Long distance detachment?
Hi, I'm new to this forum. I discovered it today after feeling at wit's end as to what has been going on in the latest crisis episode of my family. My mother is an on and off again recovering alcoholic. My younger sister and her baby recently moved in with my mother, because my sister has been struggling to make end's meet. However, my mother is as well. My mother is unemployed and has been living off money my stepfather left behind when he passed away a few years ago. She has blown through most of it and just last week I had to send both of them money for groceries. My mother recently sold her nice car and was to pay off debts (she has liens on everything) with it. My sister reports my mom has instead holed herself up in a hotel with an alcoholic man and is just on a binge. While on this binge, her electricity at home was shut off. Thankfully, my sister found my mother's debit card and paid it off. My sister keeps calling me to report the latest details of this crisis. I had been giving her advice and trying to calm her down, but she seems stuck on thinking there's something she can do to fix my mother and the problems she's made.
I read through a bunch of postings on here and cried to see how many people have shared the same experiences and feelings as me. I am pregnant with my first child and am more aware now than ever that I really can't let the stress of their problems get to me so much. I feel my mother is going to die from this disease as she's had so many chances to live a life of recovery and does not. There are periods where she is sober and she's the loving kind mother I grew up with, but after those periods it hurts even more when she becomes the crazy beligerent uncaring alcoholic. I don't live in the same state as my mother (she chose to move several years ago, I believe, so she could return to drinking without anyone's watchful eyes), so we have a long-distance relationship. I am wondering though that if she comes back from this binge, if I should cut off contact with her for awhile. There's obviously not much leverage I have with her living so far away and not seeing her often, but I feel like I should tell her that I can't continue to even talk to her over the phone when she's not taking her sobriety seriously. Not sure what to say or do....