This is not about booze so i dont know if it belongs here. I am in AA myself.
I am worried about a relative, he is my only living relative besides my mother who was/is an abuser and i have no contact with. He has supported me through thick and thin and if it wasnt for him i would be dead basically. I never had a father and he is the nearest i have to a father figure.
He doesnt do drugs or drink he overeats and has eaten himself to the point of sickness and i guess for the last 6 years i have been waiting for the phone call to hear he has died or had a stroke, heartattack. its horrible. i need to go to is it coda or alanon but alanon i just have to listen because hes not drinking hes eating. and i need to talk about it. i am buying a book on CODA i dont know if it will help me?
I am so scared for him i am terrifed and upset because i am sick of being terrified. and i keep thinking there must MUST be something i can do to help him get out of this. I feel i must try and help but what can i do. I can try help pay for a stomach operation so he can more easily lose weight.
I dont know if his overeating is truly an addiction or if its for other reasons. But it reminds me of how i drank. its insanity.
I try mention it in a vague way and he doesnt want to go to OA. No he thinks those meetings are bad because he had another addiction a few yeara ago and the over eating adn this other addiction were both really bad at that time and well he tried the 12 step group for this other addiction and said he didnt like it at all.
i feel responsible somehow. i saw someone mention survivors guilt on another post and i think i have that. I am so worried and scared.
i am so worried about this person and i feel i must be able to help him get well. I keep arguing in my head whether or not he is in the thros of an addiction or if its purely medical thing that i can try and get money to get him help.
just dont want to see him suffer and i am also mad that he is doing this all.
Its never talked about with him. I want to really tell him how i cant stand by and watch him destroy himself anymore. other people in my family might not care or think its there business to say anything but i have had it with pretending its all ok. ITS NOT OK.
And I KNOW I CANT CHANGE HIM. But its never even said, its like a big thing we cant mention! EVER! No its not allowed to be spoken about! Dont upset him! HE gets mad if anything is mentioned! I CANT MENTION HOW HE IS KILLING HIMSELF!
Sometimes says his eating is medical. Even though in the past he has said before many times how he comfort eats and that his food is like my booze and its addiction but other times he says its medical reason why hes over weight.
I try the alanon three Cs but i keep thinking i must be able to help. that its not really addiction. thats what my head says when i try 'i didnt cause it, i cant control it, i cant cure it' . my head says i can cure it that if i get him the operation to lose weight i would have helped cure it and its really a medical problem.
Then i think no, its a bloody addiction. Maybe it can be both. maybe the op wouldnt help unless he wants it to help anyway.
sorry
It sucks. What meetings program would be helpful for me, does anyone know please?
-- Edited by slugcat on Monday 16th of August 2010 10:15:40 AM
Overeating is just as much an addiction as Alcoholism and just as deadly. I have been there as I am an Alcoholic and a compulsive over eater and I am a member of OA.
In one way I found that recovering from overeating is much harder than recovering from alcoholism. Why? because I can abstain from alcohol but I can not abstain from food. Imagine if you will having to drink just a little every day to stay alive and you will get my point.
All this being said over eating is just like alcoholism. The person has to hit thier bottom and want to change. You can not do anything to cure it and you did not cause it. You may however be able to be a messenger of sorts although you don't have the problem.
Contact OA, they are on line and in the phone book and get some literature to leave around the house. Maybe he will be like I was in the final days. If I found an article on alcoholism or overeating I would read it providing no one saw me doing it. It was a large part of the beginning of my step one.
That and prayer that God's will be done is all that you or I can do. We have to turn it over lest it affect our alcoholism recovery.
Larry, ------------ What we usually pray to God is not that His will be done, but that He approve ours. ~Helga Bergold Gross
Thank you Larry thanks so much. I love him to bits its very sad. He lives in a different country than me at the moment, very very far away in fact you cant get further away on the planet. I am going to go and visit hopefully soon. I am ordering some OA literature and will post it to him. I cant wait till i see him cause it might not see him for months and months. If he hates me for it i dont care. Dont have a way to leave it about the house so have to post it.
Its hard cause society picks on overweight people and i dont want him to think i am picking on him also. But I am worried about him bc he is unwell. Going to go order that stuff now.
thank you for sharing its helped a lot
-- Edited by slugcat on Monday 16th of August 2010 12:23:11 PM
-- Edited by slugcat on Monday 16th of August 2010 12:24:57 PM
Aloha Cat...that post reminds me when I got into recovery and could say the words but not follow up with the action. I was a newbie extradinaire. I remember having another alcoholic in my life who on a drunk fell off of a ladder and got hurt and went to the hospital to have a broken ankle fixed and went to cheer him up and then they discovered diabetes and gangarene and he lost a leg and I attended I stayed to cheer him and his family up and then the pancreatic cancer was discovered and he was for the third time taken to the hospital with a poor chance of leaving alive and I went again to attend him only before I went in the last time I stayed outside of his hospital room door and asked my HP, "Is there anything here you see that I can do?" The response came in a vivid reminder of the first part of the 1st step and then the word pray so I went in his room and asked him if he would like me to pray with him and he did and we did and when that was over both he and I released the grip we had on each others hand and let go. The only time our wills were in the same place at the same time with the same purpose was when they were with the will of HP...Pray for peace of mind...body...spirit...emotions and then let go.
Slugcat in my opinion, the principles of alanon will help you in this situation. After recovering from alcoholism, I found myself dealing with many co-Dependant issues that often did not have to do with alcohol, but more to do with my need to rescue. There were several alanon meetings in my area, but no coda meetings near by. I started to read and listen to the audio version of "co-Dependant no more" by M. Beattie and attending alanon meetings. I found this to be very helpful in dealing with my addiction to save other people. As all addictions in their basic form are just a distraction from the real issues and feelings inside, rescuing others is a way to distract us from dealing with our own feelings.
Having said that, in all honesty what can you do for him? You have tried to get him to a treatment program, and doctor, and he refuses.... If there was something you could have done you would have done it...
Even though this site says i am a newbee, I will just say that I have 13 years sober, so you know.
-- Edited by Merlin on Monday 16th of August 2010 02:49:33 PM
no ive not tried to get him into treatment program i dont think there is any for overeaters is there? I doubt he would go anyway. He sees his doctor but honestly doctors dont seem to help with this addiction imo, he is on a waiting list for the stomach op and he is on a bunch of medications.
i feel if i was rich i could get him the stomach operation to help him lose weight. therefore IF it could help then I MUST move heaven and earth to try get it for him.
i just watched the film about how the study of how they are reversing diabetes in 30 days by raw food in arizona . people are coming off insulin and medications and getting the body back to normal by eating raw live foods. i mentioned it to him and he says its too hard to eat that type of food. im going to do it myself because diabetes has run in my family and i dont want it. i want to be healthy. Maybe i could try and get the funds to get him to that place in Arizona i dont know. theres no such places in his own country.
i feel i must be able to do something to help him but i dont know what except the operation and i dont have the funds will have to get them from others for him.
yes i want to rescue. i want it all safe i dont want to be worrying about people. i know i cant change him but part of me keeps coming back to the operation and that i should try get it paid for him so at least it would help some. :(
i just got some coda book im goin to go to a meeting. have been to alanon about husbands drinking but i want to be able to talk about this in a meeting and not jsut listen i cant do that in alanon can i cause its about drinking.
i also got an OA book am going to send it and hope he doesnt get mad.
i know i should be looking at my own stuff. it just sucks thu he has got diabetes and high blood pressure and is scary obese. i watched anotehr relative die a horrible slow death from those things i dont want to watch him go the same way. am i being selfish i guess. but i dont want to see him get sicker.
-- Edited by slugcat on Monday 16th of August 2010 04:49:26 PM
"i know i cant change him but..." "...part of me keeps coming back to the operation and that i should try get it paid for him so at least it would help some."
The second half of this sentence indicates the first half isn't true. It appears you believe you can change him. You might do well to reflect on how truly you recognize your powerlessness over the disease process in others.
You are responsible TO him, not for him, and have fulfilled that responsibility TO him by offering avenues by which he can help himself. If he chooses not to follow up, you must let it go.
Another area for reflection is to review whether your desire for him to get help is more for his benefit - or yours.
thank you jerry i will try praying.wiley u are right on some things. i need to get off computer but will post back. thank you. the operation thing i keep thinking i need to convince him we can afford it because he doesnt want it because he doesnt want to be a burden on us. Washing machine brain. i hate this powerless stuff. I did send an email saying we can pay for it and we are totally happy to do so and we can do it and we want him to get it done if he wants and he ignored the email and not replied. conversation back to normal like it was never mentioned. so i guess he dont want it or doesnt want to annoy us.
i need to pray and try hand this over to my HP. Maybe it is for me more than him but ive seen one person die horrible and be sick for a long time with same thing and i dont want to do it again.
I need to focus on me and write some stuff out so my brain doesnt back track and go round in circles endless thinking on this stuff. cause my thoughts keep coming back to ' i must convince him we can afford it, the reason he doesnt want it is because i did a poor job at offering it and he doesnt want to burden us'.
Is this alki thinking the obession not being able to get out of a thinking loop goes round and round. I dont even know whats logical and whats not with this :(
i have to try pray and hand it over to my HP.
-- Edited by slugcat on Monday 16th of August 2010 05:02:01 PM
It is EXACTLY like dealing with an alcoholic. You can offer to pay for rehab for an alcoholic, and he might use as an EXCUSE that he doesn't want to trouble you, but the truth is, he isn't ready to stop drinking. Period.
Your relative isn't ready to deal with his overeating. He might never be ready. He might kill himself in the process. You honestly can't control that.
As much as you love him, you have to let go of his eating disorder.
And remember, your relative has his OWN higher power. And it isn't you. That's hard to accept, but it's true.
May you have peace and serenity to accept what you truly cannot change.
"It is EXACTLY like dealing with an alcoholic. You can offer to pay for rehab for an alcoholic, and he might use as an EXCUSE that he doesn't want to trouble you, but the truth is, he isn't ready to stop drinking. Period."
