Hi people,
Well, it's been a long while since I posted, but, well, we were just getting on with things. Brief recap - my stepdaughter lives with me and her dad, mum is alcoholic, SD left when she was 12, been with us 4 years. Her mum went into rehab November 2013 for 6 weeks. Prior to that, SD hadn't had much contact. SD's mum left rehab in January 2014 and contact remained sporadic. SD had been really struggling with her mother's addiction and had, for her own sanity, cut herself off from her mother.
Jump ahead to August this year. SD was out and about in another town (we live 20 miles from her mother), and she saw her mother. Very very bravely, she decided to approach her. This was the first time she had seen her in 2.5 years, so it was incredibly brave of her to make that move. They chatted for a while, then her mum told her she'd bought a new iPhone for SD's half sibling, showed her a carrier bag full of stuff for him, and she told SD she would send her £50 in the mail. That was that, SD came home, told us what had happened and we were, genuinely, pleased and proud that she'd made the move herself. She said her mum looked okay, and she (SD) was hopeful that her mother had managed to remain sober. Later that evening, SD's mum sent her a text and said how nice it was to have seen SD, said again that she would send £50 and said she would keep up communications. She also told SD that she had "married" (not in the legal sense, but a hippy ceremony at Stonehenge on Summer Solstice) a guy, and named him. SD was a bit shocked, and annoyed that her mother hadn't told her this before, but seemed okay about it. My husband said "that name rings a bell (the name of SD's mum's "husband"), and then he realised - it was her heroin dealer way back when she was a heroin addict!!! He then did a bit of digging, and found out that this man was himself alcoholic and also dealt drugs. Nice. It then made sense why SD's mum seemed to have money, for the iPhone and to say to SD that she would send her some cash. She is on state benefits (she's never worked), so we did wonder where all this money had come from. A couple of weeks passed, and nothing arrived in the post - not that we expected it to of course. There was no communication from SD's mum, and still nothing after 4 weeks. Then, out of the blue, SD got a text from her mum asking if they could meet somewhere because she wanted to take her shopping. SD agreed, and they set a date. A couple of days before that date, SD decided to text her mum to confirm the time etc., and heard nothing back. The evening before she tried to call her mum, several times, and text, but there was no response. On the day itself, both my husband and I were at work, but had told her that if she didn't hear from her mum then she should just stay home and not travel to the town where they were meeting. I received a call at around 11am, from a very distraught SD saying her mother had text her to cancel as she'd "hurt" her ankle. She'd asked SD if they could meet the following day instead, which of course made the "hurt" ankle excuse pretty poor if it was suddenly going to be better the following day. So, we knew she was lying. Our advice to a very very upset 16 year old was not to give her another chance, but she decided that she wanted to. They arranged to meet the following week, and this time mum turned up. The first thing they did was go for a coffee, and whilst sitting drinking coffee, SD noticed her mum was shaking, a lot. She questioned her about it, and her mum said it was because she was nervous. SD said "I'm nervous too, but I'm not shaking. Are you still drinking?" Her mother replied that yes, she still had a drink "now and again", but it was just occasional and nothing to worry about. Now, SD was not stupid enough to believe that, but decided, after her mother showed her her bank account with almost £2k in it, to allow her mother to spend some money on her. That may sound a little wrong, but considering over the 4 years SD has lived with us we've not received a penny from this woman, we thought, when we were told, that that was fair enough.
SD arrived home after spending the afternoon with her mother. She didn't mention to begin with that her mother had admitted to drinking again. She showed us all the stuff her mother had bought her, totalling £70 (really? £2k in the bank? I was NOT impressed!), and then she completely broke down and told us her mum was still drinking. I have never ever seen her in such a state, and in that following week she had 4 more major breakdowns. She had been out of counselling for 9 months prior to that, and was doing well, really well. She had been confident, happy and was getting on with her life. Then, one afternoon with her mother and it was all undone. She is now back under the doctor and counsellor, and made the decision not to contact her mother again.
However, SD did not tell her mother she was upset about her drinking, and was struggling with it, so her mother did text her a couple of times but SD didn't respond. Then she got a text from her mother having a go at her for ignoring her texts!!!!! SD was raging, I was absolutely fuming and my husband wanted to go over and knock her lights out! I told SD I wanted to give her mother a piece of my mind, so she said "go for it". I did, and I told her some home truths. I told her SD was destroyed following her (unsurprising) revelation that she's still drinking, and asked her to leave SD alone and give her some peace. SD had told us that she's happiest when she's not thinking about her mum, so I told her mum this and said "if you love her you'll leave her alone and let her get on with her life". I didn't hear anything from her, and that was weeks ago now.
Poor SD, this is all so hard for her, and she really is better off without her mother in her life. She was kind of clinging on to the "drinking now and again", possibly for her own sanity, until she received a call from her half-brother yesterday (he's 11) saying that he'd found a bottle of Jack Daniels in their mother's bag.
There isn't much more to say really, except that if she's drinking spirits then it's worse than we thought. Prior to rehab she had been told her liver is so damaged that if she continues to drink she will die. I suspect that may happen now - but, if it does, then it will all be over
