Alcohol Induced Dementia, Alcohol Related Brain Damage aged 47

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My mum aged 47 has been diagnosed with the above, does anyone have any advice or tips or anything really, it all a shock at the moment

I’m really sorry. I know a family that are going through this at the moment. The 50 year old mother has ended up in a residential home after a few hospital stays. She’s put her family through hell. They’re really upset. She’s oblivious.

Super skim I've been target practise too.

@Supersimkin2 thank you so much for saying that, its often hard as it is in my nature to try and 'heal' people!

Thank-you for everyones responses, currently live at home due to covid and mum 'needing' me to be around but making plans to move out early in the new year to a city 80 miles away

Yes definitely get power of attorney now as this can only be done when your mum has capacity. My mum has Alzheimer’s, shortly after diagnosis we applied for POA, it’s pretty straightforward
I feel for you so much.
Please please do not let caring for her take over your life, hard as it can be you still have a future to plan for, she doesn’t.
Take care

I'm so sorry you are dealing with this. I agree that you definitely need to seek lasting power of attorney for both health and welfare and property and financial affairs.

Sadly my SIL has gone through this with her husband. He was an alcoholic and developed alcoholic seizures, and was diagnosed with alcoholic encephalopathy. He also had severe cirrhosis of the liver and only had 20% liver function. He developed a varicose vein in his oesophagus which burst and regularly soiled himself.

He ended up in residential care and died 4 months ago.

I'm astonished she is still able to work, and find it worrying that she is still driving. She must surely be over the limit in the morning when driving to work.

My uncle has what we think is this. He won't share the details with any of us. All you can do is detach yourself and try to avoid the fall out. Come up with a plan for what you will and won't do in advance so you aren't making decisions at highly emotionally charged points. And don't give up your life for them. I watched my aunt give up years of her life for my uncle and it ruined her life.

If you can persuade your mum to move somewhere wheelchair friendly in advance that would probably be a good idea, but don't get too hung up on anything like that for now.

You can't fix her. You can point her to sources of help, but you can't fix her and trying will only make your own life worse.

i hope she is not a nurse. or some other care-giver/therapist.
i presume she has an admin job.
if she has any responsibility for patient care, i think you have to inform her employer. otherwise she could harm somebody, as her mind is not functioning correctly. she might be able to mask it at work, mostly, for the moment, but a time will come when she won't, and that could happen at any time.
likewise the driving. could you inform dvla of your concerns, or speak to her GP. or the police. it is a situation of continuing public endangerment.
also if she does not agree to sign papers for power of attorney while she still can, it can be very expensive and tedious to apply to the court of protection later, thousands of pounds, and having to keep detailed accounts and justify every item.

I'm going through this right now with my father. He's spent well over 40 years of his life heavily drinking and was a terrible father during my childhood I have no memories of happy times with him during my childhood. Now I'm lumbered with caring for him as I'm the one that lives closest. my siblings are not interested and don't even phone him so it's all on me and I have young children myself. It's so hard.

She needs Vitamin B complex & Thiamin tablets & to use lactulose to flush the toxins out of her body. In hospital they would give iv Pabrinex. If she has alcohol induced dementia then chances are she has cirrhosis of the liver.

I lost my partner age 34 to alcoholism, he had mood swings, twitches, shakes, seizures, memory loss, was violent towards the end, I was punched & hit in the face & my skull just because I had turned over in bed & touched him when I was sleeping. That was when I had to kick him out because I feared for my life, a month later he was dead, he was admitted to hospital with liver failure, had a massive seizure, was put in to an induced coma for 36 hours, when they woke him up he appeared to be ok but the day after had breathing difficulties, his lungs were filling with blood & he basically drowned in his own blood within 4 hours.

I just had to fire a 33 year old employee this week. I tried to help him, organise treatment etc. Gave him back his job. But he just got worse, became completelyunreasonable and making too many mistakes. Found out he was minding his child while his wife worked and was getting aggressive to her. Had to report to social services and police as driving over the limit too. Feel terrible about it. So sorry OP that you are going through this

In exactly this situation with FIL. Lifelong alcoholic, has had several ‘mini’ strokes, has brain damage and dementia. He’s in his v early 60s.
Tbh OP this is one of those situations where you really need to remember the old adage about putting your own lifejacket on first. You can’t fix this person, you can’t solve all their problems and you’re highly likely to never be able to get through to them no matter what they say. A few years ago DH made the decision to take a massive step back from his dad as it was like an emotional black hole - we were pouring a huge amount of time and energy in and it was never enough; it was just all being sucked away with no forward progress.
That said, FIL has surprised us all and is actually ok these days - BIL took over his money management so he has next to no access to money, which forced him to cut right down on his drinking, which has had a big positive impact. Given that there was a time we felt like we were constantly waiting for ‘the call’, he’s doing pretty well even if he can’t remember which of our kids is which. But we only really have surface level contact with FIL (visit once or twice a year) and I know it hurts DH that our children have missed out on having any sort of relationship with their grandad.

I hope things work out as well as they can OP. Put yourself first

Thank-you all for your kind words, we know she will not stop drinking, eat better but maybe she will take suppliments

Hi op I am sorry to hear this when I was a mental health nurse I did work with a few People who had Wernicke's/ Korsakoff,s
Who has diagnosed this if your mum is still driving have the DVLA been informed ? As really they should have been .