Sometimes we see posters struggling with how to cope with addiction in their families on this forum. Have you struggled with this?

Absolutely! I grew up with it on both sides of my family. I joined Al-Anon at the grand old age of twenty-four years old and have been a member ever since. I witnessed various addictions in my family not only with alcohol but with prescription medications and street drugs. I joined Nar-Anon when my sister got hooked on a street drug. I practiced detachment with love. It had gotten so bad that I bought a bunch of materials from Hazelton about women and addictions. I gave them to her to read. She struggled a bit, but eventually sobered up.

It was a lonely existence, and I became the one in the family that everyone leaned on. Eventually, I did shed that role as the family caretaker and scapegoat. I'm still a loner and even more so since the pandemic. I wrestle with this a lot. I can imagine being the sole caretaker of an alcoholic parent in their later years. It is a lot of baggage to contend with.

I would urge anyone to join Al-Anon. Recovery is a life long process. I'm still learning about myself even at the grand old age of sixty-five. Just take it a day at a time. Whatever you are dealing with, just remember; "And this too shall pass." Just do the best you can one day at a time.

My now 41 year old son is a recovering alcoholic. He struggled with it for years. His father(my ex-husband)is also a recovering alcoholic. So I know first hand the devastation it can cause in a family.
It's one of the main reasons I moved from WI with my children who were 9 and 11 at the time, down to NC so they could no longer be hurt by it/their father.
And when my son was very young he would always say that he was never going to be like his father, but sadly years later he became just like his father.
It was heartbreaking to say the least. But thank you Jesus both my ex and son are now sober and have been for a good while.
It wasn't until I quit enabling my son and turned him over to God, that he finally got the help that he needed to get sober.
And it was Al-Anon that made me aware that what I thought was "helping" my son, was actually hurting him because I was enabling him. Boy, once that light bulb went off there was no turning back for me, and the enabling stopped pretty much cold turkey.
And the rest is history.

Addiction has woven its way throughout the tapestry of my family story and it's a beast. Below is just a small portion - the portion that affected me most.

Growing up, my parents were teetotalers. This was mainly because my mother - who had witnessed her own father's mean behavior toward her mother when he drank - told my father that she would not live with a man who drank. So that was that and thankfully, my childhood home was alcohol/addiction free.

But that didn't stop me and my brother from watching my favorite aunt - my dad's twin sister - descend into the hell of addiction to pharmaceuticals. Her doctor prescribed Valium in the 60's for her "nervous breakdown" - back then it was a new drug and docs were handing it out like candy. She was told it wasn't addictive.

I remember watching her lay out her pills into 4 piles that she would take that day. She was also clearly psychologically addicted.

She had a wonderful job with the railroad and they checked her into a cushy, expensive rehab center in the 80's. One weekend my dad picked me up and we drove to visit her. I vividly remember being there. I watched the residents light their cigarettes by sticking them into a hole in the wall. My aunt was unable to get clean - maybe that wasn't the point - I don't know - but I do know that when she was released, she was taking Elavil instead of Valium. And on it went.

She struggled for the rest of her life until she died at 61 from complications brought on by years of taking pills.

The impact that it had on me was profound. I vowed then to never take any sedatives or anti-anxiety pharmaceuticals.

I do believe that addiction is genetic in part. I tasted my first alcohol - wine - at a Christmas party at the age of 14 and I loved it immediately. My twin brother also began to experiment with alcohol when he could get his hands on it and he loved it more than I did.

We both drank our way through high school - when we could manage to get to a party - then college - then into our twenties. I met my husband in college.. He came from a family of raging alcoholics. At the time, it didn't seem to be that serious of an issue to me.

But as I've said many times, it's all fun and games until it's not.

We married and started our family. (I did not drink while pregnant or nursing.) We hung out with other young parents who drank and it was all fun and games. Lots of kiddos running around and the adults sloshing booze. Major damage was being done.

Then one day after being wretched and worried for awhile, I woke up. I never drank again. My husband began to despise me and refused to join me in sobriety. Eventually he left me, divorced me and drank his way into alienation from our children (their choice) and death alone in a motel room at 60 years old after losing literally everything - his children, his health, most of his money, his most recent job. He was found a few days later by the motel manager.

And now we have my dear twin brother who also drank his way to an early death at 60 years old after years of suffering from the effects of alcohol abuse. Almost the same trajectory as my ex-husband, interestingly. His cancer doctor once told me "it's his addiction...you need to let him have it." Seemed cruel at the time, but he was correct - I was becoming codependent.

I could go and on and on about the devastation that addiction brings to not only the addict, but to the people who love them.

One thing I've learned is there is no way to help an addict unless the addict wants it badly enough. We can't love them into sobriety. We can't lecture them into sobriety. We can't threaten them into sobriety.

Peace to all who suffer from addiction and from loving an addict.

When you open a subject like this, Need, you will only see the tip of the iceberg replying. It is such a personal subject. Few want to think on it, and fewer really want to share something so very personal.

I once asked my Dad about longeivity in our family and he replied "I don't know Kid. The women seemed to live, but the men all drank themselves to death". In his late middle age, struggling to deal with the facts my brother had just "come out", my Dad himself began to drink too much. He pulled himself out. Stopped cold one day and never had another drop; lived to his 90s.

My brother and I laughed all our lives about the fact that if we were not such control freaks we would have surely been alcoholics. We loved what alcohol did for us. By nature almost monklike and reclusive, alcohol could free us to enjoy other people. And I saw pretty early on the allure. It's just that I was so terrified of being out of control I couldn't allow myself to "go there".

I think there is a thin line between using alcohol and drugs to "loosen up" or to "medicate what hurts", and tripping on OVER that line into being lost. I have a deep respect, a deep understanding, and a healthy fear of alcohol given my family history. During Covid my partner and I decided just not to bring it into the house, tho theretofore we had enjoyed a glass of wine at night. Just this feeling. Don't know how to say it. This deep knowledge that a glass goes easily to a glass and one half, to two, to a bottle a night. And then where???

Since man began he has fermented things to drink, to "take off the edge". Has used plants to deliver him from himself into a world of dreams and freedom. There's just nothing new here. And we all have stories of friends and loved ones who battle the bottle bottle, the pill bottle, whatever form "deliverance from real life takes".

As always, need. An interesting subject.
Annit, thank you for more to your story. You were there for your Sis. Over and over. If she hid things from you it was because she knew you were there for her and didn't want you to have to be again. You were a good sister as you are a good daughter, wife, granddaughter, foster-mom and aunt. I am so sorry for your loss. And Need, for yours as well.

Alcoholism runs in my family, it is passed down from generation to generation.

Neither my brother or I are alcoholics but we both married them.

There is a 50/50 chance a child of an alcoholic will either become one or marry one.

An addict will be an addict all their lives, it is just a matter of whether they are sober not, that is it.

Enabling is the worst thing we can do, if they don't falls to their knees they have no chance of getting back up and becoming sober for life.

Not my rules, just how it works.

My sister had struggled for years. I think she started out using cocaine and pain pills in 2004. She sobered up when she found out she was pregnant with her first daughter. She was doing very well until she met and started having a relationship with an addict. At that point she became addicted to heroin. She started moving place to place, became homeless at one point, and started living with my mom for a short time. Of course with all of these moves and help were from me. I honestly didn't realize at the time, how bad it was and of how much I was contributing and enabling. She became pregnant with her second daughter and again became sober. She ended her relationship with her boyfriend and again was thriving and doing well. She and the girls lived with me for a year until she found her own place and reunited with the youngest's father. She finally ended that relationship to get into another downward spiral relationship. She kept her distance from me most of the time and would keep our meetings short, while picked up the girls to come to my house. I didn't know she was using again, and I didn't realize the severity. She hid it well until around 2018 and I noticed changes in her. Everything was a sob story and a long winded excuse. Her appearance had deteriorated. In 2020 I received a phone at work from my son that my sister had been stabbed. Her boyfriend had tried to kill her. I left work immediately, went to the hospital and then picked the girls up from my mom's home. She recovered and moved in with me with the girls. I was able to get her into rehab and she had been sober for almost three years. She was doing so well. She landed a respectable job, bought a car, and rented a nice home.We had so many conversations and she swore she would never do it again. Feb. 20 she decided to do it once and it took her life. As in coping, I'm not sure if I did so well. Looking back, I should have noticed more, tried getting through to her. I just should have done more. Sorry for the long winded response . I wish I had better advice. I think when we're in the moment and things are happening, we just do the best we can for what we're dealt. I hope someone else has better answers in how to cope.

My daughter called me this afternoon and was upset. Apparently, a childhood friend of hers is struggling with alcoholism.

Her friend has gone into rehab for her alcoholism. Sadly, she is going through a bitter divorce with a custody battle over her two year old daughter.

Even worse, she has started dating a guy who she met in rehab, which is never a good idea. Plus, this person had a problem with alcohol and heroin.

My daughter feels that they are both still using and has decided that she can no longer be friends with this young woman who she’s known since childhood. It’s so sad. My daughter wishes her well but doesn’t want to be around her friend’s new boyfriend.

It’s very common for people to relapse and it usually takes a few attempts in rehab before a person is able to regain sobriety.

I have found that most people who have never experienced addiction don’t realize how terribly hard it is for a person to stop using. It’s so frustrating for them and their families.

I know that I had a very difficult time believing my brother when he would become clean. I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I desperately wanted to believe that he could once and for all get clean for good. Sadly, that day never came for him. I’m always delighted when others make it to recovery and are able to remain sober.

Since we lived with my grandparents when I was a kid, I saw alcoholism in my grandpa. I loved him and he was the father I never had and he was a great guy, but he also was an alcoholic and wasn't "there" sometimes because of it. They had 4 kids, my mom the oldest. She's addicted to food and spending. Her oldest brother mostly just did Marijuana. The middle one, also food, and the youngest is a mean alcoholic we aren't in contact with. Because of all this and losing a boyfriend at 18 due to his driving drunk, I have always been careful about alcohol. I actually don't like to feel drunk. It makes me feel not in control. I like a glass of wine or beer occasionally for the taste. I have never done drugs. I did smoke heavily (as did my mom and uncles), but quit in 1999. I have struggled with disordered eating and some food addiction in the past.
Heredity makes me probe to addiction so I have tried to be careful.

We joined Nar-Anon Family Groups. www.nar-anon.org

It saved my sanity and changed me for the better.

NH, I'm sure it was difficult for your family & you seeing this as a child. Recently lost my 2 best buds (guy friends)to drug addiction.