Someone knows the answer to this and I hope they will offer it even if they want to do so anonymously or even via private email because I really want to know this.
Regarding Alcoholics… don’t underestimate the trickery, yesterday I sneaked an alcoholic a drink. You might say I colluded with him, I helped a fellow human being due compassion, I acted foolishly or any number of other ways my actions could be seen but what I want to know is how does the alcoholic in the story see it? What does he think of what I did?
We probably need an addict to answer this so let’s just hope one will but I want to make this other point.
To me this is a much broader question. There are people out there who take advantage of people (for whatever reason) and people who allow themselves to be taken advantage of (also for whatever reason) and this is apart from addiction.
I fall in the 2nd group and I want some insight into the people who fall in the first group. So here is the question:
How do you people who tap another person’s compassion or generous nature feel about the person who colludes with you? Add astrology if you can.
submit your own open question
I’m not sure if this applies.
However, as an adventurous, risk taking sort, I have _always_ flown under the assumption that if things got too bad, the universe would provide some way out. Often in the form of a helping hand. If I kept my wits about me and didn’t do anything _too_ stupid. I’ve had to be careful and push myself but I have always found what I’ve needed (maybe not as much help as I’ve wanted.) I do have an underlying assumption that there will be someone out there feeling giving who will help me out if I get stranded.
On the flip side, I have done the same sort of thing for other people. When it has felt safe. So it’s depending on compassion and generosity, but I’m not sure it’s taking advantage of it.
Maybe it’s a well placed Jupiter.
wow, this is a great question, one I would really like to know the answer to.
I am the one who colludesin this type of situation, not the alcoholic, so I really don’t know. 5th house Moon in virgo square sag. neptune in the 7th.
I think users (and to some degree I am one when it comes to my mother, see below) just kind of take the assistance as their due in life. Like we think SOMEONE should be taking care of us and feel betrayed if our loved ones say no and refuse to. And some people (I don’t know what the astrology of this is) genuinely seem to live off of the kindness of others for years without getting dumped.
Since you were a stranger he’d never encounter again, I’m sure he felt a brief moment of gratitude and then the moment passed. If he were to run into you again, he’d know you as an “easy mark” and would try it again.
With regards to my mother, she’s Virgo rising and all about SERVING OTHERS. She makes it incredibly easy to take advantage of her, and she just won’t take no for an answer when she wants to help you and you don’t want it. To some degree, I feel like she IS supposed to help me out when I have a rough time, and I expect it and somewhat act accordingly. I’m not saying it’s right. I’m aware that it’s not. But it’s kind of ingrained in the relationship.
When you spend your entire life serving and serving, well, the one you serve does not necessarily grow up to feel like they should serve just as well as you do. They do not learn from your example–they learn to be spoiled and to expect that level of care, at least from you if not the entire world. And that’s the problem we get to go deal with in therapy now 😛
I think this is an interesting issue , Elsa. I have been around an alcoholic, very close… there was a wet phase and now a dry phase though AA.
I also seen my Dad, who was not an alcoholic but did get lectured by his mother once in awhile-that he was drinking too much..and I popped on the other side with a Scotch and water for him, more times than not.
it depends on the phase they are in their drinking. Of course they are happy when on the wet side. They do not think so much of you, as the drink, if they are addicts, that being a good test.
They have no problem with you helping them out. However when on the dry side, I got condemned for “enabling”. Addicts often go to extremes…and they do for awhile in their sobreity.
If they want to stop drinking and one offers them a drink, watch out. That is a volatile situation and depends on the person who drinks.
I hope this helps…
I used to be an addict and I have also lived with another addict for a year so I may be of help to offer some insight/experience on this topic.
i remember nothing comes before my getting my fix. Nothing mattered more than that, not my family, not my dying grandmother, nothing, nobody. I didn’t give a fuck, gimme what I need or I’ll find a way to get it. It didn’t matter to me that my family suffered in pain in seeing me the way I was, no tears, nothing moved me. But I was always aware of who can help me. Who I can call up. Who’ll give me money and etc. Of course I was losing everyone quickly except for my family.
So finally I was losing support, my parents did the most painful thing to themselves in order to save me- which was cutting me off completely. Enabling me was just going to send me to the bottom slower.
Yes, Aries, the universe sometimes sends something your way to remove a situation if it gets out of hand.
In the end, I was homeless at the age of 21 and lived under a bridge with a few other gutter punks. I did a number of things to get my fix. And one day, and I think I am one of the luckier ones in life because I found a way out. It was rainy, and I don’t know if I had imagined it or not but I saw my mom drove by on a street. I just remember I’ve had it and somehow got into a shelter and went into a detox program and got into AA.
The thing is I created a lot of bad karma I think. And for the past few years. I am 28 now. For seven years, I suffered a lot of ups and downs and had worked SO hard to get to where I am today-to make up for the pain I have caused my loved ones, to repair relationships with them, to go the extra mile to show them that I love them and am grateful for them and to be normal in the eyes of others whom have no idea of my past… Anyway, sorry I started talking about my story, this topic isn’t about that, but here’s what I want to say-
Elsa I think it was necessary for you to offer him those drinks so he can finish the job and not get into DTs. You don’t want a guy dying in your home. He’s not your problem. His girlfriend for sure knew what’s up but she is enabling him to keep up with his alcoholism. It is a sick dynamic an alcoholic has with their partners. They need each other to forget themselves and their own shit. As much as the codependent partner claims they hate that their alcoholic is as such, most of the time the codependent enabler feed off of that toxic energy. It becomes their purpose in life. They get drunk off of their partners’ addiction.
Lastly, to answer your question How does the alcoholic feel about the codependent?
Well, I can tell you the alcoholic isn’t in this type of relationship out of love or anything genuinely emotional.
I can tell you the alcoholic isn’t really going to change FOR the better because of/for the codependent enabler.
I can tell you that alcoholics are really some of most smart and charismatic people. And that being said, they’ll just quickly find a replacement at the speed of light. They can sniff someone out to be their enabler/codependent just like any drug addict can always find their drugs in any cities/ neighborhood even if they don’t speak the language.
The alcoholic/addict EXPECTS the codependent to help because they always have. Nothing is going to change if nothing changes.
I hope this makes sense, i don’t know the astro on this but I do feel that the satrun in virgo is making it difficult for me to communicate.
Gloria, that was excellent. 🙂
I don’t think they think – they just want their next fix – whether it’s alcohol or drugs –
I was in a codependant relationship for twelve years and just hoped that it would change whilst burying my head in the sand and feeling like I was a positive person. That was my coping mechanism and it worked for me at the time – ignorance is bliss compared to the cold hard truth sometimes.
As for what the alcoholic thinks – he would be so self absorbed with just getting through the day that, yes he would be grateful but then be thinking of where his next drink would be coming from. Serious addictions are all consuming – nothing else matters.
Gloria your story is well worth being heard! I feel really grateful to be able to read it – You must have amazing strength – Those hard yards are not for nothing! Good on you x
Gloria thanks so much for sharing all that. I hope it’s okay I just say I’m so happy you got clean while you’re still young…for some people it is a battle their whole life.
What you said especially about co-dependents hit me right in the heart. I was that person with my ex boyfriend. I remember all the little tricks I used to play “I’m never having sex with you while you’re drinking”
…that was the kicker, actually. I was never going to get laid again, so I left.
Sleeping beside a grown adult who pisses the bed every night because they are wasted…I just kept acting like it wasn’t happening.
I do agree with what you did, too, Elsa, and I would’ve done the same under the circumstances
Gloria, that was very eloquent. Thank you.
Aww, thank you ladies! High fives =D
I really appreciate your post, Gloria, and it also puts things into perspective about one of my friends. In this case, I don’t know if he’s an alcoholic, a drug addict or what since he’s still functioning, but he always finds a way for some woman to pay for something for him. One buys him alcohol,another will buy him concert tickets, another drinks and lunch. And I think he is half thinking in that he knows how to get things, however, I do feel like his nonchalance has to do with the addiction. He’s someone with pride, but it would take a lot of putting your pride aside to take so much from other people and give them absolutely nothing but your personality. Except with me, he’s stopped even giving me that, and I don’t know if I can take it anymore.
He also thinks the world owes him. Pluto is also transiting his 8th house, so I see a bleak near future for him since Pluto takes and kills. And I’m trying to find free clinics in the area, but I really don’t know what to do. I don’t even know if ignoring him is the right thing to do. Maybe approaching him with clinic options the next time we meet if I can? It’s just so weird-I kind of deflate around him. I have no energy. And I just don’t know enough about the situation, I guess, since I tend to believe what my friends say and also project my own lack of addictive personality.
Gloria, not only was that excellent, but today I went to the funeral of a 28-year-old addict. A boy who is exactly your age, and was clean for 3 years, took an Rx for a legitimate pain, found it didn’t help him, and decided to use one more time. Died on Saturday.
I’m sure you have heard many stories like this and your keen writing sounds like someone who really understands. My own sister is this age and went through this. Your description of the way you felt during addiction really helps me, because I can understand better why she was the way she was. She is in so much of a better place today and I’m so glad to read your writing because I hope she can write the same thing today and someday in the future.
No one, no family should have to go through what I saw today.
Interesting, Elsa, that you with Neptune on your MC (as I do) get involved with questions of alcoholism. I actually posted the other day on Monica’s blog a comment on the subject. This was after the visit I had from a friend who could no get off the plane, admittedly after a 10 hour flight.
I know from my own experience, having Mars opposing my natal Moon, that periodically I get into a “binge phase”, i.e. I indulge in drink, delicious food (the two go together)and then my doctors blame me for not controling my cholesterol!
Having practiced astrology as an amateur for 30 years or so, having been married to a lady who was rapidly sinking into a serious drinking problem and often trying to help friends (mostly parents with kids having a drug problem) for many years now, astrologically that is, I can from experience say the following:
Drug problems in general are related to some severe stress of natal position/aspects received by the Moon or Neptune (the Moon’s higher vibration). While I have Mars opposing my natal Moon, the friend who drank to much on his flight from Spain to S’ao Paulo has Mars opposing Neptune. Others I know who “have to control themselves” have Saturn predominant but severly aspected by the Moon (also conjunct), Pisces inhabited by a disharmonious stellium and Neptune stressed by Mars, Saturn, Uranus.
Extending by extrapolation from my personal experience and astrological insights gained over the years, one effective way of helping, both the “patient and who cares about him/her”, is to give a time-frame of how long a difficult fase may last. Or even to give a definite (see the risks involved!) idea if it’s a “lost case”. But then one at least has helped one of the two!
Life sure is not easy, but it also offers opportunity to be of assistance, even using the stars for the purpose.
Lots of great information here.
I have way too much experience with this from my teenage son. Of course we didn’t give him alcohol or drugs, but we gave him rides to and from the center of town giving him money tobuy a sandwich when we questionned if he was really using it to eat. On a certain level, it was easier to just give in and ignore the little voices in our heads than to have him create all sorts of drama at home.
He saw us as a means to an end – that was it. In counseling, he referred to us as “rodents”. He never had any bad feelings about using us or anyone else – if he did, he would have just used more to escape that bad feeling.
One of the hardest decisions we ever made was to let him suffer the consequences of the legal system for his drug abuse. I still worry that he will never forgive us, or understand why we didn’t fight for his freedom, but I do believe he is working through his addiction and doesn’t hate us anymore.
((gloria))
i can only imagine the willpower it takes to climb out of a place like that. and the knowledge you bring with you _is_ valuable.
I like your input Gloria. Thank you for sharing 🙂
We think you are awesome! You helped us get a fix. Later if/when we quit we will might see you as a a bad influence, or someone to avoid.
I don’t really know how to add an astrological angle to it, I think it’s just how people operate. Drugs or booze to an addict is like food for a regular person. If you run out you will canibalise your friends a la Donner party
Very well said.
Yeah, I kind of figured alcoholics lose respect for those who enable them. They see them as handy–that’s it.