Continuing support group for those affected by someone else's drinking

[pointythings]

Our current thread is nearly full, and it's too valuable to lose in the mists of time, so this is thread 2. Come here if you are struggling with a loved one's drinking - partner, parent, child, friend, there's support for you here no matter which person in your life is struggling with the drink and having an adverse impact on you. The women on here have all been there or are still going through it. We support and advise each other, we don't judge, we listen.

Original thread here to refer back to: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/alcohol_support/4581221-support-group-for-those-affected-by-someone-elses-drinking

@Yumyi that is what these threads are for. I fully intend to keep them going open ended. This place is what Mumsnet is for. I run a group like this one in RL too.

I feel like I can’t talk to anyone in RL about this as I would feel like I was letting her down. As she would be mortified. We live somewhere where a lot of people know her and it’s a small world. And on the face of it I don’t think it would be that obvious to everyone else. She does a good cheery “hello, lovely day” and general small talk. And all the drinking happens after 4pm on the sofa so it would be mostly hidden to neighbours etc. so it’s sort of a shameful secret that I have to worry about all on my own

That sounds very difficult and it's fair enough. However, two things: Try to do the detachment thing so that you can at least manage your levels of worry to the point where you still have a healthy and happy life. And secondly: you have these threads now and we are here for you.

I'm so sorry to hear that. It must have been so hard for you dealing with your dad's illness and then passing with the added worry for your mum and her drinking.
I hope you don't mind me asking, but when you say you lost your mum to alcohol, do you mean you lost the mum she used to be, or did your mum pass away?

Sadly she didn't. And I do know we did our best, everyone did. She was way too deep in the hole. It was a few months ago and I still have a lot to think about. Thinking of you for Monday.

edit: @HazeBaze I tried to quote your post but obviously failed!

Oh, this is so common, I think a lot of us here understand this. I barely spoke to anyone about my mum. I only told my aunt about a year or so ago. People 'knew', but not the extent of it – or how it was really affecting our family.

It's so hard to carry. I started posting on here about a year ago, and I read some books too. It always surprises me how similar the stories are, even down to small details. Learning from others didn't change the situation, but I felt a lot less alone. It transformed it from some weird, odd, shameful thing, to a sad situation that many people understand. I remember our kind neighbours told my dad, when they realised, that they knew several people living the same life.

Is there really no one you can tell in RL? No, kind, gentle discreet person? You wouldn't be letting her down. When someone is an alcoholic, everything revolves around them, and the people closest to them get so small in the face of the addiction. You deserve to be listened to and supported. You've done nothing wrong and it's not your shame.

Thank you. I do at least have my brother to share concerns with. So we are sharing the burden together. It’s hard when people ask how she is- just well meaning friends/ family making small talk and we have to say “yes she is doing well” then change the subject. I thonk it is easier to talk to and get advice from people we dont know.

@HazeBaze she passed away in 2019. The year before my husband died of a heart attack caused by his alcohol abuse. We were in the process of getting divorced at the time.

My mum was essentially using alcohol as a slow way of taking her own life. She couldn't live without my dad, she refused to ask for help and so she did this instead. On a good day she'd admit that. But she never once thought or cared about the people around her and those she would leave behind. Alcohol made her completely self centred. And still she tried to keep up the veneer of everything being OK. She died from falling down the stairs in her own home and breaking her neck. Her care team found her the next morning. She would have been going downstairs to have a quick top up of her alcohol levels. My Dsis and I had asked her why she didn't just keep a bottle in her bedroom if she was going to do this anyway, but she had to keep up appearances.

I'm sorry to hear that.
Thank you for thinking of us Monday. I really appreciate the support, especially with me being so new to this group.

I'm so sorry to hear that. Your post just chocked me up. I guess my mum was very lucky after her fall down the stairs. I'm so sorry for your loss and I hope you are healing. X

I think that having gone through it with my husband taught me the strategies I needed to work through it. I honestly wouldn't wish it on anyone - having to do it twice - but having done it once already did make it easier because I had already been provided with the counselling and the emotional skills to recover. My Dsis found it much harder, though her DP is an alcoholic in recovery (15 years sober).

I'm more than 5 years out on the other side now and I don't think you ever fully get over something like this, but I channel my experiences by being on these threads and by supporting people who are in the thick of it in RL. It's paying it forward, and it really does help.

Hi everyone my first time posting, I'm so relieved to have found this!! My husband is an alcoholic. He can often get sober but never manages more than 3 weeks dry before falling off the wagon. I'm so exhausted, frustrated, anger, resentful and sad about the situation but I know leaving (well him leaving the family home) is the best option, but it's so bloody hard! Alcohol certainly isn't the only problem in our relationship, but it's the one thing we can't work on together. The AA nonsense about detaching with love and everything else I've read from Google searches about the importance of staying at any costs is so infuriating and really doesn't seem realistic so I was grateful to read so many comments about this, thank you! I feel like I've found a corner of sanity and sanctuary, thank you for such a great forum group 💖

Welcome @YourSharpCat You can detach with love and leave and leaving might well be the only way of holding on to your own mental health. Living with an alcoholic can drag you down so far that you can begin to feel your sanity is in shreds. AA helped me a lot as I needed to take on board the 'didn't cause it, can't control or cure it' message but I couldn't have stayed in the situation I was in without imploding and I haven't regretted ending our relationship for a second.

@YourSharpCat you can cherrypick Al-Anon and AA, but I did also find the focus on staying together at all costs irritating. There are so many situations where it is just not the sensible thing to do - especially when there are children involved. Although all three of us had a lot of work to do after my husband left the family home, they started blossoming immediately. I will always hang on to the vivid memory I have from a day or two after he was taken away by the police, when I heard my oldest singing in the shower. She hadn't done that in a very long time because her father would shout at her about the noise.

My kids learned to laugh again, play again, have fun again, because the dark cloud of their dad was no longer there. I always ask people to sit down and think what their life would look like without the alcoholic in it - not in financial terms, but in terms of their headspace, their sense of freedom and the sudden possibility of happiness.

And welcome to the best corner of Mumsnet!

I had a question about AlAnon, that I have been wondering about. As well as the whole detaching with love element a lot of The Facebook groups also talk about ‘your disease’ and you have to deal with that through the 12 steps in parallel with the whole alcoholic craziness. I find that really hard to follow. To me, we have to look after ourselves somehow, but we are living with someone else’s ‘disease’. Is this just a misinterpretation of the need for self care, or part of the principle of Al Anon.
As I am on the other side now this and I can’t tell you how much I feel for those in the middle. Hugs and good wishes 🌺

@Userccjlnhibibljn8 I can't answer your question but my perspective is: all of that AA stuff has always seemed to me to be too much noise and too much work. I have never seen my mother as having 'a disease' or considered myself to have a disease. She had an addiction, and we had the (natural) grief, confusion and heartache of living with that addiction.

I know people say to 'take what you need and leave the rest' but the idea of picking through it all seemed exhausting to me. Too much noise and chatter around something that is ultimately unfixable and can only be accepted and endured.

Maybe I am being unfair. Hope someone can answer your question as I'm interested too.

I feel that the whole addiction/disease is a matter of semantics. Being an addict isn't a choice and so there shouldn't be the stigma around it that exists, but as with any other situation, the person involved does have a responsibility to do everything possible to admit there is a problem and then address it. My DS isn't an addict, but he does have hypermobility and severe depression. So he sees an OT and a physio, he works hard to balance exercise, fitness and rest, he takes medication and develops coping strategies that let him have a social life, complete his degree and be his best self. It's bloody hard, much harder than it is for those of us who do not have his issues, but he does it. It's the same for someone with an addiction.

And although the addiction of one family member impacts the whole family, I feel it is incorrect to refer to family members as having any kind of disease. That's victim blaming. The responsibility for making change lies with the addict, and any change that family members make has to be about their own self preservation. My RL group is very strong on that point. We believe that emotional detachment is good - but as a means of self care. Our focus is on the relative, not the addict.

Hi. I was looking for a bit of advice please. I've followed this and the previous thread but not asked a question yet. My DH is a drinker with weeks here and there not drinking, mainly over the last year or so. Our kids are at home, over 20. I used to drink and worked to stop and give up completely, over 3 years ago now. DH can be unhappy, gets angry with life/others for not being how he wants things and 'secretly' drinks. His behaviour when drinking has a major effect on our lives, both boys just avoid him now. Not violent but really miserable to be around, embarassing if anyone else sees him, other things. We can all tell when he's started drinking and avoid him. He has periods of not drinking when he's a different person but I'm now so frustrated and angry with him for his behaviour when drinking. This has gone on for years. I've many excuses for not leaving yet but it is becoming more and more likely. He has had a difficult childhood and I think with counselling/talking to someone could help. He doesn't want any outside help even for our own relationship and communication and thinks me and the boys should be there to help him. I can't help him I'm too angry and affected by his past actions. He can't or won't see that. I don't know how to communicate with him, to get across the hurt he's caused and if that's even helpful. I just want him to see what impact he is having on us and that it can't continue. When I say to him it's bad enough for me to leave, he's almost surprised. Is this just denial? Has anyone had any success with explaining the impact enough so that they see they need help, I sometimes get so angry though that I can't even explain it without sounding like a full on attack and then he just gets defensive and deflects. Most of the time he just shuts down and won't discuss it at all. Sorry this is so long I just wanted to give a bit of background.

@Nevertoomanyfluffies one of the most frustrating thing about living with an alcoholic is the conviction that if you could only get through to them and explain calmly the damage they are doing to themselves and their family, they would see the light and stop drinking. I rehearsed so many speeches that ended up with me yelling and crying and him blaming others and deflecting and lying. Eventually, it dawned on me that I was wasting my breath and driving myself crazy and making no difference at all. Your DH is bringing misery into you and your sons lives and it's not fair on you or them to keep this up any longer.

@Nevertoomanyfluffies , @CharlotteByrde has just said everything I was going to say. Your DH won't help himself. You cannot help him. You can however help yourself and your boys, and you do that by leaving and living a happy life without him. I wish I had the words to tell you how wonderful life is without an alcoholic in it.

@pointythings and @CharlotteByrde thank you both for your replies. It is just so sad, such a waste. I know you're both right, it really resonates with me what you said @CharlotteByrde about preparing speeches and how it ends each time I try to talk. For some reason I'm just not ready yet to leave, but feel I'm not far away from it.

I thought my DH would be drinking this weekend but he hasn't. It's looking positive here, I think he might have stopped for good.

@Nevertoomanyfluffies leaving can seem so, so hard, with all the practical and emotional implications. I know it took me too long. Read over what you've written. When your Dh is drinking, your boys stay out of his way- they're unable to relax in their own home and your Dh isn't prepared or able to change.

@Orangesandlemons77 I'm glad the weekend went well. Has he said he intends to stop for good?

He's not wanting to talk about it. But it looks positive. He also is very busy / stressed with work atm and this is the time he would usually deal with that by drinking.

I told him I'm impressed, and when we were reading in bed 'this is nice' things like that but not going to go on about it.

Actions speak louder than words!