JennaS

Hi, I am a 20 year old college student living at school and my sister is 26 years old with a 4 year old daughter and lives at home with my parents, not very far from me. Her husband is from another country and has had legal issues and cannot enter the country at this point in time. My sister has always had a love for alcohol since I can remember. I think since about 14 years old. It has never been as bad as it is now though. In her late teens, she would drink here and there, but whenever she would drink she would get completely wasted. She got pregnant at 20 years old and did not drink around that time. Over the past year though she has been excessive. First of all she lost about 40lbs and is a twig, mostly from depression I think. and now she drinks a 750ml of vodka about 3 times a week, whenever she is alone or knows that noone will be home for a while. She gets completely blacked out to the point where I had to call the paramedics last month. It has gotten so bad lately that she drinks WHILE driving, WITH my four year old niece in the car. I am really beginning to resent her. She lies about everything and I don't believe a word that comes out of her month. I feel like I can't talk to many people around me because noone understand, but I would really like some advice. My dad is taking her car, which is actually his car, away and we are planning to send her to rehab. I am so worried about her and my niece that I am having trouble in school.

Thank you.

wicked

hello JennaS. I am so glad you found your way here.
this is the place to get help for you and how to deal with having an alcoholic sister.

I understand your fear and resentment about her driving around drunk.
do whatever you can to keep your niece safe.
I hope she gets to rehab soon.

You can start reading here. There are some great stickies about how to help you.

Beth

JennaS

Thank you so much Beth that is so nice to hear. I have started reading, I am glad I found it here also

jmartin

Welcome Jenna. Sorry about your situation. You are absolutely right to be worried about that level of consumption, I hope you can find a way to help your sister and niece. There is a great deal of good info to be found on this site about how (and how not) to help them, and more importantly, keeping yourself sane through this. Al-anon can be a good resource, too, as you have no doubt already read here. Best to you.

Terrispots

Hi Jenna. I too have an older sister with a 4 yr old and a problem drinking. I am quite a bit older, but I will tell you what, all those behaviours are the same.

I implore you not to get sucked into the same trap that I have found myself in over and over. That would be the trying to help her/fix her life. She may get help this time, but she has to do it cause SHE wants to, or it wont stick.

I will tell you what I have been dealing with. Stopping helping my AS. Stopping trying to fix her messed up life. Cause every time I try to pull her out of the muck, she doesnt come out, I just get pulled in.

I hope she gets help, I hope she wants it.

Readysteady

I hope your sister gets well sooner than later. My brother has been round and round with many health scares from alcohol and went through alot of pain, yet still went back to drinking which always winds up being heavy drinking again. And lands back in the hospital again. This time looks like it's too late. I wish you the best.

wolfpackfan45

If you can, please try to get to an Al Anon meeting soon. You'll feel so much better by listening to others who are going through the same thing that you are. It's helped me so much. I don't know whether your sister is an alcoholic or not, but it sure sounds like she has a real problem with that level of consumption, blackouts, drinking while driving, and the lying. Alcoholism is a disease and one of the symptoms is lying. My 22 year old son lied repeatedly to me so many times. It's so frustrating. Keep coming back to this site and try to get to a meeting if you can. You're not alone. We understand.