TheMiddleSister

She'd been sober for nearly a year. My mom and I went (or rather, put ourselves) through eighteen months of hell after Sis's first DUI, and we really thought it was be really over.

I'm fighting a worsening cough on Sunday night when the phone rings. Sis is in jail after rear-ending an SUV while driving drunk. I can't get the cash for her bail until the banks open, and so I go over to feed her cat and find her place awash in empty bottles (all splits and miniatures - WTF is up with that?).

Monday morning, I drive to the other end of the county to bail her out. She's plenty sober by then, and the first thing she says to me is: "I am so sorry: I really f*cked up."

It seems like she is owning her choices and is prepared to take responsibility for the consequences of those choices.

Her car is drivable; but not safe or legal, and the repairs would cost more than her 1995 Toyota Corolla is worth. I take Sis out to get some groceries (she was returning from a weekend trip to see our Mom) even though I know that's an enabling behavior.

That night, my cough gets much worse and my temperature starts rising really fast, so I go to Urgent Care where I'm diagnosed with Walking Pneumonia. I get some Rx's for cough syrup and antibiotics, but after a day the cough is still getting worse. I call the doctor, and they give me an appointment for late Wednesday morning.

Then, just after midnight Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, I get a text from Sis: her ride to work in the morning has canceled at the last minute. She hates to ask, but would I please, please, please take her...?

Okay, that's classic enabling, and driving Sis to work is also the first step on the very slippery slope that I slid a very long way down last time. And I have walking pneumonia.

But her ride cancelling was out of Sis's control, and how many people can you call for a ride at half past midnight? Public transport is out: the first of the three busses she'd have to take doesn't run early enough for her to get to work on time. And she's been in enough trouble at work that she is in serious danger of losing her job if she's late.

So I set an alarm for 5:00 AM, drive 10 minutes over to my sister's, pick her up, drive 30 minutes the other direction to her work, and drive 20 minutes back home. Then I take a nap before going to my doctor appointment and learning that I no longer have Walking Pneumonia: I have just plain pneumonia-type Pneumonia.

I get Rx's for an inhaler and a new, stronger, antibiotic; but I can't pick them up because it's near the end of a financially strained month for me and I hadn't factored an expensive case of pneumonia into my spending plan.

But it happens that Sis owes me some money from a thing a couple weeks ago. So I go pick her up at work so I can drive her to the pharmacy so she can pay for my meds. Then she comes over to my place and washes the dishes and takes out the garbage and stuff while I rest a while, before I take her back to her place along with three bigs bags of laundry she's volunteered to do for me.

So far, (probably) so good.

Then last night (Thursday) I get a text from her about an hour after she gets off work:
"How are you feeling today?"

And I'm thinking "Oh sh*t. She wandered into a 7-11 or somewhere while she was waiting for the bus, and now she's drunk off her ass and wants me to come picking her up."

So I text back that I'm doing coughing less but still feel thoroughly wiped out. She texts back that she's glad my coughing's better, and that she caught ride home from a friend and is doing okay herself ---

Holy crap! She really was texting just to ask how I was doing, and not because she was drunk in a park somewhere.

I don't know how to feel about any of this. (Well, I know how to feel about having pneumonia: it sucks, one hell of a lot harder than I can breathe right now.) But I feel like I can't believe in any of Sis' words or intentions until I'm sure she's really sober, and committed to that sobriety, again. I guess I can believe in her actions: I have the prescriptions she paid for, and I have the clean dishes and the empty wastebaskets. But everything else is just going to have to come with a grain of salt.

Maudcat

More will be revealed. Take care of yourself. Pneumonia really wipes you out.

PuzzledHeart

My lungs hurt just reading that post.

As Maudcat said, more will be revealed. I completely understand why you doubt your sister's intentions. It's a perfectly normal reaction.

I'm crossing my fingers for both you and your sister's recovery.

TheMiddleSister

Thanks so much, Maudcat & PuzzledHeart.

The pneumonia is much better today. I'm not coughing nearly as much, but doing almost anything - like, say, walking across a room - still wipes me out.

My big problem (besides, of course, having pneumonia) is that I just feel so at sea. Nothing from Sis is to be trusted without evidence. That is so confusing.

And it hurts. I've been so busy all week with her logistics and my pneumonia that I've been setting aside most of my feelings about her falling - well, maybe more like swan diving - off the wagon. But I am really angry, and very hurt, and thoroughly apprehensive.

I find myself judging and second-guessing every interaction with her, trying to puzzle out what I did that made her start drinking again, or what to keep her sober this time. But I have to remember that, in reality, her drinking doesn't have that much to do with me - I don't really have that kind of influence or control.

I wonder if this is a little like what Medieval peasants felt, staring at something like comet or a solar eclipse, and trying to figure out what they had done to cause it.

TheMiddleSister

And today I'm just sad. Kind of angry and hurt and betrayed, too.

Yesterday, she volunteered to help me with clearing out a badly cluttered corner of my apartment where my apartment manager needs access for some maintenance work by Tuesday. My pneumonia is much better (but still far from gone), and things went well for the first hour or two.

Then, I needed to take a break, and she offered to go to the grocery store to get more of the sherbet I've been eating to soothe my throat. She was gone longer than I expected, and when she came back she was acting very gregarious and effusive - and was almost no help at all with moving stuff.

Then she did this thing she did a lot when she was drinking: she wanted to pet my cat, but the cat wasn't very interested. So Sis picks the cat up clumsily, kind of dangling her from a hold just under her arm/foreleg-pits, and hauls the cat over to a chair. The cat ran away as soon as it got a chance, of course; but I don't like people mishandling my cat, and I don't like thinking that my sister is drunk again in my house.

Later, while she was looking through her backpack for a kleenex after a big emotional "I'm sorry, I'm sorry-it's all my fault-I can't help it" crying scene, I saw the wine bottle in there.

Well, hell.

She was supposed to come back over today and help some more, but I don't know if I'm up to it, physically or emotionally.

Ariesagain

Sending you a hug.

Tell her not to come. She knows why. Why set yourself up for the stress of whether you get technically-sober sister or drunk sister?

I hope you feel better soon...take care of yourself.