pattyj

I have an extremely hard time being around my mom. She is an alcoholic, just like me and many others in our family. She looks awful although she tires to hide it and even had a face lift but you can't hide alcoholism with that. She drinks every night in secret, I know that because I lived with my parents for the first year of my sobriety so that I could get back on my feet. She seems as though she has trouble thinking when I try to have a discussion with her and she rarely remembers important things when I want to talk about them later. She obsesses about tiny things that we have talked about years ago. And I can't call her on the phone after 4pm because that is just a disaster. I used to have a very close bond with my ex's mom. I have a mother/daughter relationship with my boss, I'm a teacher and she is the principal. I don't respect my mom at all because she won't help herself nor did she try to help me when she knew what I was going through as an alcoholic. She was afraid that her secret would come out.
I don't really know what I am asking for here. Just needed to vent. See if anyone has experienced this type of relationship with someone close. I guess that, as an adult, I expected to be friends with my mom or look up to her. I don't even what to be around her. I have excepted that she is who she is and will never change. But I also have to have boundaries for myself because I have the disease as well and will do anything to stay sober, even if it means not being around people who used to trigger me. I quit seeing many friends because they were triggers, why is my mom any different?

Anna

Your Mom is different because it's your Mom. I am so sorry that she isn't the mother she should be for you. My mother was an alcoholic too and I tried for years and years to make her love me. It was something I was determined to achieve, even into my thirties. Of course, it never happened, because she was self-involved and had nothing to give to me. I had to detach to save myself. It was my boundary and it was excellent. We lived far apart so that wasn't a problem and I would have a brief phone call every couple of weeks with her, never telling her anything important that was going on in my life.

What saved me was understanding that it wasn't about me and my failures as a daughter. It was about her, all about her.

Alynn

So sorry... This is my biggest reason to stop though. Ive always waited till she was in bed or with my husband to drink. I can't continue though and have her see me like that.

Do you think she would get on here or go to a meeting? Does she know she has a problem or how you feel?

PurpleKnight

I never had a typical father/son relationship with my dad, my parents got divorced when I was growing up and it was all caused by my dad's alcoholism.

Then as I became an adult I sought out some sort of relationship with him, but like you I never really even built a friendship, he became more of an acquaintance, bordering on loose friendship, but there just wasn't enough there in the end, I found it very frustrating, continuing to put the effort in but having very little to show for it, because at the end of the day alcohol took priority in my dad's life on a daily basis.

In the end, alcoholism ended my dad's life, he never changed, never expressed remorse for causing the breakup of a family, never admitted he even had a problem with alcohol. It was then I had to make peace with myself, my dad was an adult and he made his own choices in life, there was nothing anyone could have done, there was only so much hinting and commenting that I or anyone could have done.

I think accepting that our parents, in having an addiction, are who they are, is important, I was able to let my dad go and not be burdened, we must detach ourselves and live our own lives in the recognition that if they never change then as children, at the end of the day we are not responsible for another person's addiction, regardless of whether that person is a parent or not.

Impurrfect

My story resembles purpleknight's. I'm a recovering addict and was watching my stepmother descend deep into pill addiction.

I was living with her and dad (a major codie) for several years, and had to detach. She hated me the last 6 months of her life, as I told her she was killing herself. I did CPR on her when I found her, but it was too late.

Though she was not my mom, who was my best friend and died of a heart condition decades ago, she was a woman I loved dearly, despite all her shortcomings.

Though I felt initial guilt at detaching from her, it was "let go or be dragged" and I'm not going back there.

Hugs and prayers,

Amy

Soberwolf

me and my dad relationship is a totrured one i completly relate

Soberpotamus

My story is very similar to Anna's. It is your mom's alcoholism that keeps you from having a good relationship. It's taking me a while to accept that there's nothing I could've done to help things, and my mother passed away in 2010. I didn't want to end up like my mom, my mom didn't want me to end up like her, and yet I ended up an alcoholic and finally had to quit. I don't want to die like her. I had to set a hard boundary back in 2009. No more contact. It was making me crazy. I needed to move on with my life. My mom never understood and didn't handle it well. She died eight months later, and I still wonder if her death was my fault. It wasn't! She died because of her addiction.

There's nothing more I wanted than to have a good relationship with my mother. And now I'm having to learn to live with knowing that just isn't possible.

I hope you find some peace and direction regarding your mom. No matter what, take care of you!

aasharon90

I tried in so many ways to be the daughter
my mom wanted me to be. I tried to please
her with ever inch of our family's house I
cleaned. It was immaculate inside and out
and yet it was never enough. Her sickness
with alcohol and prescription meds made
her have a distorted view of me inside and
out.

With each welp she inflicted on me causing
me physical pain, her voice was verbal and
emotional abuse I finally left her at about
19 to begin my own journey in life.

I looked toward many women in my
life as my adopted moms, the women
whom I wished could have been my real
mom.

Of course I was affected by the way she
treated me and thus drank till I was 30
trying to numb the emotional pain of reliving
and escaping my childhood.

When I entered recovery, I began to incorporate
the steps and principles in my everyday life
and towards many of my issues that held me
bondage within myself. Eventually I let go
of past resentments I harbored for so long
towards my mom and in order for me to continue
to get healthy in my own life, I had to cut the
ties, divorce myself from my family of orgin
that was sick.

I accepted the fact that I can no longer change
the very parents that brought me into the world
and place them into the Hands of the Man upstairs.

Today, im free and healthy in my recovery
life with no contact with them as sad as it
may sound, but for me, I have to take care
of my own self and protect my recovery with
every step I take.

Forgive, let go, move on, be happy, we all
deserve it.

pattyj

Oh my goodness. Thank you for the responses. It feels nice to know that I am not alone. My biggest problem is the fact that my mom and I are exactly alike. As I got into recovery I realized that I was becoming my mother. I saw myself in her. After over a year of sobriety later, whenever I see my mom I see my previous self and that has become harder and harder for me to be around. And she doesn't understand that for me to be a healthy adult I have to distance myself from anything that can harm my progress. I plan to go into some counseling again. That really seems to help. But also knowing that there are others out there with this same situation is great. I think the first step in distancing myself will be the hardest to do. Thanks again!