chrissy81

I originally posted here a couple of years back, but then stopped, probably because it was too depressing, and at the time, I thought things were actually going to start getting better, but they haven't. My 61 year old mother has had a drinking problem for the past decade. She and my dad were not big drinkers when we were children (my dad still is not), and alcohol never made a regular appearance in our house until my sister and I were in college and of legal drinking age. She doesn't need it to function (ie, doesn't get up in the morning and drinks) but does it to deal with all of her emotional problems. The short version is that her drinking, we think, was precipitated by the death of her sister and concurrent the realization that both of her children were only going to move further away and never going to be her "babies" again. The drinking progressed from about 2006 to 2010 and then seemed to be okay, but then there was another incident in 2012. I have not lived at home since 1999 and rarely visit these days, so I don't know what it's like at home, but she is retired and is alone most of the day, so who only knows what she's up to. I am certain that the alcohol is starting to damage her brain; she has become overly obsessed with the family dogs, constantly gushing over them; basically, they have replaced us as something she can infantalize. She pretty much hates me now, as my sister has always been her favorite and I have been more strict in my trying to limit contact with her during the bad years for my own sanity. She still loves my sister but is now resentful that she is engaged, and is simultaneously happy and sad about it, so now she's back to drinking again.

She is down here "visiting" my sister for two weeks helping her clean her house to get ready to sell it (sister and her fiance are buying a house together) and my sister is convinced that my mom has been drinking while she (sister) is at work. We think she starts to lose it around late afternoon, as emails from her tend to be more frequent at this hour and are not always typed with correct punctuation (which is odd for my mother). My poor dad has basically given up trying to do anything about it, and honestly, I don't blame him. But something still needs to be done - she tried therapy and AA for awhile, but of course, she quit those because for whatever made-up reason, they "didn't work". I hope she knows that if my sister has kids, my mother will never be allowed to be left alone with them - as it is we're concerned about her being home alone all day at her own house with her dogs, or alone in my sister's house with my sister's dogs this week. She's developed arthritis in her knee, and so she has medication for the pain, so that's a whole other problem, and I am waiting for the day that I get a phone call that she's been killed in a car wreck. Those thoughts had stopped for awhile, because it seemed like things were getting better and I've been busy starting a second Masters degree and changing careers, but now it's all back again.

I know there's nothing I can 'do', I know I can't force her to get help, but I also can't let her kill herself, or endanger the lives of others (even if those others are just pets).