emilyatheart

I'm 53 and have a 72 year old mother whom I love very much. But her alcoholism is out of control. She will probably die soon and it breaks my heart. Especially because she is still young enough to enjoy life (our family lives to be about 95-99 generally). She is drinking all day most days. I found a half empty bottle in her handbag in her car when I went to help her get her keys out of her locked vehicle for the third time in 2 months. She lost a lot of money these past few years from the economy, poor management, etc. I believe this is what caused her alcoholism to spiral so out of control. I notice she is becoming demented and not thinking clearly. She can no longer afford her house yet is feeding stray cats outside her front door to the point of becoming obsessed with them. She smells like a brewery all the time and has stopped seeing my daughter, her favorite grandchild, whom she helped me raise as I was a single parent. That child is graduating with her Masters degree next month and my mother could care less. She tells me she wishes everyone would leave her alone and she said she wants to die and see her mother (this is said during her drunken stupors but when sober she still says she wants to die). I've offered treatment, suggested anit-depressants, help sorting through her bills to come up with options for her home (to stay or to sell) but she'll doesn't want my help. It doesn't bother her at all that I am heartbroken or when I tell her that I will miss her terribly. She use to be so lovely with a soft voice, so beautiful that men still stared at her in public. Everything has faded now and she would prefer to drink or smoke rather than eat or spend time with her family. My brother and sister have given up on her and stay away - they are very very angry. Her once pretty home is a disaster with dried catfood all over the counters. It's dusty and it smells terrible. She still works parttime at a shop but I don't know how she manages to fool everyone there or perhaps they know. She has had heart problems in the past and although she still takes her meds she hasn't seen her cardiologist in 3 years - she claims it's because she owes him money. It's a train wreck that I'm watching. While I'm at work, I worry the phone will ring and it will be because she is dead. She won't answer the phone and only calls me when she needs a ride or help with her car or wants me to read a piece of mail that she doesn't understand. I went to my first Al Anon meeting the other day and couldn't speak because I couldn't stop crying. I did buy "The Courage to Change" which I am reading constantly and do find comfort in. There doesn't appear to be anything I can do as she obviously doesn't care what I want. My daughter misses her grandmother but feels that if she doesn't want to see her, to hell with her. I wish I could get angry too but I feel profound sadness. I know it's a tale as old as time and I am certainly a grown woman who should have a life of her own but I cannot stop thinking about the wonderful times we use to have shopping, traveling, talking on the phone. She was such as support for me during my divorce many years ago. I know that she cannot live much longer like this and I will always love her.

GingerM

Grieving for the loss of a loved one is a painful process. Unfortunately, it is one that you will need to go through - and I don't mean after your mom is dead, I mean now. You have lost "your" mother - the mother you knew who was "so lovely with a soft voice." That person no longer exists.

It is an unfortunate truth that when the alcoholic goes completely off the deep end, they are lost to us, and there is nothing we can do to bring them back unless they can see what they're doing and they decide to stop.

My mother is dead to me. She has been for some number of years now. I used to have a mother, highly dysfunctional and toxic as she was. Now there is a shell of a human who sort of looks like my mother, but doesn't behave like her.

You love the mother you had. The woman who now takes her place is not your mother. The overwhelming sadness you feel is grief at having lost her. I would guess that underneath the anger that your siblings and your daughter feel is also a tremendous amount of sadness and grief.

If you label the grief for what it is, and if you can accept that this woman isn't your mom but some new person living in your mom's body, it can help with processing the pain. I won't say it's easy, but it's much more difficult if you keep thinking that she's still the way she used to be. Each time you see her then, you will be let down yet again.

emilyatheart

Thank you Ginger, your response means a lot to me. And the concept of looking at this in terms of a body-snatching is very helpful. I never thought of that but it is like something took her a way and she is no more the mother I knew. I guess I do have to lower my expectations. I guess the alcoholism is far bigger than I ever imagined. She use to care very much when I was upset but now my tears and pleadings don't even register with her. She just shrugs her shoulders and says, "I can't live forever you know". I hope I never do that to my daughter. I'm angry too but you are probably right, I am grieving. I just never realized how much like fear grieving feels. Thanks you again.

guiab

Emilyatheart,
Ginger's response reminded me of my own mother's demise. In the last year of her life she developed diabetes from her drinking. Periodically she blacked out or shook terribly. My alcoholic father was providing medical care, but in truth I think they had no functioning relationship. I don't recall any substantial conversations with her in the last year of her life - she was focused on being very sad, essentially a martyr, without hope. And like your mom she had been a striking beautiful woman. In many ways she had been more articulate and smarter than my father, a physician.
But in retrospect, I know - I couldn't control it, I couldn't cure it, and I didn't cause it. By making no choice but to stay stuck in her misery, she was making a choice to stay stuck in her misery. It was a unfortunate, but I have learned that the essential dignity of any human, the one thing that we must respect, is each person's right to decide his or her own fate, no matter how obviously bad that fate may be (short of an active suicide attempt). My responsibility is only to be there if if a person decides that they need help - to have my hand out but not to grab.

Your mother knows your hand is out to help but is refusing to take that offer. You know you care, and that is important.

emilyatheart

Thank you. That's incredible that your experience is mirroring mine. I am very naive about alcoholism I guess. I just never thought her life would end this way. Her drinking was always sporatic and then she would stop for many years. Now it is coming fast and furious. It's every night and she simply will not listen to our pain - it's like she doesn't love us anymore. My daughter is far more pragmatic (If she doesn't want to see me anymore, I don't want to see her!). I am just simply, sad. I am having flashbacks of better times - such as a cruise we all went on a few years ago. Tonight she told my brother "Do you know what it's like being me right now?" She won't even try. I'm trying to take care of myself, reading "The Courage to Change" which I find very soothing.

Funny, I am also focusing on moments that occurred recently that made her very human to me such as how I had to tell her at a wedding in December to use her napkin and wipe her mouth. I don't know why that moment is making me so sad but it is. It is hard to let her go. Or let go of the dream of her. But like your mother, GUIAB, I am slowly realizing there is nothing I can do.

Thank you...

guiab

EmilyatHeart,
Thanks for the compliment! The name reflects the shape of the house I did grow up in.
Its fortunate that my mom's sad story can be helpful to you. I hope you can use it and your readings to keep a focus on your sanity and maintaining love with detachment for your mom. I love 'Courage to Change' and I also got a lot of help from 'Hope for Today' and 'From Survival to Recovery'. Yes that makes me a bit of an alanon purist, but I am easily distracted and it helps me to stick to one program. So read what you find to be helpful. I think there may be a reading list in the stickies or somewhere around SR!
Congrads to your daughter on the masters!

least

Dear Emilyatheart;

I am so sorry for the loss of your mom. I was an alcoholic mom for a couple years and have been struggling to stay sober for a while. Your story strengthened my resolve to stay sober so as not to put my kids thru that hell.

I have heard it said that some must die so that others may live. That sounds kind of cold to me, but it's true. You have helped me want to stay sober (I've got over 100 days now after numerous periods of sobriety in the last two years) and I can never thank you enough for helping me by sharing your sorrow.

I hope you and your daughter can come to grips with this and find some peace in your lives.

(((hugs)))

emilyatheart

as to be expected. I have spent hours and hours sorting through her bills this spring and helping her with Medicare which she weeps to me that she doesn't understand. If she were sober and not having DT's she would be able to figure it out. My brother said to her yesterday "Emily, XXX and XXX (my other brother and sister) think that you are going to die soon". And Mom's reply was, "What do they care!". When my brother told me about this exchange I was so upset. Out of all us kids, I'm the one who has stayed with her the most. I am the last to let go. How could she say that about me when I am so clearly heartbroken to lose her. She's gone already.

She blames her finances, her house falling into disrepair, the cold world at large, even her wrinkles and aging. I've told her I love her over and over. But she won't stop drinking. My brother told her the next time he picks her up off the floor or finds her fall down drunk, he is going to call 911. He asked if I would support him and I told him absolutely. In my heart, I don't believe it will do any good at all. She seems to despise us all. She looks horrible, so thin, so frail. I'm waiting for the call from the police, fire department, my brother, a neighbor.