How do you know when an alcoholic has hit rock bottom?

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Member of my family is an alcoholic. She's fighting it tooth and nail, doing all the right things, but keeps fucking up, with escalating consequences.

Every time the remorse is massive, she's straight back into her program, everyone gets optimistic again. Then it happens again. And every time our "last chance", "line in the sand" shifts.

I think she's got to hit rock bottom before she actually puts everything into her recovery. But how do you know when that happens?

Mumandmama thank you

Trib, her DH is definitely not using access to alcohol as a bargaining tool. But the rest of your post is absolutely spot on. As usual.

You HAVE to inform SS about this, for the child's sake, but I warn you now that there's not a great deal they'll do if they see that the family's stepping in and supervising all the time - they consider that as the risk being averted, even though it's not practical or sustainable. They will only take serious action if she's regularly drunk in charge of her child.

SS don't actually care if your relative is an alcoholic. All they care about is that it doesn't happen around the children, and that they're safe and protected. That is their only concern, the safeguarding of the child. Your relative's alcoholism is HER responsibility.

Do you have a CGL/CRI/Aspire service where you live? They're a drug and alcohol advisory service and they're excellent. If there's one near you, or any other service, SS can refer your relative. She HAS to take the initiative and show she's fighting - toddling off to AA won't cut it, SS don't endorse AA or recommend them as a rehabilitation/treatment plan. It will have to be an agency that works with the authorities.

This is something she'll have to engage with long term. I know CGL work with medical professionals, they can arrange hospital detox, rehab, and referrals to hepatology in the event of liver damage. They can offer full medicals, blood tests, and liver function tests. Maybe she needs to see what she's doing to her health in order to stop, who knows? But she must, must, MUST engage with these agencies.

Beauty, she's engaging with a lot of different agencies, I don't know the names of them all. She has a pretty packed program of meetings and treatment which she's following.

Incidentally, if you haven't read Rachel's Holiday by Marian Keyes I can really recommend it. Hilarious and absolutely spot on (Keyes is an alcoholic with 20+ years of sobriety).

I doubt very much if she is as dependent as you say that she's actually only drunk on 15 days in three years (or whatever you said). What it really means is she's only been caught drinking on those days.

Absolutely. If her tolerance to alcohol is high, which is probably is if she's physically dependent, she may very well appear quite sober even if she's had a skinful. I used to be very good at that

Doesn't her dh realise that having to have his dw supervised while he's away means that he and his dw have reached rock bottom already?

Fwiw my dm was an alcoholic and my dad enabled her. I used to pray he would leave her. I blame him as much as I blame her.

Yes, I've read Rachel's Holiday eleventy million times. I love it.

She could be drinking in secret but she's not a constant drinker who can appear sober. It affects her with the first mouthful. It's like an allergic reaction almost.

It affects her with the first mouthful.

How long has she been drinking, to your knowledge? And how's her general health? Any worrying symptoms?

Maryz, yes I'm sure. It's hard to explain but you can see the change in her and hear it in her voice. And she acts like a toddler who's stolen chocolate. A mixture of guilt and triumph.

She most likely IS drinking in secret - you don't develop a physical dependency by only having 10-15 drunk days in a year. That's not how it works.

She's either topping herself up during the day with something like vodka, then having a 'public' drink like wine in the evening, and getting drunk quickly due to mixing and already being on the verge of it. Or, she's damaged her liver to the point where just one drink can get her pissed.

She's probably got vodka in a coffee mug or a water bottle.

Tell the Social Services. I am going next week to collect my friends dog whether she wants to give her to me or not because I don't think she is looking after her properly. If the dog had been a child she would have been out of there two years ago.

Sorry op im focusing too much on mil who would walke up at 3am to drink.

There is some really good advice on here, has anything swayed you into which direction to take?

You could always tell when mil had a drink too and tbf after a couple she was never bothered about hiding it either as she enjoyed it.

And it affects her from the first mouthful because she is drunk already.

You will have to trust me when I say she's not a constant drinker. She has zero tolerance because she drinks so infrequently. And when she drinks she necks it like water. Literally a bottle of wine in minutes.

Ginger, what I've taken from this thread is that the situation is unmistakably getting worse. It's not stable, it's not improving. Also that I need to make it clear to her DH that all the support we have put in place is ultimately self-defeating, as it's allowing her to drink without the full consequences.

Do you think that will actually change anything though? Her dh is likely to be the biggest enabler. I say this from experience (enablers buying the alcohol to limit it, watering it down secretly so not as much is drank, entertaining morning noon and night to keep them busy).

Do you think it will benefit the child?

I believe you Unexpected. And anyway it doesn't really make much difference to the scene you have set in your op - she is not fit to look after her 3 year old without additional "help" from other members of the family, and that is not good enough.

Is anyone else reading this thread alongside the current thread posted by a man worried about his alcholic wife and leaving the children in her care?

"You will have to trust me when I say she's not a constant drinker".

I believe that's what you think. My best friend (the one with the dog) convinced her husband, her mother and all her friends that she had completely given up alcohol and that the symptoms she was showing were a very rare neurological condition that was being investigated by the hospital. She kept this going for nearly 3 years until I visited unexpectedly and coincided with the Waitrose delivery- including a case of wine and a litre each of vodka and gin. We genuinely had no idea she was drinking at all.

dh's dad was an alcoholic. MIL enabled it as he was functioning and earning a lot of money.

dh and his sibling grew up in an environment where wine in a mug at 9am, leaving their dad passed out on the lawn, being in a car when their dad had had a drink was normal. All 3 of the children have been affected by it.

His mother left eventually when she was in her mid 50's because the dad was no longer a functioning alcoholic and money had run out. A non functioning middle aged alcoholic is not a pretty sight, he lost all his friends and died alone aged 57 in a bedsit from alcohol related disease. No one noticed for 3 weeks.

You friends dh needs to leave her now and take the child with him. Her dh will leave her eventually anyway, its better for the child, and increases her chances of accepting and dealing with this, if its sooner rather than later.

Do you think that will actually change anything though? Her dh is likely to be the biggest enabler.

I don't know. I do think he is massively over-optimistic about her progress/recovery, with a lot of minimising and denial.

When she's not drinking (360 days of the year) their life is very good together.