Mom relapsed after long sobriety
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 2
Mom relapsed after long sobriety
I'm 28, and an only child. My mom is almost 63. When I was growing up she was a heavy alcoholic/illegal drug abuser. Around 1993 she became completely clean and sober and active in AA. Around 2001 she stopped going to AA but continued being clean. After about two years, she became heavily addicted to ambiens - she would doctor shop, get multiple prescriptions and order them through those shady online pharmacies. She would work during the week but pop pills on the weekend. This ultimately led to my parents divorce.
Fast forward to 2011/12, she is still big on ambiens and God knows what else (she'll go through a bottle of 30 in a few days) and has started drinking beer, not to mention eating nothing but fast food and gaining loads of weight. She also has bouts of depression from the divorce. She is mixing ambien and alcohol. She'll stumble out of the house to go to the store or walk her dog and fall flat on her face. She just crashed her car, again, so at least I know she won't be driving for a while.
She has a support network of friends who care deeply about her. She is very active when she wants to be, does a lot of traveling, hangs out with her friends, etc. Her friends also notice what's going on with her.
I stayed over her house last night to make sure she went to work today - she went in and supposedly her boss told her to take the rest of the week off because she looked sick. So she went straight back home and drank some more today, after she promised me she wouldn't.
I need to know what I can do to help my mom. My mom is not in denial. She knows she has a problem and needs help. She has lots of friends who are recovering alcoholics and addicts, but when the opportunity to go to a meeting comes up, she has a million excuses why she can't go. I know a detox center would be ideal but if she is out of work for a long time I can't imagine her keeping her job. She might be able to do a two-week thing, if there are any such programs. It's easy to say I should live my life and wait for her to actually want help, but I can't idly sit by and let her continue down a road of self-destruction. She will kill herself or someone else. I'm in the NYC area if anyone knows if any programs.
Thanks for listening.
Fast forward to 2011/12, she is still big on ambiens and God knows what else (she'll go through a bottle of 30 in a few days) and has started drinking beer, not to mention eating nothing but fast food and gaining loads of weight. She also has bouts of depression from the divorce. She is mixing ambien and alcohol. She'll stumble out of the house to go to the store or walk her dog and fall flat on her face. She just crashed her car, again, so at least I know she won't be driving for a while.
She has a support network of friends who care deeply about her. She is very active when she wants to be, does a lot of traveling, hangs out with her friends, etc. Her friends also notice what's going on with her.
I stayed over her house last night to make sure she went to work today - she went in and supposedly her boss told her to take the rest of the week off because she looked sick. So she went straight back home and drank some more today, after she promised me she wouldn't.
I need to know what I can do to help my mom. My mom is not in denial. She knows she has a problem and needs help. She has lots of friends who are recovering alcoholics and addicts, but when the opportunity to go to a meeting comes up, she has a million excuses why she can't go. I know a detox center would be ideal but if she is out of work for a long time I can't imagine her keeping her job. She might be able to do a two-week thing, if there are any such programs. It's easy to say I should live my life and wait for her to actually want help, but I can't idly sit by and let her continue down a road of self-destruction. She will kill herself or someone else. I'm in the NYC area if anyone knows if any programs.
Thanks for listening.
Member
Join Date: Jan 2010
Posts: 951
Hi Toastmaster and Welcome to Sober Recovery. Glad you found the forum. So sorry to read what you are going through with your Mom. I know it is gut-wrenching.
"It's easy to say I should live my life and wait for her to actually want help, but I can't idly sit by and let her continue down a road of self-destruction."
No one actually says this because it is easy to do. In fact, I think it is harder. But it seems to be the only thing that works and gets us through.
"She will kill herself or someone else."
It's true, she might. Once I accepted the options for my loved one things became a little easier each day. What you don't want to do, is let yourself be taken down with the ship. You can't control her outcome, but you do have control over your own.
I hope you will stick around and keep posting + read the stickies at the top of this forum. They really help.
~ Hanna
"It's easy to say I should live my life and wait for her to actually want help, but I can't idly sit by and let her continue down a road of self-destruction."
No one actually says this because it is easy to do. In fact, I think it is harder. But it seems to be the only thing that works and gets us through.
"She will kill herself or someone else."
It's true, she might. Once I accepted the options for my loved one things became a little easier each day. What you don't want to do, is let yourself be taken down with the ship. You can't control her outcome, but you do have control over your own.
I hope you will stick around and keep posting + read the stickies at the top of this forum. They really help.
~ Hanna
Member
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: Australia
Posts: 436
Hi Toastmaster and welcome,
When I first went to an Al-anon meeting, I expected to either find a bunch of people sitting around bitching about their alcoholic person or even maybe some people who could tell me what they did to get their alcoholic person dry. Neither happened and I quickly learnt about the principle of not being able to help, enabling and it being totally down to them to find recovery. It took a while to get my head around that. Of course we want to 'help' our love ones get sober and it feels alien to know that you are doing more damage than good, by doing so.
You are taking on such a heavy load and burden on such young shoulders at a time of your life when you should be 'living' and enjoying your life. Your AM (alcoholic mum) has agreed to go to the hospital with a little bit of convincing - this may turn out to be a band aid solution to a huge problem. Your mum may be so sick with her desease that she feels pressured by you to go, to make you happy and because she doesnt want sobriety badly enough for herself yet, relapse may be inevitable. (thats if she even gets there)
Alcoholism is such a vile desease, it not only involves drinking, there is denial, blameshifting, changes in behaviour and thinking (which is a huge stumbling block). Unfortunately, your mum is going to have to fight this desease with all she can muster and that will come from deep inside her, when she has had enough of the drink, her current lifestyle, the things going wrong for her, when she reaches her bottom and has nowhere else to turn. All the time you are 'helping' her you are patching her up and making things ok for her, whilst living a life yourself full of worry, anxiety and panic.
As I said, it is a completly alien concept to stop enabling, to let her desease go, so that she can see how bad it is for herself.
I strongly recommend that you start reading all you can get your hands on to do with alcoholism. There is a thread above somewhere that has links to many good books that really do help. I also recommend that you get yourself to Al-anon, where you will relate to others having very similar feelings and struggles as you and those that have come out through the other side.
You are too young to let your mum drag you down, whilst you are trying to hold her up. Please look after yourself.
When I first went to an Al-anon meeting, I expected to either find a bunch of people sitting around bitching about their alcoholic person or even maybe some people who could tell me what they did to get their alcoholic person dry. Neither happened and I quickly learnt about the principle of not being able to help, enabling and it being totally down to them to find recovery. It took a while to get my head around that. Of course we want to 'help' our love ones get sober and it feels alien to know that you are doing more damage than good, by doing so.
You are taking on such a heavy load and burden on such young shoulders at a time of your life when you should be 'living' and enjoying your life. Your AM (alcoholic mum) has agreed to go to the hospital with a little bit of convincing - this may turn out to be a band aid solution to a huge problem. Your mum may be so sick with her desease that she feels pressured by you to go, to make you happy and because she doesnt want sobriety badly enough for herself yet, relapse may be inevitable. (thats if she even gets there)
Alcoholism is such a vile desease, it not only involves drinking, there is denial, blameshifting, changes in behaviour and thinking (which is a huge stumbling block). Unfortunately, your mum is going to have to fight this desease with all she can muster and that will come from deep inside her, when she has had enough of the drink, her current lifestyle, the things going wrong for her, when she reaches her bottom and has nowhere else to turn. All the time you are 'helping' her you are patching her up and making things ok for her, whilst living a life yourself full of worry, anxiety and panic.
As I said, it is a completly alien concept to stop enabling, to let her desease go, so that she can see how bad it is for herself.
I strongly recommend that you start reading all you can get your hands on to do with alcoholism. There is a thread above somewhere that has links to many good books that really do help. I also recommend that you get yourself to Al-anon, where you will relate to others having very similar feelings and struggles as you and those that have come out through the other side.
You are too young to let your mum drag you down, whilst you are trying to hold her up. Please look after yourself.
Member
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: Anchorage, Alaska
Posts: 4,719
Welcome Toastmaster! Good luck on the visit to the detox center. Keep us posted on the progress.
What your Mom has in her favor is a history of life clean and sober. She already knows the way; she just hasn't reached the point yet where she wants to go down that road (or maybe this is that first step...hoping it is for her sake) so in that respect you are leaps and bounds ahead of many here whose loved ones are hip deep in denial.
Take care of yourself, too. It's easy to lose ourselves in their disease. Keep coming back!
~T
What your Mom has in her favor is a history of life clean and sober. She already knows the way; she just hasn't reached the point yet where she wants to go down that road (or maybe this is that first step...hoping it is for her sake) so in that respect you are leaps and bounds ahead of many here whose loved ones are hip deep in denial.
Take care of yourself, too. It's easy to lose ourselves in their disease. Keep coming back!
~T
Member
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Tucson
Posts: 71
I'm glad for both of you that shes thinking of getting help again.
You said she has a support net of caring friends; I hope they also know shes going and throw some of that support out to both of you now.
Good luck and best wishes.
You said she has a support net of caring friends; I hope they also know shes going and throw some of that support out to both of you now.
Good luck and best wishes.
Currently Active Users Viewing this Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
