The lives of addict and enabler (because that is what you are, and I was) are very deeply entwined. The addict starts the entwining, but we eagerly continue it. Most of us have the mindset that if we just try enable hard enough, we’ll ‘get through’ and they’ll ‘see the light’.
Difficulty trusting and being closed off
I try and distract her, or plan activities where she can’t drink, but it just mean she hits it twice as hard when she gets the opportunity. Pat would hide bottles of vodka around the house – under the mattress, between towels in the bathroom cupboard, in the toilet cistern. She’d down it in secret, and was drinking heavily on as many as five days out of every seven.
Her wtf-is-wrong-with-you question woke me up and as a result, I made a critical decision to move my sister out of the house. It was one of the best – and albeit hardest things – I’ve ever done. We swapped stories of dysfunction in our families and we took comfort in each other’s supportive, angst-y reaction. Most of all, I appreciated reassurance that my confusion, sadness and anger tied to what was happening in my family was exactly how my best friend would feel, too, if she were in my shoes. Then one night, when we were 16, I FINALLY felt comfortable enough to tell her that my mom is an alcoholic. She had shared about some family problems and she took comfort in my listening and my words that that was some f-ed up shit.
You dont outgrow the effects of an alcoholic family when you leave home
One day, I asked my mom why her apple juice always had foam on top of it. It took a few years after that to make the connection between my mom’s dramatic mood changes and her consuming the foamy apple juice. After a while, she drank directly from beer cans. She hid these cans and bottles all over the house. Below, we have outlined the steps that children, young people and adults can take when concerned about their parent, to help both themselves and the person they care about.
But she’s my mum and I love her and I don’t know how to help her. Jay hasn’t really drunk alcohol since – “he’s been amazing,” Becky says. And since November last year, Becky’s also given up alcohol – she was never that much of a drinker, but always had a fear, at the back of her mind, that she might end up like her mother.
An alcoholic is too selfish for whatever reason to be able to act on the devastating impact their behaviour and actions are having on others. An alcoholic won’t give you the same consideration as you and your db are giving your dm. He hit rock bottom, called the police on himself for suicidal thoughts, and spent time in a psych facility getting sober solution based treatment and getting the help he so needed.
My mother was a good mother…when she wasn’t drinking.
When family and people at school saw us, everything seemed fine. Worse, I was perpetually confused by my mother’s behavior. One minute she was showering me with compliments, the next minute she was screaming, swearing and throwing things at me. I felt I couldn’t do anything right and that I was never good enough. Now, I knew my mother loved me but on some level, I felt I caused her drinking. Dear Dr. G., I’m having some extreme troubles with my mum.
- Mumsnet doesn’t verify the qualifications of users.
- She has been hospitalised several times due to drinking or drinking related injuries and it’s made no difference.
- On her first Mother’s Day without her mum, Ella (not her real name) shares her story of growing up with an alcoholic parent.
- I was lucky, I got off the elevator before I hit the bottom.
To learn how to see a counselor about your parent’s drinking, keep reading. I think you and your brother need to focus on getting help for yourselves first so that you can come to terms, learn to love with detachment and learn to support without enabling. It’s hard to watch people you love throw their lives away, but in that position you can only take care of yourself – so you can be there and ready if they hit that moment when they are ready for recovery.