Am I being unfair to my DM - booze police

I understand completely OP

My husband doesn’t have an off switch re drinking
He was never aggressive or violent but couldn’t stop at a couple of drinks

I could never relax at social events and it felt like having another kid to look after

Incidences of pissing in the bedroom drawers etc which isn’t a good look for a man in his 40s

I also made it clear to him that my father was an abusive alcoholic and I was raped by men who were drunk when younger plus left my first husband due to his behaviour when pissed

He was amazing DH and father the rest of the time but, even after promising he wouldn’t get drunk (not tipsy or a bit jolly), he still did

The last straw was when we were at family friends. He was drinking lots and fell over when walking home. Youngest DD is asd and was petrified. Kept saying ‘is that my real daddy?’ in tears

Gave him an ultimatum that night in the form of an email to be read when sober the next day

It didn’t work though as it happened again with the kids there and he embarrassed us all.

I told him the marriage was over then. The love I had as a wife was gone.
He joined AA and hasn’t drank (as far as I know) for over 18 months now.

However, it’s a case of ‘too little, too late’

I’ve been dating and have filtered out so many men who get pissed on a regular basis. The man I’m seeing now has a glass of wine occasionally but I’d never put myself in that position again

Unless you’ve experienced this you don’t really understand. People see a funny drunk who’s entertaining/no harm. They minimise it out of politeness or ignorance

Hope you’re okay OP

My dad went through a period of heavy drinking, probably a couple of years, after the death of my sister. While his grief was obviously understandable, the drinking made family life pretty horrendous. It only stopped when I and my other sister told him that if he didn't stop drinking we wanted him to leave. He managed to cut right back but always had a tendency to not be able to stop once he started. I totally understand why you're so uncomfortable and embarrassed by your mum. She has a drinking problem whether she acknowledges it or not. You need to be very honest with her about how you feel and I would reduce the amount of time you spend with her, especially at events where she's drinking. Get support from Al-Anon. You can't stop her drinking, only she can do that. But you can tell her how you feel and decide how much you're willing to spend time with her.

People getting sloppy drunk is embarrassing at any age and mortifying it’s your mum. I think you’re right to try and get her to moderate her intake.

This.

My grandpa was an alcoholic, not an angry violent one, so it was sort of brushed under the carpet. My poor grandmother spent the last 30 years of her life going NOWHERE. No weddings, no holidays, nothing outside gatherings with immediate 5-6 relatives, because he always embarrassed himself, there was no off button.

You need to stop taking your mum to stuff and accept she will always be an alcoholic. It's extremely rare for an alcoholic to change and they will only do so if they really really want to. Your mum does not recognise the extent of the issue.

I really feel for you. This is what the beginning of alcoholism looks like. Unable to stop drinking, behaving inappropriately and out of character when drinking and making family members uncomfortable are all hallmarks of alcoholism. Then comes needing a drink to get over a hangover, drinking earlier and earlier in the day, getting injuries, shaking, not eating etc.

You could and maybe should have a frank talk with her but she'll be as defensive as she usually is and that's because she knows deep down there's a problem. She has to do it for herself really but you could encourage her to try sober October or something like that with you.

Your friend is trying to make you feel better but it's chappy that they are both minimising the reality of living a life with someone with alcohol problems.

Can you try to makensure you're never with your mum drunk for your own sanity x

Your mother clearly has a problem with alcohol, but she is an adult; you are not responsible for her behaviour, any more than you are responsible for that of a random drunk person in the pub or in the street.

Isn't that obvious ?
I would, as would most people i imagine be feeling exactly the same as you op.
You are not being unreasonable , i would be mortified if the person i was with behaved the same way , there's a difference between being a bit merry to showing yourself up, imposing yourself and being rude about people.
I would have given my mother a bollocking for this.

Has she ever seen, (video), herself in action? Not saying it'd be an easy watch for her, but...

If she won't listen to what you're asking of her, you'll always be anxious waiting for her to start performing. Think about avoiding these situations, and explain to her your reasons for doing so

Al Anon might be good for you.

I can completely relate to this. My dad (now deceased) was a high functioning alcoholic and I found this behaviour in social situations excruciating.

He wasn’t a dribbling, falling over vomiting drunk, he just became very verbose and argumentative and it was horrible to be around: he would pick (verbal) fights with people all the time over stuff that really didn’t matter and became “that” person no one wanted to invite.

As a family member you feel really trapped by this behaviour. You feel judged by others as a family member and it’s also just tedious and boring to be around and undignified to watch and I felt awful for my mum because she was the person bearing the burden of it.

I had endless run ins with him where I would tell him to stop and try to control what he drank and it would make him absolutely furious.

After a while when I was in my late 20s had a bit of an epiphany and I sat him down and told him I loved him but I hated the person he became when he was drinking. And that henceforth if he drank more than two units of alcohol in my presence I would simply leave and would not be around him. I stuck to that for the rest of my life. He never stopped drinking but he did hold the line on the two drink rule whenever we did something together and if we were in social situations with lots of people I just avoided him.

Tolerating someone else’s alcoholism is a very hard burden to bear and honestly it’s left me with a residual feeling of utter contempt for heavy drinking even though I know many people can’t help it.

But no one should be forced to tolerate this. Spouses can leave but children have no choice. I think you are well within your rights to be be hard line about it.

People obviously do get drunk at weddings and generally that’s perfectly OK, but some people can become overly loud, annoying and embarrassing when they’re drunk and that’s when it’s a problem - it sounds like your mum is one of those people. My sister is one of them too and so is DP’s sister (who I suspect is a functioning alcoholic) sometimes. Fortunately my sister doesn’t get properly drunk in my presence very often. DP’s sister will usually be OK but sometimes will turn up to things already having had a few drinks and will just be way out of sync with everyone else. MIL did a long haul flight with her once and nearly died of embarrassment because she became really loud and annoying.

I suspect the bride was being polite and trying to make you feel better by downplaying things, really. I don’t think you were unreasonable to have a quiet word with your mum at all. If other people were rolling their eyes and looking awkward then it does sound like she’d passed the usual tipsy at a wedding stage.

Are you me?! My mother is the same, drunken monologues, goes mad when told how awful she is. Now in her 80s, and still has to be prepped to not drink too much, because she’s appalling, slurs, demands to be driven home, wants to go after an hour because she’s shitfaced.

My sibling was over from Australia, we had a big family meal out, 20 of us, she got drunk and wanted to go home, but would not have been capable of opening the door. I just refused, I’ve had enough. She eventually sobered up enough to participate, but I totally feel your pain.

She's ruined family holidays (not with me) with similar behaviour. The family who took her has decided not to take her again so she now misses out. She wants to drink herself into oblivion, fine, just don’t do it so someone has to look after you. She prefers to be shit faced then eat (never pretty!) but if she’s made to eat first, she’s fine. She’s lost an awful lot of friends over the years but refuses to accept it’s because of her behaviour. Everyone is on tenterhooks worrying about her behaviour if we go out with her-Monday is her birthday meal, so she’ll use that as an excuse to be pissed.

My only advice is to minimise how much time you spend with her, frankly. It’s what I’ve done. I see her for a couple of days twice a year, it’s enough. I feel I can’t ever have a drink when she’s around, not that I’m bothered, but it’s shit and I completely empathise. 💐

Edit: re only 2-3 drinks, that’s all it takes, think she’s just topping up every evening. 😢

If she was only having 2-3 drinks and you were on at her she’d have a point. However, seems this isn’t what’s happening at all. She clearly cannot enjoy a few drinks and know when to stop, sounds like she’s got no off button.

It’s quite irritating at events etc when you have that slurring staggering drunk who won’t leave people alone, and talks rubbish, and people tend to try and avoid them so they don’t get stu k with them if they have form for this behaviour. If she’s this person at most events you go to I can see why you feel the way you do and you can’t relax. As others have said her behaviour isn’t a reflection on you, but you’ll feel responsible for her because she’s your mum.

Sounds like she needs to learn to moderate. Maybe soft drink every other drink or wine and soda instead of straight wine.

And I’m not saying this applies to everyone who gets drunk at an event, we’ve all been there at one time or another, it’s when it’s every single event it becomes tiresome!

YANBU

I have relative who didn't know when to stop. Over and over again. It stopped being fun. My anxiety would ramp up and I also knew I'd get barrages of abuse once they'd stopped being "funny, amusing".

Her behaviour is unfair because she's crossed a line into making a nuisance of herself - guests at a wedding don't want to have to humour a drunk, who for all they know might turn aggressive (not saying your mum would but to those who don't know her well, she'd be an unknown quantity).

It's encouraging that she was able to rein it in when you spoke with her. I think you have to be quite blunt and say that, until she can police herself, you have no choice but to police her. Either that or wash your hands of it, and wait for some incident to occur that will shock her into changing - because something will happen if she's left unchecked, she'll fall over or throw up or start a fight.

Has she ever seen herself on video?

I get where you're coming from. It's embarrassing.

https://al-anonuk.org.uk

This might help.

You're not the booze police, you're sick of being embarrassed and was trying to save yet another embarrassment.

I used to be the same op, I think if you aren’t embarrassed by a parents behaviour it’s probably hard to understand. I used to be mortified by my mum and dad. She’d be like yours, getting everyone to join in and worse chewing their ear off and having deep conversations that people wanted to get away from and my dad would drink every lunchtime and pick me up from a hook stinking of beer. Mine was linked to embarrassment and shame. I spent all my wedding pre speech trying to make sure he’d not had a lot to drink.

you can’t stop her, use the energy to work on detaching and realising it’s no reflection on you. She is her own person. I sympathise though, your post hit a nerve for me and brought back some memories, my mum being at a friends and being so drunk she slid down the wall was out to bed and vomited everywhere. We had to go home. Awful.

I’d be tempted to tell her people were rolling their eyes and laughing at her. Maybe she needs a reality check that she’s embarrassed herself.

I totally understand OP. Your mum has a problem with alcohol. If it were a one off at a wedding then you probably wouldn't react that way.