Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To not buy my mum cigarettes?

61 replies

Couldbysunny · 24/01/2025 19:13

With her money.
She wants me to go out and get cigarettes for her. She also asks my DH. She gives her bank card to us to pick up other shopping for her which I am happy to do.
She's a lifelong chain smoker. However she has just come out of hospital due to pneumonia turning into sepsis and having a pulmonary embolism.
She was in 3 weeks and almost died.
This happened last winter as well and she was in 6 weeks.
Both times the doctors have told her that if she carries on smoking she will die.
Her oxygen levels and her blood pressie are very bad.
She also has MS and is in a wheelchair.
She said she was going to stop but is now just smoking again. Only been out of hospital a week. She won't take some of the neds she's been given eother. She's an intelligent woman but she lives in a fantasy world sometimes. She's talking about going on a trip round the world.. she can barely stand. She says she doesn't want to die. She was very upset the doctor had written 'resuscitation not advised' on her notes. She's so physically frail but she won't actually do anything suggested to rectify it. She pretends it's not happening and as a result is deteriorating.
I'm very worried about her.
Of course I know she will still get hold of cigarettes if I refuse to buy them for her. She has neighbours and friends who do shopping for her if she asks.. and when the weather is decent and she's well enough she can get to the local shops herself.
So I know its kind of pointless refusing.
But I hate doing it. I feel like I'm killing her. AIBU to tell her I can't do it?

OP posts:
user1471453601 · 24/01/2025 19:36

Another ex smoker who can see both sides. I stopped using concierge gum over 15 years ago.

But there are things in my life I absolutely refuse to give up. Good wine (a tad more than the recommended dosage 😁) bacon and any other good I bloody well fancy, even if the medical profession think it's bad for me.

I really do understand your predicament, and couldn't possibly decide if you are being unreasonable or your mother is.

I'm 10 years or so older than your mother, and also frail. I prefer to have a good quality of life, rather than a further quantity. But I would understand if my adult child desperately wanted quantity, as you seem to do.

so I think neither you not your Mum are unreasonable.

BreakfastClubBlues · 24/01/2025 19:34

We had a very similar situation with my Nan. My Mum point-blank refused and told my Nan she wasn't to ask any of us grandchildren to buy them either.

She always had them though, even when she was house bound!

outerspacepotato · 24/01/2025 19:34

She's in denial of just how ill she really is.

My mom was a lifelong smoker and when she was dying and couldn't go to the store, I did buy them for her. She felt that the damage was already done and she didn't want to go through withdrawal while nearing death. But she saw her health situation really clearly and knew she had only a couple months left.

LozzaChops101 · 24/01/2025 19:30

God, what a nightmare OP! Are you having to look after her a lot? Mine (who has always had severe asthma) smoked herself to COPD and a massive heart attack. I refused to buy them if she asked but, like you said, it really makes no difference if they can get hold of them by other means.

Mine did eventually stop after 50+ years of chain smoking, so it is possible. I don’t know what could change your mum’s mind if sepsis, PE and pneumonia haven’t done it though.

I’d refuse if I were you, it’s not fair of her to ask you either.

Couldbysunny · 24/01/2025 19:28

Justcallmebebes · 24/01/2025 19:24

Can you get her some nicotine patches, gum or lozenges? It's hard because smoking is an addiction, but if she's been through 2 near death experiences and still wants to smoke, I'm not sure what you can do.

There's plenty of help out there to stop smoking, but you've got to want to and it sounds like your mum doesn't. My mother was the same with alcohol and cigs and it killed her at 72

She had an entire carrier bag of nicotine patches but she gave them away.
She says she doesn't need them and she will stop on her own... yet she's still smoking.
I know i can't stop her I just don't want to add to it.
She constantly says she wants to stop and she doesn't want to die. And they were trying to give her lots of support in the hospital but she won't engage with any of it.

OP posts:
EineReiseDurchDieZeit · 24/01/2025 19:24

I'm going to say it's her money and her choice - she knows it's killing her and actively doesn't care - but equally you have the right to refuse to enable her

As a former smoker I can see both sides

Justcallmebebes · 24/01/2025 19:24

Can you get her some nicotine patches, gum or lozenges? It's hard because smoking is an addiction, but if she's been through 2 near death experiences and still wants to smoke, I'm not sure what you can do.

There's plenty of help out there to stop smoking, but you've got to want to and it sounds like your mum doesn't. My mother was the same with alcohol and cigs and it killed her at 72

Couldbysunny · 24/01/2025 19:20

HoraceCope · 24/01/2025 19:16

gosh, i came on to say yabu but reading your post, you have every right to say no.
can you buy her a nicotine inhaler or a patch?

She got a bag of nicotine patches from the hospital but she gave them away to a friend because 'she doesn't need them'
The thing is she says she wants to stop. But she does nothing.
She couldn't smoke in hospital either time as she never left her bed so I would habe thought it was a perfect opportunity to kick start quitting.

OP posts:
KitMg · 24/01/2025 19:17

I'd 100% say no.

You cannot stop her smoking but you have absolutely no responsibility to facilitate it.

HoraceCope · 24/01/2025 19:16

gosh, i came on to say yabu but reading your post, you have every right to say no.
can you buy her a nicotine inhaler or a patch?

Couldbysunny · 24/01/2025 19:15

Just to add she is only mid 60s. So potentially decades of life left.. yet she's almost died over winter two years running because her lungs are so bad and she's so generally fragile

OP posts:
Swipe left for the next trending thread