lissy52

Hi,

I am 29 years old and my mum has been an alcoholic since I was 11. I have been through a lot with her the majority of it awful (I have other words I can use but I'm new to this forum so best not use those), however no matter what she has done to me and my family we always end up going back and trying to help her out. She has been through rehab a few times, some privately funded by us and some funded via the NHS. None of these have worked as in the longest she has stayed sober is 40 days and the shortest being a few hours or a day sober.

She can not just stop drinking as she has fits so has to gradually detox, which she has been trying again, she detoxed for two weeks gradually reducing her intake of alcohol until on Monday it was her first day with no alcohol. My brother went to see her and discovered that as they had been sat chatting she had been drinking red wine out of her coffee cup (when my brother went to the toilet she switched her black coffee for red wine). She then got really upset when he challenged her on this and she said it's because she was shaking etc and needed the wine. So instead of shouting at her etc we took the nice approach etc and have been pretty much at her house since trying to keep her motivated etc to stay sober. However as much she says she wants to stay sober I don't believe her and am at a loss of what to do. I gave her a list of AA meetings and NA meetings in her local area for her to get back in to attending and she says she is going to do it but I very much doubt she actually will. The problem is she is a 50 year old woman we can not babysit her 24 hours a day. Me and my brother both work and I have a 9 month old son so it's not easy or always appropriate to be monitoring her.

Basically I have had 18 years of trying to help her all to no avail, I have tried the hard approach and the softly softly approach and nothing works, we have let her hit rock bottom with no support network around her as that was another thing we were advised to do. She says she wants to get sober and stay sober but I can't help feeling that she is just saying that so we leave her alone to keep drinking.

I have my brother to speak to about this as he gets it as he has lived with it, I also have my husband to speak to about about this but he doesn't fully understand it all as he didn't grow up with it. So my last attempt to get some advice was before by ringing the ADUS healthcare helpline and to be perfectly honest I was absolutely shocked and quite frankly upset with the way I was spoken to, the person I spoke with was rude and blunt and certainly not the "always here to listen" approach I was expecting. Anyways I thought I would try my luck here.

Sorry for the very long post, I obviously needed to put all this down somewhere, hopefully someone can give me some advice or maybe is going through the same thing or similar and can understand.

Thanks, Lissy.

DoubleDragons

I am sorry for what you are going through. My mom is an alcoholic, as well. I am slowly, but surely learning the Detach with love. I keep strong boundaries, pray for her nightly and remind myself, "I can't control it, I didn't cause it and I can't cure it." I am also working hard on how I relate to others - trying hard to stay away from the disease to please and trying to control everyone and all circumstances. Unfortunately, I do think in these circumstances we have to learn to accept and surrender to the universe. Let go and Let God. Simple, but not easy, I know. I truly understand.

lissy52

Hi,

Thank you for your reply, it means a lot to know there are other people out there going through the same/similar things.

I totally understand what you are saying and agree but as you say it's not easy. It's great that you are able to deal with your mum's problem so well.

I have tried for 18years to help and have gone through every emotion known to man, love, hate, compassion, empathy, anger, frustration you name it.

I have spent the majority of my life thinking my own mother hates me as that is how she treats me, she is terribly abusive towards me and yet I keep going back to try and help her. She treats my brother completely different, when she is drunk rather than being abusive towards him (as she is with me) she tells him how much she loves him etc. But in spite of all this me and my brother have an incredibly close relationship like best friends and she has never been able to come between us, I suppose having a parent who has an addiction will keep you close together.

As much as I would like to be able to do what you do, I feel I can't at the moment as my grandma and grandad (mum's parents) are not doing too well and quite frankly this is killing them. We kept mum's addiction problem from then up until around 3 years ago, so I feel I need to try and do what I can for my grandparents more than anything else.

Again thank you so much for your reply, I'm glad I found this forum so I can speak with people going through similar experiences and read other's stories.

DoubleDragons

We have started ACofA step work in the ACoA section of SR. Please feel free to join us and read, read, read. Their is a wealth of information and validation for people like us. Take good care.

lissy52

Thank you,

I have just found this section and am slowly working my way through posts and taking it all in.

I had never even realised there were so many people going through the same thing, naive I know but sometimes you just feel like the only one and no one else gets it.

So happy I found this forum!