Normal--the Seventh Sense

I was thinking last night about something one of the people at Al-Anon said to the group last week.  She was talking about her experiences and commented that addicts are expert at lying, manipulating, they'll tell you anything you want to hear.  Observations like that.  She said you just can't trust them.  So, with what has happened the past two days (My daughter is still reviewing Sunday and saying how she doesn't want to drink anymore. She also called a rehab place in our area for out patient treatment and an assessment that she will go to, today.) can I trust her?  I want to.  I think I have forgiven and 'retrusted' almost immediately during the past three years.  Is this time different or just a variation of a repeated behavior?

That thought lead me to, "Why does enabling start in the first place?"  I definitely didn't want to help get her deeper into this nightmare.  So, why?  Then I started thinking about what enabling has done to me.  It has heightened my five senses, amazingly.  I can smell alcohol on someone from across the room.  I can detect the slightest change in speech, movement, thinking.  And then I realized what I felt like.  I felt (and still feel) like a person who has lost a sense.  Sight, for instance.  I have heard and read that when people lose their vision, their other senses become more refined.  Well, I have lost my sense of 'normalcy.'   My enabling has been developing because I want Normal back so badly, I have done everything, and believed everything I can to get my 'normal' back.  My super sensing of a change of routine, smell, sound, is all due to that.  So, back to trust.  Trust is so essential to maintaining normal.  I want to trust her current resolve to change.  I want normal, back.   Regardless of how addiction can launch the person you love into a soul floating on the river Styx, today she is my normal child, back from the dead.  I will trust with clearer eyes, and a more loving, less desperate, heart.  I will try to heal my normalcy, to some extent. That's what I'll do for, today.

A Graceful Ending

While I was with my son, I wasn't worked up, nervous, panicked, as I would have normally been.  I had a feeling my daughter had been drinking, but I wasn't in that full-throttle, Tasmanian Devil, mind racing mode.  I was calm.  I talked with him, made him a sandwich, and then explained what I felt was happening.  Let me pause here and say that my son loves his sister.  He hates, though, how this disease is changing her and effecting the rest of the family.  At times he is very patient, at others, he is disgusted.  Yesterday, though, the calm I was feeling seemed to spread to him, and we were able to talk about what I was suspecting without getting into an argument. 

He drove me to the pool.  I took a book, and sat in her car, until she was through.  Then, we talked.  She admitted that she had been drinking.  (She has told me that she drinks to be more out-going OR numb and stop the thinking of things she regrets).  Yesterday, it was to be out-going.  The plus side of our conversation was that she opened up to me about issues she has never really talked (or admitted) to me about.  We didn't yell.  (I kept the feeling of love for her NOT resentment for the disease at the front of my thoughts).  It was a good talk, and she mentioned, again, that this is starting to ruin her life.  When we got home, she went up to her room to (I thought) drink some more and pass out.  I did not ask for the bottle, I didn't look for the bottle, I just covered her up, told her I loved her, and left the room.  Later, I went into check on her, and she was awake, just staring.  I asked her if she was okay, and she just started crying.  I laid down besider her, put my arms around her and started praying over her, out loud.  I kissed her, again, and left the room.  Before I went to bed, I checked on her, again.  She was still awake, and I asked her if she was okay. She said, "No, but I have to own this."  "Own what?"  "Own what I"ve done.  I have another bottle."   "Really?" (my heart double skipped)  "Yes, it's either over there or under the bed, I can't remember."  "What do you want to do?"  "Dump it out." (my heart started beating faster)  "You want to dump it out?"  "I can't get up now, I want you to dump it out." (I could hear it in my ears)  "Are you sure?"  "Mom, I'm sure.  Take it and dump it out."  I found it under her bed.  A jug (1/2 gallon?) of White Tavern vodka.  I took it and dumped it out, whispering a million thank yous to God, at the sink.
Then I asked her if she needed anything else. We sat there for a few minutes, and then she asked for a grilled cheese sandwich.  So, we went downstairs, and had a grilled cheese sandwich and some soup.  A healing meal for a healing moment.  I prayed a thank you for an experience that has never happened, before.  I am praying now that she is working toward recovery.  Time will tell, but I can't help but feel...no, know, that devine arms were holding us last night. 

Grace

Yesterday, Sunday, was a transitional day for me.  Transitional in the sense that it notched up my coming closer to God, instead of being angry and resentful and turning away because He wasn't doing anything to wake us up from this nightmare we've been in for 3 years. 

The day started with my daughter leaving for work.  Since I wasn't sure, but maybe suspected, that she had bought alcohol on her way home last night, I was still following my 'not asking' commitment, and we had a pleasant morning and off she went.  I showered and got ready for church. 

In church, the message was about God's Grace.  That it wasn't a 'one time fill up' but that it was necessary to pray a lot to ask for Grace in the moment.  I left the service feeling peaceful and equiped.  My daughter is at work for 10 hours a day on the weekend.  She is life guarding at a small community pool.  I told her that I would stop by (it's a 20 minute drive from our home) and drop off some lunch.  So, after church, I went grocery shopping, made a run through the drive through, and on to the pool.  I was calm and still refreshed by the sermon.  When I got to the pool, and she came over to take her lunch from me, my radar kicked in and I picked up on some traits that develop when she has been drinking.  Mind you, not noticable by anyone else, but I know.  BUT I didn't ask.  I didn't get upset, I still had the peace from the morning.  I calmly drove back home, and calmly made a plan.  (Reminder: I said I wouldn't ask, I haven't committed to letting her hit rock bottom if that means driving while drinking, even though it isn't sloppy drunk).  So, I arrived home, unpacked the groceries, and made a plan to walk back to the pool, and read while I waited for her to close, and then drive her home.  (I get the, 'let them be responsible for their consequences' idea, however, I can't condone letting those consequences interfere with someone else's life, especially in a potentially tragic way) So, that part of my enabling is still present, I guess.  Anyway, though the drive is 20 minutes, the walk is about 3 hours because of the alternate route I would have to take to stay off of the highway.   As I was getting my tennis shoes on, I was pray for Grace and help. 

I left the house, and began walking down the street.  I happened to look up and saw a black and white cat run into some bushes across the street.  My neighbor has a black and white cat who is always escaping from the house, and she worries about his saftey.  The thought came into my head to turn around and mention the cat to them, just in case it was her cat.  Initially, I thought no, I'll keep walking.  But then that inner voice advised me to turn around, so I did.  When I turned around, I saw my son pull up infront of the house.  I walked to my neighbor who was on her porch and asked about her cat.  Fortunately, he was safe inside.  Then I went into my house with my son, who ended up driving me to the pool.  When I went into the house, here is what I realized.  God took care of that small situation.  If I hadn't followed that small inner voice, and turned around, I wouldn't have seen my son.  So, I prayed, "God, if you can take care of this small situation, please continue working in the storm we are in." 

I will finish later, but I think it is important to say that God is there.  There is a devine, supernatural God who is there--we just have to ask and then be aware. 

Learning to Let Go...baby steps

I went to another Al-anon meeting last night.  That I could get off of the couch was a major turning in my recovery.  I just can't stand feeling like this anymore.  The meeting was bittersweet for me.  So many hurting people, but simmering in all of that, was great hope.  I tried to latch onto the hope.  When I heard one of the parents talk about how addicts lie, and steal, and are smarter than us to manipulate, I started to feel as though there was no hope.  That my beautiful, graceful, sweet child has morphed into some shape-shifting demon.  But then, I heard how some of those same manipulating, lying, injured people, were able to stop at some point, and turn there lives around.  I grabbed onto that hope.  I feel as though I may have swallowed some hope to help relieve the ache in my stomach.  I asked, 'How do you stop the worrying?  How do you lovingly detach from your child?"  The answer was that it took time, but it can be done.  One step at a time. One day at a time.  My step is not asking if she is going to or has bought alcohol.  BOY was it hard when she came home last night.  I still found myself silently doing the math on the amount of time it took her to drive home, stopping to get gas on the way, if she would have had time to buy any.  Then I listened when she went upstairs to change.  Then I listened as she made her dinner.  I fell asleep on the chair in the living room, 'listening'. BUT, I didn't ask.  So, as a modified Scarlet would say, "Today, is another day." 

Hit with the Pot

After all of that, she still drank after work last Sat. When she wasn't home by 11:00, my enabling kicked in and I went looking for her.  THANK GOD I found her car at work, where she had fallen asleep on the couch in the lobby.  I had called the police to help look for her, and they were kind, came, knocked on the window, and didn't do anything but let me take her home.  I took her home, and picked up her car the next day.  She did wake up the next morning saying that she needed help, so we went for an assessment at this clinic that is open 24/7.  She is in the process of calling places now, but I still can't stop the worrying.  I think I'm developing a stomach ulcer.  It is burning constantly.  I wish this was over. 

The Pot Blows Up

Wow, I am feeling sick as I write this, oddly, a little hopeful, too.  I think the sick feeling is coming from all of the horrible events that could have taken place.  Here we go.  My daughter is not a daily drinker, she is like a binge drinker.  She can go for several weeks or months and not drink anything.  Then a sad emotion over takes her (usually about the old boy friend she refuses to emotionally let go of) and then it starts.  I can pick up on the initial signs almost perfectly.  If I could get paid for that part of being a psychic, I would be head to head with Oprah in Forbes. 

So, I could tell Sunday morning that something was up, but she was still okay, and said she hadn't been drinking (did I mention that drinking turns her into a Ms. Hyde, and compulsive liar?)  But, I was following the, 'Let them go and hit bottom' advice, and let her go to work.  She was supposed to be off at 4, but never made it home.  I did take a friend to go looking for her at 7:00 pm, dreading that I would see her car at work and her passed out somewhere. But, no, no car.  I checked a few other places, and nothing, so I thought maybe I was wrong.  Though worried, I was trying to let it go.  I ended up falling asleep on the couch, and at 11:30 get a call from the hospital saying that my daughter was there, brought in by the local police because she was confused and disoriented.  Long story short, she was found in her car, in the ally behind our house, with a bottle of vodka between her legs.  Car not moving.  She was not arrested. Two o'clock in the morning, I walk to the police station to find out what has happened, after I go to the emergency room where I leave her because it is making me too sick to sit there and watch her passed out. 

No one is at the police station at 2, so I go home and fall asleep until I get a call at 5 from the police (I had left them a message to call so that I could find out what happened).  After the call, I went down to the station to talk to him in person.  She has already had one dui, but it was expunged because of a program our state has, three years ago.  The officer told me that he wasn't sure what he was going to do. He said that it was at his discretion, as long as the man across the street from me, who's car she apparently bumped, didn't want to press charges.  The next morning, I pick her up from the hospital, and take her home, then go pick up her car at the garage where it was towed.  Not a mark on it, so I wasn't sure why they were saying she hit the truck across the street, but anyway, a very long three day wait.  My daughter is going to school, and on Tues, and Wed. when she came home, she tried to go and see the officer.  She caught him there Wed. afternoon.  They talked. (He still had the bottle of vodka in the office, a little less than half full, and asked her if she wanted it.  She declined.)  He told her that he did not want to ruin her schooling with a second dui or charges.  He asked her if she would enter a program or get counseling and check in with him, because if he did charge her, that would be mandatory. She said yes.  He told her he could arrest her within the next two years, so that she needs to take her sobriety seriously.  Basically, A GIFT FROM GOD that no one was killed, injured, disrupted by this STUPID act.  I am so mad and sick right now. 

On the positive, this may have been her scared straight moment.  We did talk and she (first time ever) asked if I would come with her to get evaluated this weekend.  She is back on the antabuse (makes her extremely ill if she would drink) and even was open to finding info in breathalyzers for the car.  I know this all sounds crazy, but trust me, it is much lower on the crazy scale than we've been in years.  I can't thank GOD enough for no deaths, injuries, and the mercy this officer showed. Hopefully, my daughter really is scared straight with this.  Keep praying.

Church in the Pot

I just came back from church, but wasn't really present.  I know you're supposed to press closer to God, and I'm trying, but I just don't know.  The message was ironically, 'Questioning God and Why Do Bad Things Happen?"  Waiting on God is hard.  Even harder is knowing that He may allow this to never end, or if it does, end badly. I am so exhausted from all of this, and then I think of all of the other parents going through this same hell, and I can't help but wonder if God is really listening, and if so, why not just stop all of this pain?

Back into the Pot

A month sober, and this morning I had that radar pop up.  Something didn't feel right.  I'm telling you, living with an addict heightens your awareness almost to the point of super-human abilities.  I noticed slight changes in her behaviors, not much this time, but very slight.  And that change in healthy routine.  When she drinks, she doesn't eat, and she didn't eat breakfast this morning, so my suspicion was that she drank last night.  So, I went searching and found a small bottle of vodka.  To her, that isn't much, just enough to relax.  She can drink a lot, and has withdrawals to the point of seeing and feeling things.  The last time the help line people came and I explained what happens to her, his eyes widened and said that she's halfway to a large seizure.  I am so sick to my stomach, now.  I can't understand this. She just bought herself a new car.  Needs to make payments on it, so she needs to keep working. She says she loves that car and I reminded her that a DUI would take that car away from her.  God forbid she hit someone or hurt herself.  I don't know what it will take.  Then I think, did my fear and dread cause this in some metaphysical or mystical way?  I keep reading how thoughts are so powerful.  I just don't know, anymore.  I'm starting my crazy thinking.  She is at work now and is insisting she did not drink, so how'd the bottle get there, when I know it wasn't there on Friday evening?  These are the times I wish I wouldn't wake up.

The Bubble Over Effect

I halted my morning today (it's what vacation time is for, right?) and watched the movie, "The Five People You Meet in Heaven."  I read the book a while, ago, and liked it, so I was interested in the movie.  I really liked the movie.  One of the characters he met in heaven, told him that hate has a curved blade.  I liked that saying.  I can see how it applies to being an enabler and a parent of a child with addiction.  It also made me realize how many people are effected by addiction. Not just the person who's afflicted, and the family, but the Bubble Over Effect that those experiences and emotions have on everyone and every experience you have.  My work, friendships, person at the check out, person in front of me at the check out, all of these people, and then some have been effected by this.  The hatred I feel for what this has done to my child can turn that anger on my child, and God, and my boss, as well as myself.  The list is long.  How I deal with my child and the addiction, effects how I deal with other problems, and joys.  It has caused me to bypass some joys that may have been helpful to dealing with this.   It has turned that hatred into myself and the choices I've made have been fueled by that hate.  So, having said that, my thoughts on enabling and the experiences of living with addiction is not limited to just those two topics, because everything bubbles over onto everything else.

While I Was Boiling

I keep thinking back to how convoluted and hazy everything seemed during the worst times.  Most of it is hazy to me still, though like the frog bobbing up and down in the bubbling water, I get clear, harsh glimpses of the most horrible memories. Like the time  I picked up up from school, once, almost passed on the curb.  Another time, she fell asleep on a bus,  and I got a panicked call that she didn't know where she was.  I came home another time and I couldn't wake her up and had to call an ambulance. 

 I would continue to go to work, though not fully focused, dread coming home to what I might find,  Once home, depending on the situation, I was either releaved and then had a few hours of normal, or my daughter would be drinking and I would feel the heat rise a little more.  I would try to leave her alone, but then I would get so mad that I would go up to her room and verbally berate her.  Then go back downstairs, feel bad for what I had said, and then apologize and help her to sober up.  Those anger and resentment moments went from verbal anger, to throwing things, to taking things, to eventually, she and I would be pushing and pulling on each other.  Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would become physical with my beautiful daughter, but I did.  And then, the night would take over, I would have a fitful sleep, and the day would start, again. While this progressed, I did pray that I would not wake up, but I continued to meet another sunrise.  During all of this, she was going to school, earning a degree, and I was going to work, earning a living.  This went on for three years. It amazes me what people can endure before the breaking point. 

Trying to Change My Thoughts

I am still stuck on stress.  I just can't seem to leave the Fear and Worry Zone.  The longer my daughter is sober, though, I do notice more frequent periods of calm.  I was reading an article on miracles.  I can't remember the rabbi's name, but I liked the way he described miracles, because it makes them more accessable and less 'hit and miss.'  He said (and I'm paraphrasing)  that miracles, by definition, mean something supernatural.  An event that is above what nature would normally, do.  So, he explained, the birth of a child, though a blessing, is not necessairly a miracle, because it is what nature does naturally. ( I would argue, here that those people who have been told that they can not have children and then get pregnant, in my mind that would be a miracle, because the natural progress of those individuals would have become supernatural if they did have a child).  Anyway, a few days before I read that, my daughter and I had had a fight.  I really can't explain what happened other than I couldn't take it anymore, and I came home, never intending to begin to cry and explain how horrible I felt, but I did.  In that conversation, I said how I just don't feel like living (meaning ending life) in this situation.  This hell that addiction has lowered us into.  She left the house, angry, saying that she was going to buy alcohol and find a hotel, and drink herself to death.  I was panicked.  I called this help line, and they sent people over, who said to call the police, too.  I wanted to hospitalize her because I was sure she was going to go through with it.  The police did find her waiting for a bus (we live in a rather small town) and she told them that she was just going to go cash her pay check.  While she was out, the people from the help line place, stayed and talked but there was really nothing they could do.  So, everyone left, and I was alone, imagining the worst.  A few hours later, my daughter came back home.  We had both calmed down, and she did not buy alcohol.  Instead, she bought two books, as well as one for me, called: Fail Better.  It is a book of quotes about failing, and rising above it.   So, then I find the article, and reflect on what happened, and realized I had witnessed a miracle.  I told my daughter about the article, and SHE proposed that, "So you think it was a miracle that I didn't but alcohol, as I would usually have done if I was sad or upset?"  I said, 'Yes."  And she agreed.  That memory gives me hope when I'm Stuck on Stress.  That it is possible for people to change, and miracles surely do happen.

Another View from Outside

Fear is a horrible thing.  I don't like to use 'thing' as a description, but that is what fear is, a horribe thing. And so powerful.  Life is good now, but still, I struggle with that fear, that it could change in the time it takes to swipe a debit card.  Is fear more powerful than Love?  I don't know. I do know that you can love someone so much, and feel proud of them and hopeful, and there is fear, again, seeping into every little crack and pin hole it can find.  How do you get rid of fear?  Fear must be the roach of the emotion world. It can appear dead, but then just get up and hide out in some other dark corner, waiting for that weak morsel to drop so that it can slither out and begin to gnaw on it.

A View From Outside the Pot

I was taking my daughter to work, this morning, and I made a comment about how upset my stomach always is.  She said, "Mom, why can't you just appreciate the moment?  I know we've had some difficult times with my drinking, and then when I'm sobering up, but I'm sober now, and intend to stay that way. I'm really working on it, so why can't you just appreciate this good time?"  She is so right, and I know that is the way to move forward, AND I have that internal debate with myself DAILY...'Things are good!  She's sober today.  Enjoy the moment!!!'  And for two seconds, I do, and then that little voice begins slowly and distantly, "it could change", and then the memories and fears start to follow, and pretty soon, I have an entire band playing, Doom and Gloom to a marching beat in my head, and I dance to that all day long.  I have got to find some new dance partners.

Three Years of Boiling

I hate to even think of the events that occurred.  Everyday wasn't bad, but those days that were, were hell, and even that description doesn't do the feelings justice.  To relieve the horrible anticipation or to help my own brain be able to cope, I think that is why the enabling started.  Though, as with the addiction seeping into our lives, the enabling does the same thing.  The lies are not to lie, but to buffer the situation.  I created lies, or 'modified the truth' to help me be able to cope.  I have a stressful job, starting over, money was tight, my only goodness was my children, and when that was starting to falter, too, I think I started to create a different life, if not in reality, in my mind.  To enforce that 'reality' I had to become a keen observer (so that I could sense when the situation was going toward the alcohol influence) a super sleuth (so that I could sniff out where the bottles were hidden), a verbal ninja (so that I could confront and either yell and scream or plead and pray),  and  a facade of calm (so that no one else would know or suspect the maddness that was occcuring in my personal life).  I was rebuilding myself to modify my reality so that I could cope.  But, that doesn't work.  As I understand and can see now, it only allows the demons of addiction to imbed themselves deeper into the situation, and blind the modifer to the extent that it becomes increasingly more difficult to make the change from what is really real, to the choreographed reality invented in the enabler's actions and lies.

What I Pray

I believe in God. I come at everything from a spiritual foundation.  I was watching the movie Taken, and this overwhelming prayer/desire filled my mind.  I want God to go after my daughter--His daughter--like Liam Neeson went after his daughter in the movie.  I want God to fight for my daughter and get her back into his arms; in spite of her bad decision, I want him to fill that emptiness and sadness with hope, grace, mercy, and love, and I want Him to fight off all of the demons, just like Liam did in the movie, until He finally meets her face to face, and she can fall into His arms and know what Love is and regain her hope and know that she is His.  That's what I pray happens--right now.

Reflecting on the Water

Enabling.  I was trying to think about why and when it happens.  The why is easy.  I think people enable mainly because of loving the other person, it's kind of a mutated  sense of giving.  But the other reason is quieter. I think it has to do with trying to ignore what is going on.  A big game of pretend.  Like life can go on, just as it always has and we can ignore this Monster that is growing right in front of us.  That's the scary thing, though, the enabling feeds the monster.  It helps to cloak it while it's growing, and it helps to make it stronger because enabling blinds and confuses. I am so angry at this disease.  I feel so terrorized and crushed by what addiction has done to my child.  It has turned me into a non-person. All I am is a bunch of nerves, knotted in the pit of my stomach, fearing another 'mess up.'   I have read and listened to a mass of people, and they all say that soberity is possible if the person wants it.  No magic formula, just wanting a sober, better life, and working at it.  For my daughter, that would be changing her habits and stearing clear of the places to buy alcohol.  I know life can get hard, let me rephrase that, I know that life IS hard, but why make it harder than it has to be?  Why do addictions have to always center on something destructive?  Why can't people be addicted to being kind, or good health, or healthy thinking?  Now, I am in recovery.  It is very hard changing a way of thinking.  When I talked with my friend, her direction was to pray and walk, so Monday, I begin to walk.  I have been praying so hard, I pretty much walk on my knees, now.  Wonder how that will effect the walk on Monday?

Fast Forward

I am fast forwarding because I wanted to tell what happened to me this morning. I was walking to the post office, and on the way was feeling very sad, my stomach was upset as usual, and the anxiety was churning.  All of this, and things have been going well, here.  Sober for almost 3 weeks, and she is seeming a little more cheerful, at least less sad.  Anyway, I shot out a prayer to God, asking Him to show me a way to relieve this sick feeling I have.  I feel as though I'm stuck on stress all of the time.  Anyway, on my way back from the post office, I saw a neighbor putting her daughter on the bus for day camp.  I stopped and we started small talk, and somehow, I think it was because we were talking about how humid the weather has been, and how it changes your personality, and makes things seem so negative, we started talking about praying and she was saying how it helps.  And she told me how she is on two antidepressants, and was still not feeling great.  She didn't want to get on any more medication, and was determined to do something else.  A psychiatrist that her son goes to (her son has autism, and her daughter has Downe's Syndrome) emphasized the importance of exercise (those hopeful endorphins) and so she started to walk.  She was walking for several weeks, when it started to rain, so she started to run and realize that she could do that, so now she runs everyday.  She is in training now, for a race she wants to compete in, and she said that her mood is so much better.  She credits a lot to God and prayer, and people being put into her path that help her to learn.  I asked her about intercessory prayer, and she said that is very important, too.  She said that her sister is in recovery from a heroin addiction, and her brother is still in his addiction with heroin.  He is on the streets.  She said that they had tried very hard to help him--get him to rehab, force him to get sober--but nothing has worked, because she said, he needs to want to change.   So, she continues to pray, but she keeps away.  She said, (and this is what clicked with me) we don't even by him a sandwich, which we used to do, buy him food, clothes, etc. because the money that he saved not buying is own food, he would spend on drugs.  Something so simple, as a sandwich can be a means to feed an addiction if the person does not want to change.  We enable even when we don't realise it.  Today, she was an answer to my prayer walking to the post office.  Why some prayers get answered within minutes and  others take years, I don't know, but what I do know is that I can't ask for an answer, and not accept the answer when I get it.  I did tell her that I had prayed and felt she was an answer to that prayer.  She said talking about it helps her, too.  I get frustrated because I was always under that impression that God didn't give you more than you can handle (and this has been way more than I can handle).  Then I found out that that is not true.  It is a misquote from a scripture that says something to the effect that if you are tempted, God always provides an out.  The temptation to stay sad, and let fear and anxiety control my day (life?) was given an out, today.  I get it.  I have to work on that, today.

A Pause

I have been trying to sum up the past.  I think the worst has been the last three years, when the drinking has been slowly growing worse.  As her therapist commented, she isn't the normal alcoholic.  She is more of a binge drinker, when she can go several months without drinking, and then bam, a week straight of just passed out drinking.  She drinks enough to stay passed out, because, she says, she's tired of thinking.  The sad part, though, is that the things she thinks about have been the result of the drinking getting too much: the isolation, loneliness, feeling like a failure.  I heard Dr. Drew say one time that people who drink get emotionally stunted at the age that it started.  Well, though it has been the past three years that have been bad, I think the social drinking in early college/late high school is where she is frozen.  Part of me thinks that she is frozen there because that is the time she liked the best.  Life was good for her there, and she associates the drinking with that for some reason.  Sadly, it being such a sickly, seductive disease, it will kill her if she doesn't stop and never go back.  Having said all of that, I have found in myself that I can't stop worrying.  Is that a residue of the enabling behaviors?  Is that my withdrawal?  Me not taking control of the situation, letting her go and rejoice in the accomplishments or suffer the consequences, has caused me to have an upset stomach all of the time.  I live on Imodium.  I know things are good now.  She is back on her medication, and is doing well, but I can't seem to move forward this time.  I have never really been at this spot, before, on the road to recovery as an enabler, so, I'm not sure if this is normal or not but I really don't know how to break free of this.  Scary thought:  I wanted to just stop the worrying, and wondered what it would be like to just sleep through life.  How DO you turn off the thinking and the worrying?  I am praying all of the time, but I just learned, too that it doesn't say in the Bible that God won't give you more than you can handle.  So, it can get pretty rough.  So, now I have to figure out what I have to do, and I don't have a clue.