so even the extreme conclusion doesn't necessarily make things any clearer.

Your son is an addict. He knows he's an addict, which is why he is able to behave in the way he does. When he's addicted, he's not the loving son you know and love, but someone else entirely. He, I have no doubt, still loves you, but his addiction makes him behave in a way he is surely ashamed of, but drinking will blank this out again in due coure. When he drinks all his problems disappear, and that's reason enough for him. It's that warm, comforting blanket that makes things bearable, if only for a few hours. In the morning he'll shake, hallucinate, throw up, have cold sweats and feel like death warmed up, but a few drinks later, that all goes away again, and the cycle continues.

You are powerless to his addiction. My husband adored me as much as I adored him, I know that, and he demonstrated it time and again, but even that wasn't enough to stop him drinking himself into the grave just 4 weeks after his 37th birthday. My children were 12, 10, 6 and 3 and we were left alone to organise his funeral without any support from my husband's family. They didn't attend the service, and demanded no other family members came either - as we were going to be there. He was buried with very few attendees, but he did have a dignified recognition of his life, and his sons were involved in helping to organise things to help with their grief. In the meantime his family cleared all his possessions out of his rented house (meant to left to my boys), and refused to hand over any items specified in the Will for them, or to return their toys taken with the contents.

We lost our home as a direct result of his death (cancelled life insurance due to him not thinking straight), and we are still picking up the pieces of our lives without him.

We are each our own person, and choose our own path. My husband chose his, and refused to accept any help offered, or seek help. I got him to attend 1 AA meeting several years ago, and he refused to return because they were all pi**ed! I'm not sure what he'd expected. I went to Al-Anon (for friends and relatives) and it was such a relief to hear other people talking about hunting for bottles of drink, and the obscure and desperate places they're found (baby's rooms, hanging baskets, engine of the car), and it taught me not to play the game of hunt the booze, or to enable his addiction by my behaviour. It was truly enlightening, and helped me in years to come with the addiciton returned, because I realised I had to salvage a life for myself and my children this time around, and not throw it away in the hope that my devotion to my addict husband would heal him.

You can still love your son as much as ever, but you can help him more by not funding his lifestyle. Try to tell him as much, if you can, but make it very difficult for him to access any of your money. My husband stole my credit cards, and even found the PIN numbers, so that he could draw cash (something I never do). I only found out when my sis-in-law's boyfriend called me to warn me to cancel the cards. I had to pay the bill though, unless I reported the theft to the Police and had him arrested. In hindsight, that might have been a wiser option, to show how he couldn't get away with it. In the end it was the whole family turning their back on him, and him going away for 3 months that did the trick, but it was only temporary, because he never sought professional help, and whatever originally drove him to drink, the problem remained, and so the addiction reoccurred.

Sorry it's and essay, and if you want to send a private message, please do so if you feel the need to chat, or just tell me about a difficult day. I do sympathise so much with you, and you have to be strong enough to make your own decision here, but as you can see, there are plenty of people here alone who are ready to support where they can.

Best wishes
Sarah

lemontree

Sarah I cried when I read your message and you have gone through a really terrible time. It is my sons birthday on Tuesday and I am tempted to stock him up with food(again) but I think he will take this as a sign that he can come back again which I feel I cannot cope with as he will not work and tries to con me out of money with tales of "bus fares to look at a job or money for tools for a future job) He still manages to obtain money for drink even when I refuse money.
He always swears he is not drinking until it becomes obvious.
I have to hide all Financial Information as at one time 200 pounds was withdrawn from a close friends Account. At the time I was horrified when I realised the Bank suspected me. My friend of 20 years told me not to worry and he thought that probably my Son had taken the money and he never for a moment suspected me. I wanted to look at the Bank Video for that day but my friend would not agree as he said it would cause even more upset for us.
I have had people round at my house looking for my Son as he owes them money. One of these men is at the moment in prison awaiting trial as he threatened to burn down the house of relatives of someone who owed him money.
Sometimes I wake up and think I am dreaming as I am proud as a single divorced Mother to have worked hard to give my children a good start and my other 2 children have flourished in their chosen careers.
What have I done wrong? My 3 children have been treated equally and I love all of them!
Thank you again Sarah for sharing your problems with me and I wish a very happy future to you and your children.

Dora_the_Explorer_5

Lemontree, you may not have done anything wrong - and you probably haven't as you have two children who have flourished under your care. If you truly want to make sure you're doing the right thing, many posters on this thread have said that not giving your son further help is the right thing for him, and for you.
Many posters have courageously shared their personal experience of living with alcohol abuse in order to let you know that your experience is not unique. They deserve the highest respect.
My personal experience of alcohol abuse is that the abuser will do anything - lie, cheat, steal, threaten, plead, blackmail to get what they want, the means to buy alcohol. That is the most important thing in their life and parents, children, parents will always come last in that race. Best wishes to you.