Topic : 03/20 Policing the Parents

I am 24.  I am married.  I own my own home.  I do not own my life.  And i pray that this 14 yr old girl will not be like me 10 yrs from now.  My father was not only an alcoholic, but a drug attic as well, and is currently addicted to methadone, although he will tell you he needs it for back pain that surgeons say they cant find a cause for.  My mother is a shell of the woman she was when i was a young child, hardened from years of taking care of a husband who was more like a child.  And i did my fair share of taking care of them both, taking care of my siblings, and taking care of myself.  I am also intelligent, articulate, and full of depth.  I was always one of the best writers in any class, or room full of people of any class.  People who knew me in highschool would say i was intelligent, articulate, bubbly, happy, full of promise and life.  But people who really knew me would say i was a complete and total mess.  And i can promise you the mess doesnt get any easier to clean up when you are an adult.  Without going much further about myself, i can say that the situation these girls on todays' show are in is a stark reminder of the early years of my adolescence.  The later years were much worse.  I just hope and pray that these girls and their mother can look the truth in the eye and deal with it before dealing with it becomes a distant possibility.

   I hope this helps someone.    I grew up with a father that was a drunk. Many times he got caught drinking and driving, but many years ago they didn't do much to them. I remember is high school health class getting an A because I knew so much. The classes the courts made he take didn't help either. I moved 1000 miles away when my daughter was about a year old and I was 20 years old. I was glad  I did it, because my kids didn't know this side of him. I hated him for so much . I remember saying I couldn't wait for him to die because I will go and pee on his grave. That was the way I lived my live for over 20 years. I was probably about 35 years old and I went home on vacation and saw my dad was ailing fast . The morning we were leaving I walked in my parents room and I saw how frail they were and it was at that time I cried and cried for over an hour. It was at that time that I realize I have forgiven him for everything I went through as a child.

I know an awful lot of medical professionals are who personally not able to practice what they preach - but Eileen has brought this to a whole new level - she's supposed to be the healthy one and yet she's watched her older daughter destruct in front of her eyes but because the surface things were ok she didn't step up to bat and it took her 14 year old who is extremely intelligent yet so badly damaged to cry out for help.

 

Eileen, when your 17 year old started cutting herself and started falling behind in school that was her cry for help - she didn't want to force you to make a choice between her and her dad but you made it anyway and chose her dad over her wellbeing.

 

That after all this time you haven't gone to an Al-Anon meeting or sent your kids is beyond unacceptable - you probably spend you days preaching to others to get their butts there and to get their kids there but you failed yourself and your own girls and didn't spend even an hour a week there at those meetings. Now it's come to the point where you have two terribly depressed and troubled daughters who have spent the majority of their lives taking care of a drunken fool because that's the role YOU put them in. Shame on you - you've seen first hand the circle of acoholism has on a family passed from generation to generation and you left them there in this hell. Yes you had to work - and work longer hours - but there is no way you didn't have an evening or a sat or sun to get them and yourself to al-anon.

 

Your 14 year old daughter's last memory of a happy time in her life was 7 years ago.  That's heartbreaking.

 

As for the hubby - if he's not sober he doesn't live with you - he lives where he falls down. End of story. No more excuses, no more chances - he's either going to accept this last chance to be sober or he's not - his choice.  Eileen, your only choice is to take care of your daughters and yourself.

Yes, alcoholism is a disease - a terribly destructive disease.

 

Thing is this - there is so much help out there - so many groups - free groups -- that today there really is no excuse for not seeking help every single day.  I know people who go to AA for the last 30 years or more. Insurance companies cover the cost of rehab but do have a limit.

 

A diabetic goes for help - for medical care and must every single meal of their live watch what they eat -- so must an alcoholic.

I had a mother, see HAD, and she became an acoholic amoung other drugs when I was age 5-6.  I can remeber the good times before, but that ended.  My father worked out of town for weeks to months at a time and said he didn't know the full extent of what was happening.  The straw that broke the camels back was when I was 11 years old, she was always passed out when I got home from school, shw awoke around 7 p.m. and thought it was 7 a.m., she was mad because we were "late for school".  I tried to explain to her that it was night she made us, me and my 6 year old brother get dressed.  I was crying, I called the neghbor, and put them on the phone and when she hung up, I could see the anger in her.  I told my brother to go hide, lock the doors, and she beat me that night.  I had had years of her drunken drinving, hitting cars, hung over, pooring her beer out, watching her on the floor cry like someone had died because we were poooring out her beer.  I had enough.  She always kept us away from Daddy when he came home, but this time I told him everything.  He begged her to go for help and we would take the family AA.  I will never forget her lokking at all of us and saying " I don't have a problem, you do!".  My Dad put us in the car and left.  She tried to get custody, but I told the judge everything.  We lived with my Grandmother.  I was scared on her visits she would try to take us, the visits came less often.  We seen her on our birthdays, Mine April 7 and My brother and mothers on April 10, she turned 28, I turned 13 and my brother turned 8.  She died on April 22 of an accidental drug overdose, combination of barbituates, phenobarbyl, and alchohol.  I have never flet sorry for her or myself.  I don't do any of that it ahs made me so strong.  My brother, he is adrug addict.  My Dad died of brain cancer Sept 30 of this year, but he had really got in a depression after my mothers death and after my granny died the following year of a heartattack.  He started smoking marijauna, selling and growing marijauna.  I hated it my teenage years, it was so humiliating.  He went to jail when i was 20 after my first child was born and it took a lot of me to forgive him.  He straitened up, then about 4 or so years ago he started smoking marijauna again.  My kids never got to know him.  It is a shame, but I am their protector and I did not want them to see any thing I seen and lived through.  I don't regret that choice either.  I am strong because of the things i seen.  I am LUCKY.  My brother is not.  Most children do fall into the same rutts as their families, but I won't.  I tell my kids when it is anti-drug  week at school, "Drugs make you forget the people you love."  Why do I say this, because what else can tear a mother away from her kids.  I hope that those children on the show today make it.  It is possible, but the mother, she needs to kick him to the curb.  Why?  My Dad did my mom and I think he has always grieved for her, but chose what was best for us.  I know he loved her and didn't want to leasve her, but I am thankful at that time, he chose US first.  It will be hard, but I think they have to want help, alcoholics.  They have to choose.  Don't wait too late and let your daughters walki in on him dead.  He couldn't choose on the show exactly if he wanted to die or not.  You make the choice to not watch him kill himself and no doubt he will eventually.  There's nothing you can do, but you do not have to enable him, or watch him.  Thank you and I hope the girls are safe and God blesses them like he has me.  Even though I seen horrible things, I made it out, and I chaulk it up to a "Life Lesson", by God.

I think Dr. Phil does an excellent job with all the alcoholic people that come on the show.  Is there some way to find out if they stick with the rehab?  I think children/teenagers should not have to help the parents.  It is not their responsibility.  Sad to know this kind of stuff goes on in the world. 

 

I grew up as a child of not 1 but 2 alcoholics. It killed my Mother at the age of 56. I was this girl. I picked my mother up off the floor or from the bottom of the stairs on a daily basis. One of my 1st dates with my husband was to go bail my mother out of jail. I was 16. Wasn't the last time I did that either. I raised both of my brothers literally starting at the age of 6. Both of my parents disappeared. We were left alone.

 I have no pity for this man or his useless wife who is an enabler. How dare she make those precious girls grow up like that. The 2 of them have taken away there childhood. They have been robbed and it is something they will never get back.

 He is a bold face coward. To "try" and committ suicide in his daughter's bed is a cowardly act.

 As an adult I would leave my family and drive to watch my mother take anibuse which was supposed to make her very ill if she drank or even kill her. She still drank while on it. When I found out I drove her straight to the ER and told them to pump her stomach. She refused it so of course they let her go home.

 I made the decision right then, never again was she going to put me through this again. I visited her but it was never the same. I never begged her to stop again. I was just wasting my time and breath. Booze caused her to have a massive stroke at age 44 and 2 years to the day almost she went into a coma for 7 days. The Drs. made me make the choice of placing her on a vent. if necessary. I think that night I let out all of the anger I had ever felt for that pitiful soul. I yelled and screamed so loud that the nurses thought I was killing her. The Drs. told the nurses to let me be I needed to get it out.

 When she died at the age of 56 I never shed a tear and still haven't. It was a huge relieve. I think of her now and then but I don't miss her. She drank 1/5 of whiskey a day. Yes it is right 1/5 of whiskey.

I am just in the process of watching the show, but my immediate feelings and emotions are anger toward the mother....what the hell is wrong with her...I lived in an alcoholic home and my mother was weak and pathetic just like the mother in this show.  I have no tolerance nor respect for that sort of person...she is just as pathetic as her drunken husband.  I mean really what the hell is she trying to prove.  I have no sympathy for her what so ever...she should lose custody of the girls .... they need someone that is willing to stand up for them, care for them and put their best interest first.  I am now listening to the mother talk and I am so furious!  She is a poor excuse for a mother and I will tell you one thing...the oldest daughter is never gonna recover from this if she does not get help.  This has tarnished her view of marriage and of any sort of relationship...I know cause that is what it has done to me....Dr Phil...please focus on helping the kids and let the parents fend for themselves...since that is all they care about to begin with.

 

 

This message is for Robert.  I truely hope you take full advantage of the life saving help that youare being offered, and don't kid yourself it is life saving!!  I lost my father in Feb/06 to this horrilbe disease, he was the rip old age of 56yrs.  I was only 27 and just starting my family.  My daughter will never get to really know him as she was only 2yrs old.  I am left to deal with the guilt of not taking his last phone call to me because I didn't want to have another drunken conversation with him.  We knew he was going to eventually die from this, we just didn't think it would be so soon.  Don't leave that legacy for your childen,PLEASE.

I wish you all the best in your daily struggle for sobriety.  Just keep in mind that all you will go through is nothing compared to what your daughters have gone through and that it is all worth it.

I grew up in a family where my parents were alcoholics. I did my part in 'saving' my parents during drunken bouts. I love my Mom to death and don't hold any resentment towards her. She picked herself up and started over and worked hard to put it behind her.My father quit drinking but never changed his basic rotten attitude so I didn't have a good ending with him. It IS possible to get over the alcoholism and go on to live a decent life.  These poor kids right now need every one of us who have been there to give them hope that there IS a chance to survive. For all you kids out there who are suffering right now, I'm thinking of you and know it WILL get better with help.