I am going to be blunt, too. You are contributing to your daughter's alcoholism. By giving her food to eat, a place to live, covering for her mistakes, you are making it possible to simply live to drink. A tenant of AlAnon is that the alcoholic has to face the consequences of their drinking. You are keeping her from having to face any consequences. Why would she change? What motivation does she have to get sober?
Won't stay in rehab? What is she had no where else to go? I bet she would stay then.
If you love your daughter, and I know that you do, you need to get help for yourself so you can learn to be strong for her. You need to learn how to set firm boundaries. There is no reason a 23-year-old shouldn't be holding down a job and supporting herself. If alcoholism is keeping her from being able to do that, she has to learn that for herself.
How do I know these things? Because I used to be you. I was an enabler and my daughter took advantage of that. It took two years of private therapy for my husband and I to learn how to set boundaries. Those included an intervention, a temporary restraining order to force her to leave our house, insistence that she go into an inpatient treatment, and refusal to ever let her come back and live in our home.
We learned that we had to be willing to let our daughter be homeless because we loved her. Letting her live with us just made it easy to use drugs. My husband came home from school to find her unconscious on our couch from a heroin overdose. The EMT's told him that if he had come home 2 minutes later she would have died. We thought we were protecting her but we were really just enabling her drug use.
I understand your reluctance to go to AlAnon. I personally never felt very comfortable in twelve-step support groups although many of our members find them invaluable. I felt more comfortable with a therapist and my husband started going with me after the first year.
One more thing about the religious aspect of AA/NA groups. That was an excuse my daughter used for years about why she didn't like twelve-step groups. When she finally really and truly got sober, she became very involved in NA. She is an atheist, too, so she says her higher power is an elephant. She just likes elephants. The real value to me in those groups is the support they provide. My daughter has a large group of friends in her NA group that support her recovery. They are the only people that truly understand what it is like to be in recovery. My daughter has even become a sponsor for others. I never thought I would live to see the day that happened.
I lived like you once. I had to lock away my purse because my daughter stole from me so she could buy drugs. I actually walked around the house with a key chain around my wrist so I could get in and out of my bedroom. When I look back at those days, I wonder why in the world was I willing to live like that.
We are here to listen and offer advice based on our experience. When I was living in the hell you are in now, someone here on this board offered something from AlAnon that changed my life.
The three C's: You didn't cause this, you can't control this, and you can't cure this.
Your daughter is responsible for her own life and you can't make her change. All you can do is change yourself and your behavior.
~Kathy
