Alcoholism and Co-dependency

One of the biggest reason that the person around the alcoholic becomes co-dependent is because the alcoholics usually have a very strong tendency to blame all of their problems on the ones around them. "You made me feel bad, now it is your fault that I am going to drink", "You are selfish, it is your fault I drink", "No, I am not the one with a problem, YOU are", "You were not there for me, that is why I drink", etc.
Denial is the sister to co-dependency. The person living with one with the sickness wants more than anything for the person to open her or his eyes so that he or she can see her/his own problems and maybe take some action into solving them. When the denial in the sick person stays strong, the other person might start doubting her or himself, maybe the alcoholic is right? Maybe it is me? Maybe it actually is my fault? Maybe if I change myself I can get him/her to stop drinking? At that point you have given yourself powers that you don´t have. You have taken a responsibility that is not yours. YOU can not change the other person, the other person needs to do it him/herself....

I am and have always been powerless...I just need to belive in it also..the ghosts seems to hunt me forever and more...

Co-Dependency

Me...the most important person in my life?
I have decided that I am going to go to my first Al-Anon meeting (meeting for grown children to alcoholics) and see what I can get out from it.
The text belove describes how it can be to grow up in a family with alcoholism and how it can affect the child.

Why Be Codependent?
by Dr. Irene Matiatos

Why would anybody spend time and energy to control outcomes, while actively neglecting the inner self? How can they do this and not realize they are selling themselves short? The Why: they know no other way; the How: they received very good training early in life.

Any dysfunction in the family predisposes a child to codependent behavior. Children are biologically programmed to seek love and approval. They have to be cared for or they will die. When a parent or family member is dysfunctional, the child tends to focus on this person--rather than on enjoying a carefree and joyful kid existence. The child has to worry: if the caretaker does not care take, the child dies. For example, in an alcoholic home, little Sally has to worry about whether she can bring friends home - because daddy may be in a bad mood and embarrass her. Such events are training her in codependent thinking, the art of anticipating the other person. If mom is physically ill, Teddy has to worry about exerting her. Who would care for him if anything happened to her? If daddy is angry and controlling, Timmy needs to worry about pleasing him to avoid punishment and humiliation - and to get his conditional love and approval.

Children are naturally egocentric. That means that they see the world revolving around them. If mom and dad fight, children feel that it is somehow their fault. Julie may try to make her parents happy by getting straight As in school in an attempt to keep the parental marriage together. Another child may have an abusive, or simply overactive older sibling. Since the parents cannot be there at all times to police the situation, the younger sibling may learn to anticipate the sib's moods and to behave in ways that might increase the probability of "safety." Or, perhaps daddy is depressed. Jennifer may tiptoe around him wondering if he is unhappy because she is not good enough. And so on. In sum, codependent thinking tends to develop any time a child is growing up in a home where life is not care free. Often, addiction can be traced in the family tree of these dysfunctional families, whether there is an active addict in residence, or not. Nevertheless, these kids have an adult they have to worry about!

The codependent-in-training is taught to walk on eggshells. To ensure survival, the child learns to be extraordinarily sensitive in reading the moods and thoughts of others. The child learns very early to pay attention to and tiptoe around the dysfunctional family members - at the child's expense. These interactions take place silently, implicitly. The child learns to ignore the self's inner needs, instead pretending that all is OK.
.........
medberoende

A letter to my long lost mum

Dear Mum,
It is quite many years since we have seen eachother, and even longer since we have really talked to eachother. Sometimes I still miss you, or I miss the mum that I wish you would have been. I know that you really loved me, but it was a twisted love you gave me. The greatest fear of yours was that I would stand on my own two feet and that I would not need you anymore. I stopped needing you long before you realized it, but I kept on dancing the dance of dependency, because that was the only dance I knew.
I still wish that I could really get to know you, that I could learn you desires, learn what made you happy, learn what made you sad, learn what you were afraid of, and learn who you really were. I ask people about you, but it seems like nobody really knew you, nobody really understood you ,except for your own mum, you two were really close.
I still carry your pain with me, Is it you who doesn´t want to let go, or is it me? In so many ways I feel like the only thing I have left of you is the pain you caused me, and when I don´t have that, I won´t have anything, my mum will be gone...You left a hole in me, a hole that cannot be filled by anybody else or anything else besides you, but you will never be there to fill it and plant some flowers on it to turn the pain into beauty.
I miss you, but I am also relived that you are no longer part of my life. I have finally started to feel free in my life, and I feel a serenity that I have never felt before. But with that serenity comes sadness, sadness for the loss of you, my mum who would have done anything for me. I hate how your life never became what you wanted it to be, and I hate the fact that you projected that disappointment on me, and that it caused me to feel responsible for your misery. Some people think that you should always love your parents, no matter what, some people think that you dont have to love them unless they treat you well. I am not sure where I stand....I dont miss the person you were, but I miss the person that you could have been. You were not a mean person, you were just a unhappy person that because of that became very selfcentric and destructive for yourself and the people around you. You taught me how to not live my life, and even if it was a fu*%ed up lesson, it showed me the dark side of life. It showed me what happens when you are not true to yourself or not brave enough.
I want to write you again, as I feel there are so many things I want to say to you. I want to belive that you hear me, there on the other side....I want to say a proper godbye to you, I want to let you go, and I want you to be happy.
When you were still alive, I wrote you a letter were I tried to explain how bad you made me feel. I translated some of the words from the song belove, and I wish you really understood what I meant....

You were my lesson I had to learn
I was your fortress you had to burn
Pain is a warning that something's wrong
I pray to God that it won't be long
Do ya wanna go higher?

There's nothing left to try
There's no place left to hide
There's no greater power
Than the power of good-bye

Heard

There is a memory that I have that I have meant to write down for about a few months now. I thought I would write it down today, but then decided to wait until after my birthday.
Anyway, Torrdocka wrote a post today (in swedish) that moved me a lot. She said some things that I would have wanted to hear from my mum while she was still alive, but my mum got "deaf" from the alcohol and could not hear what people were telling her, she only heard her own paranoid voice.
Still, reading what Torrdocka wrote made me feel such a relief. Maybe because my mum could never see my dad´s and my side, she could only see herself. Torrdocka, who is a recovering alcoholic heard me, and in some ways it almost felt like my mum heard me. For me it is a enormous relief that a woman who knows what it is to be a slave to alcohol hears what I am saying. MY voice is heard, it has a meaning what I am saying and I am not just talking to a wall, like it felt so many times in my childhood.
Tack Torrdocka!

A song to say Goodbye

This is a song I found on Lintins blog....I think everybody who has had an alcoholic parent knows that this can be the cruel reality. For the ones who has healthy parents it might explain how a child can feel when trying to help her or his parent. This is a video that makes me cry, and the feelings from it are still very true for me. A beautiful video that I want to share...

Alcohol

Theese last nine months, I have been drinking a lot less than I have before (a lot because my BF does not drink at all, and I am thankful to him for that) and it makes me upset how this fact is treated in the group of friends I used to hang around in. The last two times when I have been there with them on a saturday night I have gotten the questions: "Why don´t you drink more?" "You used to drink a lot more?" and I have almost been forced to drink, by getting a glass of alcohol in my hand and constantly beeing watched with statements like: "alcohol is not that dangerous, drink it up!" "why is your drink not disappearing?" "there is a lot of alcohol, don´t let it go to waste!" All of theese accusations and questions has the understatement of: " "you are a partykiller, you should not even be here if you are not going to drink".
I have been there myself, thinking that you are a nerd if you are not drinking, and thinking that this person must have a stick up his/her ass because of not drinking alcohol. The first time when I remember thinking this was when I was maybe 9 years old and we were on a vacation with my parents. They met this single woman who was travelling with her kid, and they invited her over for a chat, which was nice of course. But my parents always drank a lot of drinks in the evenings, usually until my mum was talking with a drunken slur. This woman told them that she did not like to drink a lot, and when she started feeling just a bit tipsy, she said she did not want anymore. My parents kept forcing her to drink more, and I was there with them. I was a 9 year old kid thinking: "is she a nerd or something, why does she not drink more?" And I thought it was a good thing my parents forced her to drink more, they were cool, as they could drink so much alcohol. When I was a teenager I was like my parents, I was the worst on forcing other people to drink, and now I can understand better how uncomfortable I must have made theese people.
When we were travelling in Italy and we were walking around the city on a saturday night, we saw a lot of people sitting in the ice cream bars late at night just socializing. Why does that never happen here in the nordic countries? Why does alcohol always have to be the thing that makes us social in the weekends up here?
It is not long ago when I was still thinking that it was odd that some people don´t drink a lot of alcohol. They go trough their weekends and holidays without drinking a lot, without getting drunk and without even reflecting on the fact that they are not drinking alcohol. I have started to understand them a lot more, and I am becoming them, and it feels good. It feels like a relief, like I don´t HAVE to drink a lot of alcohol to be normal. But I also need to point out, that I do enjoy a glass or two of wine every now and then, and I do get tipsy. I am still drinking alcohol, maybe just not the same amount and as often as before.
.....................
alkohol, fylla, grogg, Norden

My Mothers Death

My mother died about four years ago. When it finally happend it was a relief, but the road to the feeling of relief was not easy.
I was travelling in Vietnam with my "best friend" when I got a call from my dad. Instantly I knew that the call was about my mum. He told me that she was in the hospital and asked me to come home earlier from Vietnam. I asked him if my mums condition was serious and he started crying and said yes....
I remember thinking: "the time has come, the end is near". My "best friend" got even more upset about what was going on than I did, but she was more upset about our holiday ending sooner than planned and I ended up trying to calm her down... I asked the hotel we were staying at if I could call my mum at the hospital, and they allowed me eventhough I did´nt have enough money with me.
Before my mum got into the hospital her brains were pretty damaged. It was impossible to have a normal conversation with her as she did not understand what you said to her. I had´nt been too much in contact with her over the last two years as I had given up on her ever getting better. When I called her from the hotel in Vietnam I was crying and I told her I loved her for the first time ever. She replied with an annoyed voice that she doesn´t belive me. It hurt me so much to hear those words and I felt she did not give me the opportunity to say goodbye to her....
Anyway, I was able to get home from Vietnam a couple of days earlier than planned. My aunt came and picked me up and we went straight to the hospital. I did not recognize my mum when I first saw her at the hospital, I thought she was some old strange lady and I told the nurse that it she was not my mum. She went and asked somebody and came back and told me that I was wrong, it was my mum...She looked so old and her face had aged ten years in five weeks, At this point she was also too sick to ever be awake again.
The next day I went to see her at the hospital again. I wished that she would have been awake so that I could have said goodbye to her, I wished that she would have known that I did love her and I forgave her. I wanted to tell her that I knew the pain she felt and I wanted to apologize to her for not being the daughter she wanted. I wanted to apologize for all the times I had been mean to her and made her cry, I wanted to apologize for not kissing her and hugging her more and telling her that I appreciated her. I wanted to apologize for leaving her alone, for not understanding her misery and pain. I wanted to say that I wish I could have saved her and I that I missed her. She never heard those things from me and it tears me apart that our roads parted without a proper goodbye...
Dispite all the pain she caused me, she was my mother and I miss her and I wish she could have been happy. I am not sure we would ever have been good friends or even friends at all, but it might have been possible if she would have been happy with her life.
When talking to her in the hospital, feeling the smell of death pouring out of her, hearing her barely breath, seeing her very gray hair and knowing that she was never going to se her grandchildren or me getting married broke my heart. But during a few seconds when I was talking to her I saw her lips move as if she was trying to say something, I´d like to think that she heard me and that she wanted to tell me she loved me. I´d like to think she knew I was there, I´d like to think that she forgave me, I´d like to think we had the moment I craved for even if it was just for a few seconds.
I left the hospital to come back after a few hours, but I never had the chance. She died shortly after this.
At this time I needed the support of my best friend more than ever, but she betrayed me. She could not handle my sorrow and she was not capable of just spending time with me so she left me to be all alone in my sorrow....our friendship ended there.
............
sorg, död, mor, alkoholsim