Anyone else with an alcoholic family member?

[Justcrackingon]

In a nutshell, my Dsis is an alcoholic. It all came out about two years ago, although I’ve since found out that it had been going on for a long time before that (we don’t live near to each other). She has lost her long-term partner (and is now going out with a lying, manipulative, co-dependent arsehole), her friends and her job. She has lost lots of weight, and teeth, and looks awful. She admits she has a problem and has been in touch (over the phone) with the local alcohol service for nearly a year. But nothing changes.

I’ve gradually realised (the hard way!) that there’s nothing I can do to change any of this and that she is the one that needs to make the changes. I don’t walk around all day constantly anxious, as I used to do. I’m getting better at putting boundaries in place. But I’m left with a profound sense of sadness about the situation. And I find it hard to think about what might come next – the accidents, the physical illnesses, decline etc.

I don’t have any other family (parents both died fairly recently, no other siblings or even aunts, uncles etc.) although I have a lovely partner and friends that I can, and do, talk to. But if there’s anyone else out there in a similar situation and fancies a bit of hand-holding, come and say hi. It’s such a bloody hard and lonely thing to watch/go through.

(Not sure if this is the right corner of MN to post this but figure if I’ve been lurking here, others may have too!)

Im experiencing something very similar at the moment but with a friend.
I feel like I'm watching a very slow car crash with predicted outcomes.
Im sorry you're having a tough time today.
Sadly people in addiction won't stop until they're ready. Sometimes that's never.
Protect yourself and your family. Leave a little light on for your sister if you can 💐

Yes, my ex, who is on a very short path towards death with no regard for our children. I am equally filled with rage and sadness at such a wasted life.

Father was one, he died a number of years ago, but also sister and mother are alcoholics, I find it really hard to cope with not only the devastating path my father left but the one being created each day by my sister and mother, whatever I do isn’t good enough, I feel like walking away from the both sometimes and never looking back but then guilt and love holds me back and I start the cycle again

My mum was an alcoholic. She sadly passed away a few years ago when she was still only in her fifties

She actually wasn't drinking when she died. She had already done the damage to her body before she quit. She was sober for a few months before she sadly died. She got sober by going to lots of AA meetings.

I don't drink myself at all anymore, as don't want to follow the same path.

Thanks for the replies everyone.

@Frigginintheriggin - sorry about your friend. The slow car crash analogy is spot on I do try to leave a little light on, for sure, thank you.

@Nothingsfine - that must be extremely difficult. A friend of mine is in the same situation and it's staggering when there are children involved. And yes, rage - I realise my initial post sounds quite measured but there have been times over the last year when I have been the angriest ever in my life. I hope you have support in place for you all.

@Thewayshetalks - sorry for your loss and your ongoing situation. That sounds like a lot for you to be dealing with. What is it that your mum and sister expect you to do? (if you want to talk about, please don't if you don't want to)

@JessicaJacket - so sorry for your loss, fifties is so young. Totally understand why you don't drink. I still do but hardly at all; I'm very wary of it. Can't bear to be around drunk people either.

Im at stage where I feel I have given all the support I can. Its impacting on my own mental health now.
I've withdrawn, but the door is open if my friend wants to get in touch when she's sober.
Im sending you all some strength 💐

Hello, I am in the same situation. My brother is an alcoholic and still lives with my mum who is 57. The impact this is having on her life and my life is just awful. We get the promises after a detox and then two days later are back in the same position. It’s mentally and physically draining and I feel your pain. I don’t know what to do to help him. I have two young children so it’s hard to be there 24/7 for him but I feel like he needs a babysitter to make him make better choices.

Hi everyone. Solidarity to you all. It’s not a great place.

I’m similar to the OP.

My sister has recently been messily splitting up with her boyfriend of 15 years and it’s all coming out. I think he’s both been helping hiding her problem and also contributing to it by drinking too and eroding her self confidence.

Over the last couple of years she’s had a few hospital stays (due to alcohol related incidents) where afterwards he’s brought her here (she lives a 6 hour drive away). She’s stayed with my mum and promised that it will be a new start.

Eight weeks ago she came up again, (I picked her up after a lot of persuasion) now split with boyfriend. She was in a really poor state, just living on the sofa and peeing where she lay. Once up here she said she wanted to sell her house and move up here. She went back to her house ten days ago to finish packing up and is clearly drinking again. She’s always saying she’s coming back in a couple of days.

She has previously admitted to ambulance people (following a withdrawal induced seizure) that she was drinking 2-3 bottles of wine a day. I presume the truth is worse.

I don’t know how long she can maintain that level of drinking without serious harm.

I don’t think there is much I can/should do. I think picking her up (literally or metaphorically) clearly isn’t the answer.

Hi everyone, I am the OP and I saw new messages. Solidarity, hand-holding and love to you all. My shit-show of a situation has predictably got worse. My sister is now homeless (well, sofa-surfing) and it sounds like there has been physical, mental and cognitive decline (falling down in the street, soiling herself, paranoid phone calls, talking to people that aren't there). I don't live near and she hides from me when I go to her area, so hard to know how bad it is but she was admitted to hospital on Friday for possible psychosis (discharged on Sunday because 'she's fine'.) She lies through her teeth to me, although sometimes I think she actually just has no memory of things.

I lost it slightly at the weekend when her former housemate/landlady told me I needed to 'step up' and 'help your sister'. Like, what the f$%^ can I do?! But it still hurts and brings on the guilt. I have been talking to a mental health helpline and they advised me to ask for a mental health assessment because of the psychosis. But I have little hope that anything will happen as a result.

I called Al-Anon (for family and friends affected by someone else's drinking) today and cried down the phone at a nice man. I'm going to one of their local meetings tonight. Am nervous about what it will be like but think I would just like to be able to say how I feel to a room-full of people who understand and won't tell me to 'step up'.

I totally understand the theory of 'detaching' but whatever you do it's very hard to watch my only last (blood relative) family member slowly kill herself.

I often check back on this thread so do come on and rant if you ever feel like it. x

My mum was 47 when she died only 18 months ago. She had been an alcoholic as long as I could remember. Although it seemed to massively decline when I reached late teens.
It's the most horrific thing watching someone you care about self destruct. I had tried everything to help my mum but in reality, people with addictions will only accept help if theyre willing.
I'm sorry you have no support to help her. I didn't either and it's incredibly hard.

Going to a meeting of a support organisation is the single best thing you can do for yourself. Bravo for taking that step. I lost both my husband and my mother to alcohol and the loneliness of it was the very worst thing. I still go to a support group, both for my own wellbeing and to support others who are where I used to be.

I got the 'you should step up and help your mum' from her next door neighbour when she was spiralling. Fortunately I had been part of my group for some considerable time so was able to respond by blocking her.

The pain doesn't go away, but you have done all the right things. Carry on helping the only person you can - you.

I lost my father 5 years ago to an alcohol related illness (15 years sober) and now my Mum seems determined to do the same. It's so hard, I'm totally frozen with fear and shame, the horror of it all.
Years of hiding it and now she's so bad I can no longer hide it from anyone that sees her.
It's a comfort strangely to know I'm not the only one! Xx

My condolences to those of you who have lost someone to this horrific condition. pointy - I feel sick at the thought of going tonight but I've got to give it a try. Yes, the loneliness is awful.

Marjorie - you are not alone. Never far away from this thread if you want to scream, rant or sob.

Yes my mother who was abusive. She is dry now and has been for 13 years but is still abusive unfortunately. I don’t know how I still talk to her at times, and there are huge periods of NC for me and other family members. It was life changing for me in a detrimental way and I have had some therapy but not nearly enough. I could go to Al-anon but I don’t want to give any more of my time and life to her addiction.

I would say if she had children please support them as much as you can. I’m sorry you have to carry this. Please do look after yourself, there is zero you can do for an addict until it becomes their choice to change 💐

I'm sorry to hear about your mother and how her behaviour has impacted on you @SisterAgatha I can totally understand the impulse to go NC; you have to protect yourself and you have the right to live your own life, free from abuse. Look after yourself too. Fortunately there are no children to consider in my situation (other than mine and they are completely protected from it all, they are my absolute priority).

If it's of use/interest to anyone else on the thread - I did go to my first Al-Anon meeting last night and found it hugely supportive - just to sit in a room with other people who know what 'it' is like.

I'm really glad you found the meeting supportive and I hope it has left you feeling less alone. You really aren't alone - alcoholism is so common, but people just don't talk about it and suffer in silence.

My husband is an alcoholic. Denied it for years but now managed to get him to see a doctor and he finally admits it. He has his own business which he is now badly managing. He has always been in charge of bills, mortgage etc but I noticed letters were arriving and I could see things were not getting paid. I tried to say that I would help but he just got angry and said he would sort it. I’m now so angry with myself that I didn’t just take control as it looks like we may now lose our home. I have older children and they are trying to help but it’s so hard as none of us know what we are doing and I hate putting all this on them 😕 My husband is in so much debt with his business and credit cards that I just don’t know what I’m going to do. We sit and talk to him for hours and hours, always of an evening when he’s obviously been drinking and wants to talk, he makes promises that he’ll do this and that but he never does. Thanks for listening as I keep this to myself but I feel mentally drained right now 😕

You need to talk to Step Change/CAB about support for a debt repayment plan. You may end up with an IVA, which will hit your credit rating, but that can be recovered over time.

You also need to think seriously about whether you want to stay in this relationship. In your post I don't see any signs that he is ready to give up alcohol. What do you want the rest of your life to be? As someone who has been there, I can honestly say that life without an alcoholic in it is immeasurably better.

Just wanted to post on this thread as I used to scour any alcohol related stories online and read other people’s posts to not feel alone. My mum is an alcoholic and has been for most of my life since my childhood. It was always something of a secret, she had a good job and we had a nice house and from the outside I genuinely don’t think anyone really knew. But behind the scenes when it was particularly bad she would be drinking a bottle of whisky a day, multiple bottles of wine and playing music until the early hours of the morning when we all had school the next day. When she retired 5 years ago things absolutely spiralled. She would drive to the shop still drunk to get wine and brandy, she wouldn’t eat or shower. She weed in her bed every night. She could barely walk. A neighbour told us they saw her crawling over our doorstop for an Amazon parcel. She went to a party and fell down in front of everyone, ending up in A&E with a black eye. She was a completely different person drunk, so embarrassing, so cruel, so confident. Our every day life was just anxiety morning to night - how much will Mum drink today, will she drive, will someone call the police, will a friend see her staggering. Every new “low” I used to think this will be the one that does it, this will be the wake up call. In the end one weekend about 3 years ago we were home and she had to crawl up the stairs she was so unbalanced and her stomach looked pregnant she was holding that much fluid. We had found tens of empty wine bottles under her bed and in her wardrobe. She hadn’t eaten a proper meal in weeks. We got her an emergency meeting with a GP, and had to hold her up just to walk her into the surgery (I think the only reason she even went in with us was because she recognised how scared we were and how unwell she seemed). That morning genuinely changed our lives. The amazing GP told her quite simply she was going to die, that he could see how loved she was from the people in tears beside her. He told us to go to A&E for bloods. She was kept in hospital for a week to have her fluids drained, and told she had cirrhosis and liver disease. She came away from that episode very very frail, shaken and embarrassed but sober. It has been 3 years now and although their have been 2 very brief relapses, she is still sober and doing amazingly. It genuinely feels like I am dreaming some days. I have my mum back, and she is like the best version of herself. She looks better than ever, she walks every day, she has a completely new lease of life.

I do know that she is not the majority, and sadly a lot of alcoholics do not end up this way. I also know that sometimes there is no helping someone, and that you need to walk away. But I used to read these threads looking for some hope, that maybe sometimes some people do give up. I want to share this so you know it can happen. Sending so much love to those of you anxious and heartbroken about the people you love. Addiction is so hard, be kind to yourselves x

That’s so nice to read. I’m so glad your mum found her way and is sober. I pray every day that I am going to wake up and everything be okay with my brother. Xxx

My dad is an alcoholic. He and my mum had been married 39 years when he put the house up for sale without consulting her and they split.

I've seen him taken away in ambulances and police cars. I've hidden from him when I was a teenager and home alone during one of his particularly bad episodes. We have a good relationship now but it's taken some time.

A couple of things I have learnt along the way is:

1. Not to be an enabler. Don't buy alcohol, pay bills or rent for someone in your sisters situation. You're just allowing her to continue with no repercussions. You're also potentially putting yourself out financially when the cost of living is rising anyway.

2. AA talk about the gift of desperation. People with alcohol dependency often need to hit rock bottom before anything changes. As difficult as it is to watch, it might be the right thing to do.

I really hope you're ok. I know how hard it is and how much you wish you could change it. I wished I could too x

Hi all, would really recommend the Will Young documentary on channel 4 about his brother’s alcoholism. Really brilliant Doc and it introduces you to the campaign “stitch away the stigma” which is on Instagram and has some amazing messages and stories. Hope you’re all doing ok x

Thanks @DueDec21 I will have a look at that.

Hugs to everyone. It’s completely shite isn’t it.

I am struggling with the line between scooping my sister up to help her, which I know is preventing her from hitting her rock bottom and seeking help, and just giving normal help that you would give if someone had MH problems and was struggling.

She’s currently sorting out her house to sell and move closer to us. She isn’t asking for help but I know she’s struggling. The level of sorting out it needs is that it needs a couple of skips. I don’t know what to do.

Hi everyone - how are you all doing?

@Sureen - I did see your message before it disappeared. Love and strength to you on your journey forward.

@DueDec21 - I have been reading obsessively about the WY documentary but just not sure if I can watch it at the moment. It sounds ghastly, what he had to go through, how sad for both of them.

@FreeTruman - yes, it's a strange one sometimes, isn't it, whether you are helping or enabling someone? I would say if it's something you would help with 'normally' then it's maybe not a terrible thing (but I am still trying to skirt this line myself so I'm no expert...)

It's my sister's birthday. I sent her a card, called her (no answer), left a nice message (didn't call me back), tried again (no answer) and left a text (no reply). This hasn't happened before, so it's a new low.

On the 'plus' side (haha) I went to another Al-Anon meeting and again found it hugely helpful. Such calm, kind people even though they are often struggling with things themselves.