LucyA

so sorry for your loss, it was never your fault.

Brighton83

Feel so confused.

I am still in shock. I seem to be acting as normal but everything is so different. My grief is hugely complicated by the fact that she was an A. I no longer have to deal with her alcoholism in life but it is still just as hard in her death. Due to my complicated relationship with her I am feeling such a range of emotions and feel that feelings towards her as an alcoholic are not preventing me or not allowing me to grieve for her as a lost mum.

Has anyone else experienced this?

NYCDoglvr

I'm so sorry you had to go through this tragic death but I promise you, there is nothing you could have done to prevent it. Nothing. The sad truth is no one gets sober unless he/she admits they have a problem and takes steps to get help (rehab, AA, etc.) Of course you feel even worse because of the way she died. So I suggest mourning and, instead of hating your mom, hate the disease of alcoholism.

fedup3

My prayers are for you and your family.

SoloMio

My dad, an accomplished artist and owner of a lumber yard in the 50s, dropped dead in the Bowery at age 43 from complications related to his alcoholism. He had moved out of our home 5 years earlier and he was homeless--staying occasionally at a men's shelter. I was 17.

My grief was extensive. I felt so cheated out of having the relationship i should have had with him. I was so angry that he had thrown his life and his talents down the drain. I couldn't accept it, and wouldn't go up to the casket at the funeral. I pushed it back, I repressed it, and moved on.

Well, not so surprisingly, who did I become addicted to just 4 years later? A man made from my father's mold. His dad had died an alcoholic at age 45, when he was 12, so our abandonment issues were extremely symbiotic. We've been together for 34 years, and he is still self-destructive and I am getting better, but I am still hooked.

Watch yourself--your emotions are indeed very complex--anger, abandonment, extreme sadness, loss, all those things tossed around right now. You will move past it, but please beware of how the feelings re-emerge in the future.

It surely is a crappy disease.

theuncertainty

IMO, this makes complete sense. The range of emotions is complex when grieving the loss of a loved one. And it can sometimes be so hard to allow ourselves to grieve when our feelings about the loved one are tinted by their addiction, by our hopes and dreams for what they could have been, by who we wish they were, and by who we NEEDED them to be when they weren't.

Giving ourselves permission to grieve for all of that is hard.

It can also take quite a bit of time and attention to work through everything that has to happen right now. Feelings tend to be set aside so that we can get through the days' tasks. Please, be gentle with yourself; remember to take time for just you - time when you don't have to do anything, you don't have to complete this or that task, or worry about holding yourself together for the sake of other family members.

Sending you hugs, Brighton, if that's OK.

fedup3

When my alcoholic dad died when I was 17 I had a whole lot of mixed feelings going on all at once of anger, sorrow, frustration but mostly a feeling of numbness.

Brighton83

[QUOTE=Brighton83;2994983]Feel so confused.

'... feel that feelings towards her as an alcoholic are not preventing me or not allowing me to grieve for her as a lost mum'.

Sorry that was meant to say 'preventing me'