I don't know, when I do the math they are up $500 lol...
but my full blown opinion MAY have some failings due to my experiences with a mother-in-law, that's why I try to keep it short and to the point.
Choosing between honoring my mother and submitting to my husband.
Discussion in 'General Baptist Discussions' started by blackstarling, Feb 9, 2014.
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Scarlett O. ModeratorModerator
My dear, your mother is still an alcoholic. She may not have had a drink in a long time, but true alcoholics and other addicts still struggle in some areas the rest of their lives - even though they may be recovered from using.
Maybe it's not with the actually substance, but the offshoot behaviors.
Did you know that it's common for alcoholics and even recovering/recovered ones to be manipulative, full of self-pity, blaming, controlling, and argumentative? They sometimes struggle here.
I mean we ALL do, but can you imagine how someone who is a current or former addict struggles even more?
Those are some common traits of a LOT of addicts - reformed or not.
I would find some professional help such as Al-Anon (for family members of users) to help you identify what's common to alcoholic and recovering/recovered alcoholic mothers of adult children. They could really help you.
There's got to one in your area.
Here is who you need to change first - yourself. You need to work on your response system to your mother.
She KNOWS you can't stand the confrontation and the tears. That's why she does it. She was once very ill and I suspect her alcoholic manipulations are still present even though she isn't drinking anymore.
Just like that blanket you said she wrapped herself up in on that plane - you're mother has wrapped herself NOW up in an emotional blanket - one of control and manipulation and it comforts her.
I would REALLY find some profession help in your area.
All I can you about what I would do is the next time a relatively insignificant problem comes up and she starts the emotional tantrums, make sure she understands that you are unyielding to her rages, kiss her on the cheek and say, "Thanks for understanding my point of view, mother. I got to go. I'll talk to you later." Then leave her presence - unbending on the issue.
You will HAVE to do this with very simple issues to begin with and work up to the harder ones and staying longer in her presence each time - showing NO sympathy to her emotional manipulation and showing her love.
Just like a mother who holds a whiny baby who isn't getting his way and pats him and rocks him, yet does not give in to his screaming. It's not easy, but the baby eventually settles down.
It's a process you will have to start simply with almost insignificant issues and work your way up.
You are in my prayers. -
It was 25 years between drinks, but I found I could -- and do -- drink normally now. A glass of wine is a glass of wine, without fear of it becoming six glasses of wine, a lost weekend, or a blackout. With me, disordered gambling, for which I am dual-diagnosed, is a completely different story. I don't dare stand by the lottery display at QuikTrip, such is the potential for temptation.
We don't know, obviously, what circumstance blackstarling's mother was in or the "why" of her drinking, so this is not an effort to correct your advise, just an effort to assure that accurate information is "out there." Thanks. :thumbsup: -
Scarlett O. ModeratorModerator
Thanks for you valuable input, TND. -
Ephesians 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
Ephesians 5:21 Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.
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