Originally Posted by
dothi 
It sounds like she's still pitching it onto you - that her not coming is YOUR fault ("because you're not letting her into your life"), instead of her own fault for failing to take responsibility for herself. She's reinforcing the message that you have no right to have your own personal boundaries from her.
I hear ya, reverse. I've made many of these deals with my own alcoholic father. The problem that comes with it though, is that usually I'm the only one aware of this deal that I've made with him. To confront the alcoholic and say, "can't you see I'm trying to give you a chance here?" is only going to lead to disappointment and failed expectations. Seriously what do you think your mom would say if you said this plainly to her. "What are you talking about?" (denial) "Why would you do that to your own parent?" (blame, guilt) "What kind of daughter are you?" (shame) etc. etc. etc.
The thing you are least likely to get is, "This must be really important to you if you feel that our relationship is at stake." (acknowledgement)
Your bargain you have made alone will not change your mom or make her take responsibility. Why should she when she cannot see the consequence - namely you progressively withdrawing from her life.
A bargain like that is easy to make because it's side-stepping the real issue - that you are unhappy with her drinking. It's easy to make because you don't really have to let her know how you really feel (and then be directly punished for it). You don't have to face how much more important your mom's alcohol-conjured reality is to you. You're sheltering your feelings this way. And it's tough to fault you because YES it is f&*^king painful to face how alcohol has become so much more important to our parent than everything else - including you.
I've did this dance many times with my dad before I got off the merry-go-round. It was making me insane because I kept putting these expectations on him and he kept on failing. Nothing changed until I reinforced this deal - then things changed for me. I didn't cause it, I can't fix it, and I can't control it. No more one-sided deals in my life, as all they ever did for me was give me more grief and stress. It sounds like this "bargain" is doing for same for you.
Thanks Dothi for your feedback; it truly helps. Yea, I knew that asking her to get her drivers license was going to go nowhere. Seems any expectation or standard i have goes no where fast b/c she can never do any wrong. I'm always the criminal the minute I don't do what she wants or let her get her way. Because I can't tolerate being in a relationship with someone like this who is supposed to be my mother, I feel very uncomfortable with just handing the title of "mother" and "grandma" over to her when she's done nothing to earn it. I still have feelings of guilt for not letting her see my newborn daughter, but I don't want to see her just so we can have a photo op and she can go home and brag to everyone about how great a grandma she is and live in this dream world. While in reality, she cares nothing about her family; only herself and her booze. I allowed her to see my first daughter when I lived in WA after not seeing her for 4 years and speaking very little to her. Then what does she do? She smokes in the hallway of my apartment (even tho she promised not to ahead of time b/c I told her I could get evicted from the landlord if that happened), she was complaing about people in the building, the laundry room, what size it was, spent most of her time there scratching lottery tickets and making meals, and to top it off...she took an entire bottle of my postpartum medication (oxycodone--why they prescribed it to me idk b/c it's a highly addictive drug--i only took it once postpartum b/c i was nursing my daughter and i didn't like how weird it made me feel--so the bottle had 11 pills left) and she deliberately told me she thought it was something else. I asked her...how do u take 11 pills in ONE DAY by accident? She just looked at me dumbfounded. To be honest...I don't think she deserves to even speak to me after all of the hell she has put me through since age 2. She is still trying to get me to reconcile with my stepfather who strangled me when I was 18 after I ran away from home and who made me sleep in the same bed with him from age 3 until 11. She's never been in her right mind so why should I be the "good" daughter and still allow her in my life when she is so TOXIC to me? It's disgusting.
anyway...thnx again for ur responses.