Brownislandgirl

Since I have known myself I have seen my mother with a drink. Always with a beer or a glass of rum and coke. I never thought anything of it until a few years ago and I am in my early 30s. As time passes it gets worse.

She is never aggressive or violent however I lose patience with how slow she moves and how her words are always slurred. I truly believe that the alcohol has done something to her brain and it is painful to watch. She is a pensioner and spends most of her money on alcohol.

I visit home less and less now due to this as she pays no attention to to her appearance or to what she is saying and doing. It is just too hard to watch. Only recently I faced the fact that she is an alcoholic. It is saddening and embarrassing and quite frankly I don't know how to deal with it. I simply lose all patience and visit less.

Can anyone tell me how you dealt with your parents being an alcoholic and just accepting it for what it is? I can't seem to do that. I am new to the board and doing quite a bit of reading.

Thanks a lot.

Bekindalways

Welcome Brownislandgirl, there are lots of folks here who have alcoholic parents. It is indeed a tough situation to deal with. Good for you for educating yourself. Unfortunately there is little you can do for your mom but there are things you can do to help yourself.

maia1234

Welcome,
There is a forum here for adult children of alcoholics that you might like to read.
There is a ton to read about this disease.

We are all here because we love an addict, but until that addicts decides to do something about it, nothing will change. But you can change how you deal with your mom. You can set up boundaries. If she drinks after 3 pm, don't call her or speak to her after that time. Just say I will talk to you in the am. If you have plans and she is drunk, cancel the plans. You don't need to explain yourself, just do it. This is drawing a line of what you will accept and won't you won't.

We can't stop them from drinking, but we can protect ourselves from being around it. Hugs my friend, do your homework and your life will get better!!

DesertEyes

Hello Brownislandgirl, and pleased to "meet" you

In my family my father was the drinker and my mom was a pill head. My entire childhood I thought they were normal, it wasn't until I became an adult that I realized that they were dysfunctional, toxic addicts.

Yes, addiction is a progressive disease. How fast it progresses is different for each person.

It sounds to me like you still have love for your mother. I think that is awesome that you can feel that way for her. I lost that with my own parents somewhere along the way, I'm not even sure when.

Oh goodness, that was hugely difficult for me. I went thru periods where I desperatly tried to get them to go to therapy, then I would run away from home, then I would come back and try to get them to quit, then I would call the cops on them.

I had to find other people who were raised in alcoholic homes and realize that my situation was not unique. I found meetings of al-anon to be hugely helpful (ACoA did not yet exist back then). Getting a solid education on addiction from those meetings, and their literature, helped me _start_ on the path to acceptance.

Took me some time but I did, slowly, learn to accept that they were perfectly happy with their life as it was. I did _not_ find their behavior to be _acceptable_, what I did was accept that _I_ could not change them.

I did not find them to be _acceptable_ as members of my family. That is not the kind of people I want to be grand parents to my children, or be in my home when I have friends visiting. What I did was accept that they were no different than any other drunk I could find in a bar, which means that I have to protect myself and my own family from such people.

The key for me was to work out all those fine shades of definition in the word "accept" and how I was going to structure my life around that. In al-anon they call it "boundaries".

Welcome again. I am sorry you had to find us, but I hope we can answer your questions. If you haven't already, you might also check out the forum "next door" for us adults that are dealing with toxic parents.

Adult Children of Addicted/Alcoholic Parents - SoberRecovery : Alcoholism Drug Addiction Help and Information

Mike

DoubleDragons

Hi, Brown. The reason that I even came to SR is because I came to the realization that my mother is an alcoholic about 3-4 years ago, although looking back, it is obvious that she has been an alcoholic much longer than 3-4 years. I understand your pain, shame, fears, guilts, disappointment, resentments etc. Your pain is very real and sometimes it feels like there is no one to turn to or anyone who understands.

I have finally come to a place of fairly healthy detachment, but it has taken me years to get here. During that time, I attended Alanon, did a ton of reading , quit drinking myself (now sober over two years), and to this day, I check out SR almost daily. I consider it my main support system.

When you are raised by an unhealthy person with addiction issues, many times you become what is called a codependent personality. In a nutshell, codependents put our focus outside of ourselves, trying to control people or circumstances outside of ourselves to make us feel better. Well, controlling things outside of ourselves is the definition of "Mission Impossible". We have to retrain ourselves to put the focus on our own self, which is really the only person we do have any control over and try to keep the focus there. There isn't anything selfish about this. Being our best selves is a gift we give back to the rest of the world.

Cheeil1981

Your not alone here . Ever since I can remember I saw my parents drinking heavily . Hidden bottles and cans round the house etc. It's a horrible thing to see it,ll never leave you but there's help on here. My mother and father are daily heavy drinkers and I've tried everything. Nothing works. Ur not alone I feel ur pain