Floppylobes

Hi everyone, this is my first post here. I am looking for advice from people who have been in my shoes.
my mother is a severe alcohlic and has been my entire life, i am 22 now. It has cost her everything, her health, her marriage, jobs, our relationship and her relationship with pretty much everyone shes had. It is also effecting my relationship with my grandmother because my grandma contines to enable her. She is high functioning in the fashion that she gets up and goes to work, however she sleeps until noon everyday, does not take care of herself or her living space whatsoever. She also continues to drink at work because her manager is also an alcoholic. She does not believe she is an alcoholic.
we moved in with my grandmother 5 years ago after my grandfather passed. I am now married and working my ass off to get my own home, my husband and i plan to leave within the next year given we have enough money saved by then.

i have been going back and forth on whether or not to fully cut her out of my life once we move because her condition is destroying my mental health, which ive struggled with for a long time but have managed to control. Any advice? Thanks in advance!

Id like to add that i have several times discussed her addiction with her and have done everything humanly possible to try and help her. But as everyone knows you cant help somebody who dosent want it.

trailmix

Hi floppy. Well, you are right that you can't help someone that doesn't want your help. You didn't Cause it, can't Control it and can't Cure it (the 3 c's).

My Father was an alcoholic and as a young couple, moving back from another country we moved in with him (at that point he was divorced from my Mom). Yeah it wasn't good lol. Of course he had been an alcoholic the whole time I was growing up too, so it wasn't like it was a big surprise.

Unfortunately we were just getting set up here and I also had a child during that time, so it took a couple of years to get out of there. Eventually we did and in fact just rented a place and what a relief. I remember once we even rented a hotel room for a night just so we could have a break.

I never tried to "help" him in terms of getting sober, in fact I never spoke to him about his drinking.

So how do you cope? Distance yourself, emotionally as much as you can. That's the best interim bit of advice I can give you. She is your Mom and you probably love her in spite of all this, but you really need to protect yourself mentally. She has alcoholism, this does not mean she gets to drag you down mentally with her.

I also wouldn't worry about your grandmother enabling her, that's between them and you really can't change people. So again, emotional distance is key.

I wouldn't make a decision about cutting her out completely at this point. Get in to your own place and after a few months, see how you feel about it. You might want to see her once in a while when she isn't drunk, or barely drunk. But you won't know how you will feel about that until you are out of the fog (fear, obligation, guilt) and that will take time and distance.

I hope you and your Husband will give as much time as possible toward earning the funds to get you out of there, that's key. If you feel you are in a place where you just can't stand it anymore, then perhaps renting in the interim might be well worth it.

flower959

So sorry you're dealing with this. Why do you need to make that decision now? I would imagine that it's a very difficult decision and gives you anxiety, but that decision doesn't have to happen now and it doesn't have to happen even when you do make the move. I think it is best for you to distance yourself now though. When you move, you may find that you don't WANT to answer that text message or take that phone call. Or perhaps, you find yourself reaching out to her. Or perhaps not. With being out the of house, you'll have full control over how you react to her. Save up that money and get out asap, because that environment is toxic. The sooner you leave, the better for you (& husband).

ironwill

Hi Floppylobes,
You need to take care of yourself first. You can not change who your mom has become. She has cure her self. You need to remember the Three C's. “I didn’t CAUSE it.” , “I can’t CONTROL it.” , “I can’t CURE it.”. While living with your grandma is keeps you in the loop so to say. Why you have to decide as rather to cut her out of your life. Once you have your own place it will be easier to have those boundaries up. I do hope your mom see the light at some point. It hurts to see a parent act they way they do under the influence and their is nothing you can do about it. Just keep being strong and look after your health first.

dandylion

FloppyLobes......I suggest that you might want to attend Adult Children of Alcoholics meetings.....and/or, at least read their llterature. You can find their literature through any local library-----and, you can find it in the book section of amazon.com.
I am sure that you will find a lot of valildation and understanding from that group.

Floppylobes

Thankyou all so much for your advice. I wouldnt wish this on my own worst enemy but it definitely helps knowing that there are others out there who understand what im going through. As silly as it may seem it honestly never occured to me that thats not a decision i need to make right away. I try really hard to distance myself and set boundaries but its really hard for me since when shes sober we get along pretty fine but when shes drinking we do not. Its like every morning she wakes up sober and shes my mom and everythings okay and gives me just a sliver of hope and then later that same day shes drunk and not the same person and it shatters that little sliver of hope that i had. I know that shes an alcoholic and that shes going to continue to drink and i try so hard to keep that in mind but theres still always that little part of me that hopes that maybe today things will be different, even though i know its very unrealistic.
Im going to look more into literature that was suggested and continue to try and do whats best for me. Do you guys have any advice on how to hold my distance and boundaries and not break my own heart everyday? Lol. Thankyou all again so much.

nikegoddess112

An abuse recovery network and Al-Anon helped me in many ways. Emotional abuse is abuse and the psychological aspect of leaving often takes support.

Packing bags, having them stored somewhere else, getting to the point of rather having sanity over any material items all can sound simple yet be a huge mental process.

Good luck!! Many have done this, breaking multi-generational chains.

nikegoddess112

My first steps in breaking chains involved a whole lot of prayer, making a list of places I could go for help and/or who might support me, eventually making a leap of faith and staying with friends for two weeks.

SmallButMighty

Hi Floppy, sorry for what brings you here. I think everyone here can relate to the rollercoaster feeling of loving someone with an addiction. Soaring hopes... then crashing lows. It's a heartbreaking cycle.

My family and my ex's family are both full of alcoholics and codependents. It's no surprise we grew up and married qualifiers who felt comfortable in that dynamic. Unfortunately we raised our kids in that same mess. His alcoholism and my codependence. It got very messy and miserable. So I totally understand how uncomfortable it is to be living with your mom and grandma watching them do the alkie/codie dance. When you live in a home that has that kind of energy you can't help but be negatively affected by it. I do hope you and your groom manage to get out sooner rather than later. This can not be healthy for a fledgling marriage. You will feel so much better when you no longer have to live each day witnessing the chaos.

It's normal to HOPE things will get better, to HOPE this time will be different, to HOPE they decide to get healthy. Hope is a good thing, but as they say around here, "hope is not a plan". Hoping my alcoholic ex husband would get healthy never got me, or him, anywhere. My mother spent 50years hoping my Dad would live up to his potential, he died because of his bad choices, never having achieved all SHE thought he could. That's a long miserable marriage, spent HOPING things were different. My point in telling you that is to suggest that you accept that your mom, and grandma, are who they are, they WILL behave just as they always have because neither are actively trying to change. It's OK to hope they will, just don't tie your peace of mind to that hope. Try not to set yourself up for that fall over and over again. It uses up so much of your precious mental and emotional energy, but it doesn't have to be that way.

Focus on the things you do have control over. Focus on what you can do for yourself. Focus on building better communication skills within your marriage than you were shown by your parents. Focus on learning about codependence so you don't repeat and pass on dysfunctional family traits should you have children of your own. I highly suggest the book "Codependent No More", by Melody Beattie. I learned a lot about erecting and maintaining boundaries from that book. My life is so much more manageable and less stressful because of the things I learned. Focus on YOU not the family members who cause you upset and anxiety.

I know how hard it is. This stuff hurts, and it causes anxiety, fear and anger. It's a miserable way to exist. Detachment takes practice, and it isn't a great long term solution, but it will help in the interim, until you are able to make the move. Try not to engage when things are "crazy". There is not much use trying to argue or reason with a person when they are drinking. Don't waste your energy on that.

Hang in there, I know it isn't easy.

trailmix

It takes work on yourself, because of course you are the only person you can control.

What you describe is an expectation from your Mother, that maybe today she won't get drunk and maybe this afternoon she will still be "normal" and things can be normal. Hoping for this is setting yourself up for disappointment and hurt every day. It's so important to see your Mom for who she is. She will not magically change overnight.

So the work here, for you, is to lower your expectations to - none. You can't rely on any of your hopes and wishes for her or for you in relation to her, so best to let them go. This might sound harsh but not intended that way, it's just the absolute best advice I can give you to stop hurting yourself.

How do you do that?

By hanging on to that little glimmer of hope you are hurting yourself. Acceptance. Accept that this is her, she is an alcoholic and she is going to drink.

Of course some day she may decide to quit and seek recovery, that's 100% up to her and you have no say in it and no control of that and hoping for it every day is really kind of a waste of your time and emotional energy.

Learn all you can about addiction and alcoholism, not for her, for you. She is driven each day to drink by a force that you probably don't really know unless you have been an addict. So you not understanding what motivates her in this destructive behaviour, gives you that glimmer of hope each day.

SparkleKitty

Letting go of those hopeful expectations is so difficult, but critical to you moving forward. Accepting her for who she is, and letting go of who you wish she was, is also critical.

For me, this also included letting go of the notion I had that I was somehow responsible for my mother's drinking -- whether because I had done something wrong, or because I wasn't enough of the good things that would make her not want to drink. It took a very long time, a lot of therapy, and many tears before I finally accepted that her drinking had literally nothing to do with me--not what I did, not what I said, and not who I was. I did not want to let go of that illusion of control, but when I finally did, I felt as if I had been set free of a burden that was never mine to bear.

trailmix

On a more practical note, when you have that glimmer of hope each day, you are actually going to have to tell yourself that what you are thinking is not true. Maybe even look in the mirror and speak to yourself, saying Floppylobes, that's not true, <mom's name> is going to drink today. Might seem a bit silly at first but habits can be unlearned and this is a practical measure. You may even have to tell yourself this more than once a day to start.

You know what else, she is going to drink and that's ok, maybe not ok in the big global sense of the word but, she is an adult person and she will make her own decisions about what she chooses to do. It's not a bad thing to respect that.

Floppylobes

thankyou all again for the responses and support. after readin everybodys replies and quite a few others' forums ive decided that its in my best interest to distance myself from the whole situation. as i had said my husband and i had been planning to buy a home hopefully within the next year but with the way things are going here in america (covid) weve decided were just going to look into renting for now because as someone above said hope is not a plan. im going to put my focus into taking care of myself and learning how to recover from the situation instead of stressing everyday trying to fix what i cannot. again i appreciate any and all advice you guys can give me, im trying really hard to learn how to deal with this all and advice from others who have been there has been so helpful in figuring out what is in my best interest.