Expert: Joseph Lee O. - 12/30/2006

Question
Dear Lee,
My son is 24 years old. He has been arrested at least a dozen times for public drunkenness, DUI's x4. At his worst,  he hit his 17 year old brother in a drunken rage while going after me and for punching his dad while not drunk a couple of years ago. He went to jail about 5 days for each of these incidents but my husband and son dropped the charges because we didn't want to put something on his record that would keep him from someday being a productive person in society. He had pretty much totalled his car while drinking but no charges were brought against him because he didn't get caught. We didn't pay to fix it. This was in 2004. So he walked everywhere.
My husband kicked him out and refused to help him with his rent so he got a job at a grocery store and finished college last spring 2006. We would only give him gift cards so he couldn't buy alcohol. He got a job related to his degree so he quit his stable job at the grocery store. The company only kept him three weeks without telling him why they let him go. It was a temp job. He has been unemployed since. He was extremely depressed and of course so were we. His pride wouldn't allow him to go back to the grocery store and ask for a job. So I've enabled him by paying his rent for the past 5 months.
He hadn't had a car for  over 2 years because we couldn't pay for one and he convinced me that this is why he couldn't get a job. So I, without my husbands knowledge bought him a car. He told me that he wasn't drinking like before. You can probably guess that he got a DUI while parked in a parking lot this week one day after Christmas. He called me at work and told me while sobbing that his worst nightmare came true. My worst nightmare is that he'd kill somebody and I told him that. He handed the keys over to me. I feel responsible for this. I know I was an idiot to hope that he had changed.
We live in a small town and it will get back to my husband. It will be in the paper.
My son said that the only answer seems to be suicide but he doesn't want to hurt people. The sad and disgusting thing is I'd be relieved and so would his dad because I don't see a future. I don't like to talk to Billy because he always wants help with this or that. I feel so used. I have a crippled son.
He says he won't ever drink again but doesn't think AA or a rehab stint will help because he "doesn't drink every day and can quit on his own". I've told him that he can quit but he can't stay quit on his own and that he needs the daily support that AA can give him. He's been in a rehab a couple times for as long as two weeks and he's gone to court ordered alcohol counseling for approximately 1 year.  He read some book about quitting without the help of AA and has himself convinced that he can do it this way even though it hasn't worked yet. He acts like its torture to go to AA and argues with me when I try to convince him otherwise. He did agree to go to an individual counselor. It's hard to find a good one.
I feel like giving up on him for good. He causes me so much heart ache. I wish I never had a family.
I know I've enabled his behavior by buying him a car among other things. I was really hoping he would get a job and get his life together but I've only made it worse.
Is there any way I can help him or should I do what his dad wants to do and cut him off completely? I couldn't do that before but at this point I probably can.
AMy

Answer
Greetings to you, Amy.

You seem to be well aware and certainly gaining in wisdom on many issues.  Mostly for my own sake in sorting through an overall picture, please allow me to summarize your letter as I come alongside ...

>> ... arrested at least a dozen times for public drunkenness, DUIs x 4.
>> ... went to jail about 5 days for [assault] incidents ...
>> ... dropped the charges because we didn't want to ... keep him from someday being a productive person in society.

His alcoholism is already accomplishing that, and rendering the judicial system impotent by taking matters into your own hands is something you should *never* do again.  If you know the story of “the prodigal”, his father simply stood at the gate while hoping his son would some day see his error(s) and suffer enough (without dying) to return to right living.

>> ... finished college last spring ... got a job ... unemployed since.
>> ... extremely depressed ... pride ...
>> I've enabled him by paying his rent for the past 5 months.

The dilemma here is that we have a helpless, unprepared child in a young man’s body, and even if everyone could see that and agree, there is still no way to go back and re-try growing him up or nurturing him into readiness for adulthood.  However, and with the lash of his alcoholism literally driving him to his knees, your son can be brought out of that state just as surely as I and others have been.

>> He called me at work ... handed the [car] keys over to me.
>> I know I was an idiot to hope that he had changed.

No, you were not an idiot, but now you know for sure he cannot, eh?!  Your son is no more able to “change” and/or do anything about his alcoholism that any other alcoholic has even been:

“But my friend sat before me, and he made the point-blank declaration that God had done for him what he could not do for himself.  His human will had failed.  Doctors had pronounced him incurable.  Society was about to lock him up.  Like myself, he had admitted complete defeat.  Then he had, in effect, been raised from the dead, suddenly taken from the scrap heap to a level of life better than the best he had ever known!
“Had this power originated in him?  Obviously it had not.  There had been no more power in him than there was in me at that minute; and this was none at all.
“That floored me.  It began to look as though religious people were right after all.  Here was something at work in a human heart which had done the impossible.  My ideas about miracles were drastically revised right then.  Never mind the musty past; here sat a miracle directly across the kitchen table.  He shouted great tidings.
“I saw that my friend was much more than inwardly reorganized.  He was on a different footing.  His roots grasped a new soil.” (“Alcoholics Anonymous”, the book, pages 11-12)

>> My son said that the only answer seems to be suicide ...

Tell him you have just heard from someone who knows a way that does not hurt anybody!

>> I'd be relieved and so would his dad because I don't see a future.

Ah yes, and hold on while I give you a spin here: Both are sure guarantees!  You will be relieved when your son’s “self” has been transformed, and he has no “future” unless or until he willingly submits to the original-A.A. Twelve-Step process that makes that possible.  Once again:

“I saw that my friend was much more than inwardly reorganized.  He was on a different footing.  His roots grasped a new soil.”

>> He says he won't ever drink again ...

You and I know differently, and now we have to wait for your son to find that out.

>> He doesn't think AA or a rehab stint will help because he "doesn't drink every day and can quit on his own".

Tell your son that is not why today’s AA or a rehab stint will not work.  In fact, tell him he might likely do quite well at either place if he truly *can* quit drinking on his own.  See, and you can also tell him this if you like: Today’s AA is for people who *can* quit drinking – your son will not be accepted there unless he does – and the original A.A. is for people who *cannot* quit drinking:

“Many of us felt that we had plenty of character.  There was a tremendous urge to cease forever.  Yet we found it impossible.  This is the baffling feature of alcoholism as we know it - this utter inability to leave it alone, no matter how great the necessity or the wish.” (page 34)

>> I've told him that he can quit but he can't stay quit on his own ...

You are absolutely correct there ...

>> ... and that he needs the daily support that AA can give him.

Oh, how can a make a loud buzzer sound here, for that is completely wrong:

“To get over drinking will require a [spiritual] transformation of thought and attitude ...
“Almost none of us liked the self-searching, the leveling of our pride, the confession of shortcomings which the process requires for its successful consummation.  But we saw that it really worked in others, and we had come to believe in the hopelessness and futility of life as we had been living it.  When, therefore, we were approached by those in whom the problem had been solved, there was nothing left for us but to pick up the simple kit of spiritual tools laid at our feet.  We have found much of heaven and we have been rocketed into a fourth dimension of existence of which we had not even dreamed.
“The great fact is just this, and nothing less: That we have had deep and effective spiritual experiences which have revolutionized our whole attitude toward life, toward our fellows and toward God's universe.  The central fact of our lives today is the absolute certainty that our Creator has entered into our hearts and lives in a way which is indeed miraculous.  He has commenced to accomplish those things for us which we could never do by ourselves.” (pages 143 and 25)

Once again: “I saw that my friend was much more than inwardly reorganized.  He was on a different footing.  His roots grasped a new soil.”

Today’s AA does not offer that.

>> He read some book about quitting without the help of AA and has himself convinced that he can do it this way even though it hasn't worked yet.

Tell him another alcoholic commends him for never giving up at something until he has become absolutely certain he will always and ever lose!  See, we alcoholics always fight until we completely and forever lose nearly everything, and beyond all doubt.

>> He acts like its torture to go to AA and argues with me when I try to convince him otherwise.

At the surface of that are the simple fear, pride, ego and ignorance (or “not yet knowing”) of a helpless child in an adult body, as I had mentioned.  But on a higher plane, that is evidence of the “principalities and powers of the air” battle presently being waged for his very life.

>> He did agree to go to an individual counselor. It's hard to find a good one.

Actually, and if money is changing hands, you will find you have not yet found a good one.  Whether their “acts” are pristine or raunchy, paid performers are nevertheless merely people pleasers, crowd teasers, ear ticklers and so on.

>> I feel like giving up on him for good. He causes me so much heartache. I wish I never had a family.

I hear your despair there, yet I share with you some hope.  If you still have enough willingness, desire and energy to grasp on, and you would not have written if you do not ...

I once heard a story of a young girl whose father had just noticed a deadly spider on her collar.  The girl had yet to sense its presence, and the father dared not try to remove it without the girl remaining absolutely still.  In this particular case, the father had already won his daughter’s confidence so that he could very quietly say “Freeze!” and she would do precisely that, and that is how he was soon able to get to the spider and remove it before it got to her neck.

Here are a couple of “Freeze!” thoughts from Scripture:

Psalms 46:10: “Be still, and know that I am Elohim ...”
Exodus 14:13: “And Mosheh [Moses] said to the people, ‘Do not be afraid.  Stand still, and see the deliverance of YHWH ...”

First, and respectfully said: “Be still”, yourself.  Do not try to fix your son or anyone else, and do not try to talk him (or anyone else) either into or out of anything.  Rather, just quietly wait until he is again laying in the dirt (likely face down), and then after being sure his is able to breathe, ask him whether he is done trying to quit drinking.  And in the meantime, of course, you should be reading “Alcoholics Anonymous”, the book, and possibly leaving it lay around now and then to watch for any kind of recognition or reaction from him.

>> I know I've enabled his behavior by buying him a car among other things. I was really hoping he would get a job and get his life together but I've only made it worse.

What you were doing there was simply participating in his delusion, and whether or not anyone gives him money or gifts cards or an occasional bowl of soup is ultimately not really going to make all that much difference in relation to his alcoholism.  However, and for example: Do not do his laundry (or anything else he can do for himself) for him, and do not ever again (help him) sweep anything under any rug (such as with his past legal troubles).  Do not let your emotions (such as when you see or hear he is suffering) make your decisions related to money or anything else – “tough love” is at least partly about being “tough” on oneself in the emotions department – and in that regard, possibly your husband would best handle those simple and prudent kinds of decisions.

>> Is there any way I can help him or should I do what his dad wants to do and cut him off completely? I couldn't do that before but at this point I probably can.

“Letting him go” might be a little better way to say that, just as the so-called “prodigal’s” father did when his own son had yet to find out he could not manage his own life successfully.  There are many things we could acknowledge here in relation to your son now (and even unfairly) finding himself in his particular child-man dilemma, but the bottom line is still that he will likely only finally give up trying to do whatever *he* wants to do after first trying that for just as long as he can possibly still stand it.

Whether or not thoughts of suicide are deep within your son’s (or even your own) mind is impossible for me to really know, yet I do always try to remember to remind people who mention it that I will not be at their funerals if they ever commit suicide without calling me first ...

Please stay in touch, and you might consider suggesting your son do the same.

Peace to you,

Lee/Joe

Email: leejosepho@hotmail.com