Expert: Joseph Lee O. - 4/9/2008

Question
The article about the parent writing about their 24 year old son could have been written by me.  My heart goes out to the family.  My husband and I suffer from the same issues with our 25 year old son.  We had him sit down with an interventionist to try to convince him to go to a rehab center- this did no good. His brother and sisters have talked to him.   My son is a good kid when he doesn't drink.  When he does - he is not the same person. He lives with us ( his parents) his sister and his sister's baby.   We have tried everything to get him to get help.  He is going to school - we were hoping that he could get a job and some day support himself when he finished school. We are losing him to alcohol.   We cannot let him use our car anymore.  we have to drive him everywhere.  When we let him go out on his own he gets a bottle of alcohol.  Yes, I should kick him out.  I love him so much - he has no money, no car, no nothing.  He just got a part time job he is suppose to start next week.  I am scared to leave him alone.  I feel like a prisoner in my own home.  I wish there was a way we could make him go to rehab. Just like the other family, we have tried everything.  Yes, i as sure i am enabling him but I don't know what to do.  I did kick him out one night.  I worried all night where he was.  It was cold and snowing out and I was sure he would be dead in the morning.  I want my son back.

Answer
Greetings to you, Chris.

As a recovered-alcoholic father of two daughters with alcoholic pasts of their own, I remember my own days of anguish and I definitely empathize with you in these words you have written:

>> We are losing him to alcohol.
>> I want my son back.

I cannot imagine a pain any greater than that of any parent having to bury his or her own child, and I pray you are spared from that just as surely as I have been.

As you seem to already suspect or even know: There is nothing you can do to cause, impose or force your son’s recovery.  Alcohol presently does something *for* him that very few people will ever understand, and virtually any alcoholic is going to keep right on drinking for at least just as long as his drinking’s perceived “benefits” outweigh the permanent, immutable sum of its consequences.

You have written:

>> My son is a good [child] when he doesn't drink.
>> When he does - he is not the same person.

He might view his drinking as something “earned” for being “good”, or, he might drink to relieve certain reality-related tensions or frustrations so he can again quit for a time and be “good” for a while ... yet always followed by more drinking, of course, and for whatever reason or reasons.  However, the important thing to understand here is that his drinking is but a *symptom* of some serious internal struggles, not their cause.

>> We have to drive him everywhere.
>> I am scared to leave him alone.
>> I feel like a prisoner in my own home.

Unless your son is “mentally challenged” in some way and in need of a caretaker or guardian for the remainder of his life, I am not presently aware of any good reason for you to continue living as “hostages” in your own home.  Beyond that, however, and without knowing more detail, I do not have any specific suggestions to offer.  Overall, you are not responsible for your son’s alcoholism, and you are not responsible for bringing about his recovery.  So then, and as it was for me during my own daughters’ drinkings, all you can really do is to pray that he be spared an alcoholic death or “wet brain” (permanent insanity) before coming to a point of desperation and being offered the original A.A. experience ... and if you are interested in beginning to lean about that, you can find that book here and I will gladly help you with it:
http://www.aa.org/bigbookonline/en_tableofcnt.cfm

Please know you are welcomed to write again,

Joseph Lee O.
Email: leejosepho@hotmail.com
Forum: http://xsorbit28.com/users5/restored/ (new)