NoEgoAmigo, your post is ringing so many bells for me. My mom didn't abuse alcohol until she met her second husband, who was a 'recovering' alcoholic. After he died, she started drinking heavily in her late sixties. I am continually perplexed when I describe myself as an Adult Child of an Alcoholic. And I try to cut myself some slack for not seeing the signs of her booze and pill abuse until the addiction had most certainly taken hold.
Sometimes I wonder if I cut off contact too quickly - if I had known more about addiction I could have offered the RIGHT kind of help, instead of running around trying to help but unbeknownst to me at the time, helping in all the wrong ways. Until the situation became so toxic and abusive I had to get out. She even admitted she had to drink less a few times but I didn't realize, then, that she could just use willpower to do it. I thought she could just NOT go to the store. I couldn't even figure out then how she was getting there.. she couldn't walk or drive... I later learned her neighbor was making runs for her out of pity.
Everything you said about not letting yourself get sucked in, about them getting a kind of high off it is so true... but my mom was like that before addiction, too. She was sent to rehab a few times by a professional organization, and she skipped out on it.
I can't tell from your post... is your mom still around?