Hugs and love back to all of you. The words of support mean a lot. I feel a huge freedom, I feel like I now have permission to live my own life.
I only pray that I will be able to hold onto this feeling if/when the "bad times" start up again. (I fear that she might lose her apartment, and I will be the only person between her and living on the streets - I pray I will never be put in that position, because I don't know what I would do)
I have told her she can't stay/sleep at my place any more. There were complaints from the other tenants about the noise she was making late at night. I decided I wasn't going to allow her behaviour to have me evicted from my own apartment. When I told her she had to go to her own apartment and stay there from now on, she threatened to go there and drink. I calmly replied: "If that's what you decide to do, there is nothing I can do to stop it".
I told her I was practicing loving detachment and she accused me of not caring about her. I told her I love her very much but she could not stay at my place any more, and I really meant it!
Look at the options - one option is that I continue to make life easy for her and she continues to drink, having no motivation to do the hard work of recovery. At the rate her disease is progressing, that will surely kill her.
The other option is that I stop making things easy for her, and allow her to make her own mistakes, and learn from them. That option is also frightening, because she could possibly drink herself to death. But at least with this scenario, she has a chance for recovery, and life. This is the harder path for a mother - to stand by while my only child suffers the effects of this disease, and do nothing, but it is the only way she will have a chance in the long run, God help me.
Much love to all of you.
Robina