Can you stop or get help for an alcoholic?

[Jules856]

My mother is an alcoholic and in the last year it has come to a head. She lives two hours from me and hasn't had much to do with me for the last 25 years due to her drinking. However, she is now at the end and over the last year I've been called on more and more as she regularly gets into trouble with the police or needs to go to hospital. I inevitably get the call as she doesn't have anyone else.

She is living in squalor and regularly has bailiffs and attracts dodgy characters who sniff out her vulnerability.

I've asked her if she wants to change and she says she doesn't have a problem even after a recent long hospital admission due to liver issues.

I can't have her live near me. I have a young family who have never met her and she would cause chaos. She's often very aggressive both verbally and physically. I've told her if she cleans herself up I might consider it but she just shrugs and says she doesn't want too.

It's so difficult as I worry about her constantly. Who is she with? Is she lying dead in her bed? Has she had an accident? She will often not answer the phone or her doorbell for days on end and I've lost count of the number of times I've dashed up just to see if she's alive and ended up calling the police for a welfare check.

Has anyone been in this position and had any success in getting them to stop? She's been in rehab twice in the last year and is now just saying it doesn't work.

I think I know the answer and there's not much I can do. But what about practical stuff? She is completely incapable of looking after her own finances or making decisions and is surrounded by people who I think might be out to take her money (she has money in the bank from an inheritance). I've tried to tell her to put it somewhere like shares but she won't. I tried talking to her gp but they said there was nothing they can do unless she what's to stop. I find this hard to believe as she is a walking accident waiting to happen. She is often incoherent and incapable of making decisions and it's so frustrating there's not some mental health team support or something.

DH has had enough of the drama and constant calls (she often rings in the middle of the night). He thinks I should offer to take her to AA or the GP to discuss rehab and if she says no then tell her I'm don't want to hear from her again unless it's because she's decided to clean up. Easier said than done.

I'd love to hear from anyone who's walked this path because the biggest problem is trying to find people who get it.

Might be better putting this into Relationships. I think you'll get some useful responses there rather than here.

Jules, unfortunately neither you nor anyone can stop an alcoholic drinking. You can of course suggest taking your mother to AA but she will have to decide whether she wants to get sober.
I suggest you go to al anon where you will get lots of support.
I am sorry about your situation - alcoholism is a vile disease.

I'm afraid she has to choose to get sober. I say that as the daughter an alcoholic, granddaughter of 3 alcoholics, and an ex police officer who met many vulnerable and many less vulnerable but aggressive alcoholics.

If she's been through rehab twice in he last year and no longer has any faith in coming off the booze, she isn't in a mentally ready state to get off it. It may never be the right time for her, I'm sorry. None of my grandparents ever got sober either. My granddad got taken into hospital for the final time clutching a bottle of whisky - he refuse to give it up, along with the fags. It's literally a drug, and stopping it suddenly can kill them. They need to detox it under controlled methods, hence rehab.

Loving an alcoholic is a nightmare. You can get support via AA yourself though as a family member affected by it, and it might be worth talking it through with someone better able to explain it than me:

www.al-anonuk.org.uk/

Thanks all. I posted here for traffic as the alcohol support section is a bit quiet. You've all said what I thought. I just wanted to see if I'd missed anything. She's been on the phone twice this morning totally pissed. I've blocked her for a few hours to get some respite. No point talking to her when she's drunk.

You can't stop an alcoholic from drinking. They have to want to stop themselves.
My brother, who was alcoholic, died this year. Not from alcohol, but his drinking led him to neglect his health (and everything else), and he died from cancer that had gone untreated/was ignored (and it would have been treatable and curable). Nothing would ever have stopped him from drinking. He was drinking on his death bed.
You cannot change your mother, but you can change yourself. You need to protect your mental health, because an alcoholic will drive you mad, cause you anguish, distress and worry, and do nothing useful for your life or family.
I am sorry that the vultures are circling. My brother was continually robbed and otherwise taken advantage of. There are some evil and manipulative people around. His flat was being used as a drug den at one time by his 'friends' , he was too drunk to notice or care.
There is nothing you can do. I know it's easier said than done, but, for your own sake, I would drop contact.

I'm a recovering alcoholic with 24 years of sobriety.

I agree with all that has been said, particularly you connecting with al-anon. You'll get great advice and support there.

It's a life threatening illness. She needs to start with her GP, but if she's been in rehab the medical part has probably already been covered.

So sorry you're having to deal with this Jules.

Thank you all and well done MissConductUS. Can I ask you, so many people are telling me stop helping her and walk away. If your family had done that would it have helped make you see you need help? I've got to the point where I control the time I will spend on her. I will only go up if I absolutley have to (she spends about 50% of her time under arrest or in hospital) and I will only call her twice a day when she's what I call 'off line'. This is where she goes on a binge and basically stops communicating for a few days. And then between that she rings constantly so I block her number except for a two hour slot after work. I also only allow myself to think about her at certain times of the day. Sounds weird but it works as it becomes obsessive. Of course this all goes a bit tits up when the police or hospital call and expect me to do something.

I do believe alcoholics can stop if they really want to but they do have to really want it.

Mil was an alcoholic and lived alone. It was awful constantly worrying like you who was taking advantage of her. Was she alive. When would we get 'that' call. We were very close to her tried to check on her every day when we could get in and shw had lots of help from local alcohol support places such as lifeline and the nhs including mental health services. It wasn't enough. We lost her three years ago at 51.

It was a terrible time and even worse sometimes she did manage short periods of sobriety and in those periods you could see what an amazing caring loving woman she was but she was terribly ill with this disease and whatever drove her to it.

We would give anything to have her back even just for an hour but truth be told life is easier without that awful worry hanging over us day and night.

Sorry op, I also have an alcohol parent. I have gone NC And don’t expect that they will ever change. I have blocked their number and cut them out entirely. I have small DC and don’t want their alcoholic grandparent to harm them in the way they harmed us. Hello occasionally I feel bad about it, but usually I don’t. We have been NC For 20 years.

@Jules856 sadly i dont think it would make her realise. Mil was a doting mother and had her children taken off her in the end due to her alcoholism. She still didn't stop. In all honesty it just validates their reasons for drinking. It would be a good excuse for her e.g. nobody cares about me so i drink to numb the pain.

For your own mh tho i would consider going nc. You wont change her. It sounds like you wont get any pleasure from a relationship anyway and if your dm is like my mil she wont even know what day of the week it is so it wont matter much to her. Maybe the authorities would have to get more involved if she didnt have that family support there everytime she needed it. I don't know.

Having said that,when mil did die i felt at peace that dp and i had done everything we possibly could to stop that happening. Im not sure other family members felt the same and probably have a lot of regrets.

Sorry about the typos - I have no idea where the ‘hello’ came from.

Thanks all. What help have the authorities offered to people you know in this situation.? I've tried social services and mental health and just get

I'm afraid I don't have anything to add that anyone else hasn't already said, but I am so sorry you are in the situation.

I saw DH go through this with both his parents and it was bloody heartbreaking. Both his parents died in the end, less than 3 years apart. One from a stroke (clearly brought on by alcoholism) and the other from liver disease. DH described their deaths as a 'relief' and he feels he did his grieving years ago, when the alcoholism first got a grip. It's such a sad waste.

We reported mil as a vulnerable adult in danger which she was. She had youths hanging around to catch her on the way for her alcohol who would go in her house spend her money and ended up clearing hundreds of pounds out of her account within the space of about 20 minutes. This meant a social worker became involved and then carers were put in place. We also spoke to the police who said they would drive by the house on a night to check for anything going on.

Mils case was slightly complicated as she had rheumathoid arthritis as well. She could walk and was mobile but used a wheelchair mostly.

I also reported things to her gp regularly and requested a mental health assessment which was done at home with multiple visits from the mental health service. Sadly alcoholism alone is not treat as a mental health condition.

well done MissConductUS. Can I ask you, so many people are telling me stop helping her and walk away. If your family had done that would it have helped make you see you need help?

My situation was a bit different. My boyfriend at the time broke up with me and my family wasn't that aware of what was going on. I was never involved with the police and my only hospitalization was when I did a week of inpatient detox. I'm an HCP so was familiar with the medical nature of alcoholism and not particularly treatment resistant.

Generally I agree that you shouldn't enable alcoholic behavior, and that the addict needs to "hit bottom", which for me wasn't particularly dramatic. However, some people are so strongly addicted that they need more help to manage the withdrawal. It's a very insidious disease that actually causes long term structural and neurochemical changes to the brain:

Molecular Basis of Alcoholism

Which is why a full blown alcoholic can't just stop drinking without horrendous withdrawal symptoms.

Treatment is really the only way forward, but you can't force her to seek it, can you?

I think the way you're handling it is the best possible compromise unless there's a way to get more social services involved. I'm sorry you're having to deal with this. It's an awful disease for everyone involved.

Sadly pps are right - she has to want to stop. Nothing you can do will help unless she takes the first steps herself.

For my dad, it took a 2-week spell in intensive care in an induced coma, with us being told he was unlikely to make it through the night, followed by time on the general ward, continuing to suffer withdrawal effects and being made very aware by doctors that continuing to drink alcohol would kill him within weeks/months. Luckily for us, this scared him sufficiently (after about 30 years of increasingly heavy drinking) and he's now been sober since the middle of January. He's on a cocktail of meds for heart failure and liver damage, but (touch wood) he's staying away from the alcohol.

I'm sorry you're going through this - it is an utterly hellish situation to be in

i’m an alcoholic, and the child of alcoholics.

i hit my rock bottom four and a half years ago and i haven’t had a drink since, one day at a time. nothing could have stopped me drinking. nothing.

i was a professional with a job involving lots of international travel and some amazing experiences. my daughter doing well, we lived in a nice house...

but, alongside this, i was hiding vodka, drinking to oblivion at every opportunity and it all started to slide, fast. i lost my job. my daughter went to live with her father. my marriage didn’t make it, and i had to move out of the nice house. by then, i was drinking mouthwash in the mornings just to get me to the shop for drink.

living on my own, marriage gone, child gone, everything gone. and i still didn’t stop. not even when i woke up vomiting, or lost days at a time, or had the police doing welfare checks. i’d been in hospital twice due to a nervous breakdown but they wouldn’t treat me further with therapy etc while i was drinking. didn’t care.

it was horrendous. but, the mess was mine. i made it. i didn’t learn much from my childhood apart from how to change the way i felt with booze and drugs, but i was the one that kept hitting the big red Fuck It button that i have in place of an off-switch.

i nearly died, at the end. the withdrawals were unbelievable. i’d been in AA but still drinking. in the end i just surrendered, someone got me to a meeting the next day whilst i still felt like death, and i just haven’t picked up a drink since.

all of which is a very long-winded way of saying, OP, that this is out of your hands. you can’t change this, or cure it. you didn’t cause it. and nobody can stop, and STAY stopped but the alcoholic themselves.

i am so sorry you are in this situation. maybe a call to social services, as a PP said, to report your mother as a vulnerable adult. other than that - it’s time for you to let this go, now. Al-Anon can be hugely helpful to people with an alcoholic in the family, but it’s not for everyone.

i don’t know what else to say, apart from be kind to yourself.

My dad was a chronic alcoholic. He drank himself to death three years ago. He was found dead one morning by his carer.

There was nothing we could do to persuade him to stop drinking. He didn't want to. He was depressed and attempted suicide several times. His GP worked with us to try to help him but ultimately everything failed.

Being completely honest here, after years of strain on my physical and mental health and that of my mum and step-mum, it's a relief he's dead

Thank you all.

LadyR77 that all resonates with me and I'm so glad your dad made the change he needed. My mum was recently in hospital for 8 weeks, including 10 days in an induced come in ITU on a liver unit. She drank the day she came out.

Anyway. We're back on the merry go round as she was admitted to hospital this morning after collapsing in a shop.

Thank you for the advice. I'll try the vulnerable adult line with social services. What a load of crap.

If you are on Facebook there is a page called COAisathing (child of alcoholics) and the guy who runs it, Josh, can add you to the secret Facebook group for Adult children of alcoholics. It's a really supportive place.