Originally Posted by
Mandjas 
Dear Mom
I wanted to take the time to write to you and be honest about my thoughts and feelings. I have taken a step back to have time to evaluate the situation and think about what is the best plan of action for my family.
You may think that I am punishing you or that I hate you but the plain truth is I love you and sincerely care about your mental, emotional and physical health. One thing I have come to realise is that I cannot control you or your actions and that I cannot force you to do anything you don’t want to do. In fact I am probably not aiding your recovery by forcing my opinions and beliefs about how to get well and sober.
I am not blaming you for anything, as I know you have a terrible disease and to see you battle your illness is very upsetting and sad for the people around you, especially knowing that are powerless to help.
I know you love Sammy as much as I do and I know that you would want more than anything for him to be happy and safe at all times – as both Jason and I do. We don’t want to have to worry anymore about whether you have been drinking or not, whether you and dad will fight over drinking in front of him or not. Sammy picks up on everything at the moment and is sensitive to what is going on. He told me 3 times on Sunday afternoon that you were shouting at each other and he had to tell you off twice. It is making me ill with worry and I have to consider my health and my family’s health and happiness over everything else.
I can guarantee you that you will always have a warm welcome in my life when you are well and sober but it is too upsetting to continue to see what you are doing to yourself and your relationships with your family.
As a result while you are drinking, we choose to remove ourselves from the situation. We would rather have Sammy missing you than put at risk or upset in anyway. And I would rather be ‘detached’ than worry about the situation to the detriment of my own health and happiness.
I will have to rely on yours and dads honesty to let us know when you are ready to spend time with us again but I do hope that will be soon.
Amanda
This letter sounds pretty reasonable to me as long as you are confident that refraining from continued contact with her is what you need to do. Being that you no longer trust that she won't be honest with her drinking (she lies about drinking--typical of an alcoholic), you cannot rely on her being responsible for the care of your son. Also this hurts you emotionally and has damaged ur relationship w/ ur mom so you need some time to heal. Maybe, after you have taken some time apart from the situation of your mom for a while, when you are strong enough you may opt for short supervised/sober visits with your mom. That, however is totally up to you. I'm to the point with my mom that I dont' feel like she has earned that. When I lived out of state 2000 miles away, she came on a plane to see me and my first newborn child. Keep in mind that this had been 4 years since I had physicaly seen her. She promised she would not drink or smoke for the entire visit which was 4 days long. This would be considered a stretch for her b/c all my life, my mother has drank and smoke every single night. However, I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt and allow her to see my first child. At that time I thought, maybe she see what a joy Naila is and it will inspire her to stop drinking. Much to my detriment, that was not the case at all. Not only did I have to deal with a woman who was sweating, shaking, cussing about anythings she could think of, she went into my medicine cabinet and took all of my postpartum medication that was prescribed to me (for some reason I was prescribed oxycodone for pain b/c I had tore during delivery...which I only took 1 time and didn't care for it and didn't want the baby to ingest it with the breast milk). She said she "accidentally took the wrong bottle of medicine thinking it was ibuprofen. I said, 11 pills?" How do you accidentally take 11 pills in 2 days. She just looked at me dumfounded w/ no answer. I was so angry adn in hindsight should have called the police on her for doing that. My postpartum period after she left was very difficult. It had been 4 years since I had seen my mother and that was the welcome I get? It was horrible. That is why I am VERY reluctant to allow her to see my 3rd newborn. I'm not going to go through that again. She's burned her bridge with me as far as I'm concerned.
Anyway, with my mom, I wrote her similar letters when I first began my plan of detachment and she would try so hard to convince me that she no longer was drinking anymore (this was on the phone and I could tell she was lying b/c I know her drunk voice a mile away). Sadly, sometimes I even believed it....and it took me a long time to stick to my boundaries and course of action.
Hang in there...and I hope the best for you, your family, and your mum. :praying