Support group for those affected by someone else's drinking - thread 3

[pointythings]

Link to previous thread here: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/alcoholsupport/5177307-continuing-support-group-for-those-affected-by-someone-elses-drinking?page=40&reply=147449407

Continuing our series of threads for people who have an alcoholic in their lives. This is a safe space to vent, look for advice and support and maybe find some strength.

And we are now stuck with 1000 posts of a thread with a spelling error in the title - I'll chase up HQ to see if they can help.

It’s the lies I can’t handle. I’ve said several times
or what he says to me isn’t what he says to friend or family

does he not relise we talk /compare notes

he lies to his older kids - and I feel for them more than me as you don’t expect your parent to lie to you - like @Adultchildalcoholic said. They are your parents

I wonder if I could join this thread please?

I am really struggling with my mother’s alcoholism. She has been a drinker all of my life and I remember many instances of her being drunk in my childhood but it has really escalated in the past 10 years since my dad passed away. I call her and she is more often than not drunk. When she isn’t drunk she is snippy and bad tempered. There are too many incidents to go into but she has let me down so many times, she has injured herself and I’ve had to take her to hospital, she has fallen out with friends, embarrassed herself and I’ve had people reach out to me because they are worried about her as if I can do anything to fix things.

Im so upset with how all of this has decimated our relationship. She has very little interest in my dc and I have no other family other than my dh. She manages to work part time and stays sober for that (until she gets home) so on some level she is functioning. Which makes it worse because she is actually choosing this.

I’m sorry to jump on the thread like this and interrupt the conversation but I have been searching for support online, al anon etc and came across this. I just need to vent really.

I am not at the point where I feel I can go no contact. But I have definitely distanced myself which brings its own feelings of guilt and sadness.

Hi @jessiefletch no need to apologise. This is what the thread is for

yes your mum is a functioning alcoholic

just as many of ours are

the fact she can hold done a job tbh sure they know about be drinking due to her attitude - smell - behaviour etc - she can to some point control drinking for long enough to work /get paid and then go home and drink

and repeat

Hi @jessiefletch welcome. Please do vent – we all understand here. And some of us really understand, because there are quite a few of us who have/had alcoholic mothers.

I know it hurts to have to go low-contact. It feels wrong. But you aren't the problem here and you have to protect yourself. You deserve as much peace as is possible.

Do you live near her? Do you need to see her a lot? I am sorry you have people calling you up about her. It can be hard for others to understand.

With an alcoholic mother, you're not just dealing with whatever the current insanity is. You're often dealing with the effects of having grown up in an alcoholic environment too. I think we often can't understand this until our 30s or so. I couldn't really get to grips with this until my mother died last year. I haven't done groups (such as al-anon), although lots of people here have really benefited from them.

Instead, I've done a lot of reading. It's a constant hit of 'oh my god, that makes sense, yes I had that, oh that's why I felt like that'. Caveat: a lot of the books are quite dated in one way or another and there's a bit of extremely 90s 'inner child' guff and also some very weird ideas about client-therapist relationships. All to be taken with a big pinch of salt. But they have helped me understand more.

I have read:
After The Tears – Jane Middelton-Moz and Lorie L Dwinell
It Will Never Happen to Me – Claudia Black
Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents – Lindsay Gibson

Welcome @jessiefletch I recently joined the thread too. I don’t have a lot of wise words but have received a very warm welcome here and I’m sure you will find it helpful.

My Mum is an alcoholic too - I know how hard it is. Becoming a Mum myself really brought home just how awful mine is. Are your DC quite young? Do you think motherhood changed your perspective on your own Mum too?

Thank you for the welcome guys I really appreciate it and I will look into some of those books.
I have a toddler and a primary age child. I would say since becoming a mum I’ve become acutely aware of how much I don’t want my dc to ever feel like I do. Growing up my mum and I were always very close, I do remember incidents when I was a teenager of throwing her wine down the sink because even then I hated how she behaved when drunk. But I would say it has really ramped up to the point where it has spoilt our relationship in the last 10 years since my dad passed away.
She drank to cope with the grief and just never stopped. Now there’s always an excuse or a reason - stress at work, ill relatives, her own health worries - it’s all a big pity party that results in the excuse to drink.
She lives within walking distance and we’ve always seen a lot of each other but I have dialled that right back in recent years and won’t even speak to her on the phone when I know she’s been drinking. It has damaged the relationship undoubtedly but she either doesn’t realise or doesn’t care.
I try to tell myself it’s an illness but it still feels like she’s choosing this.

My mum also turned to drink, first when my dad was diagnosed with dementia and then it ramped up when he died. We believe it was her way of deliberately ending her life.

All you can do is set boundaries, and you are already doing that. It is completely reasonable to refuse to speak with her when she is drunk. It is completely reasonable to not allow your DC to see her drunk. And we are here to tell you that self care and self protection are not selfish.

Thank you @pointythingsi think I need to hear that. She has such victim mentality that I start to believe it myself sometimes and then feel guilty for not engaging with her. But I just don’t see how alcohol can improve anything, stress or otherwise. She is not a stupid woman she must realise that the problems will still be there when she sobers up, just with the added problems of pissing people off, damaging her health and making a fool of herself.

@jessiefletch Welcome to this thread which is a sanity-restoring life line for so many of us.
I have an alcoholic Dad, and also an alcoholic ex partner (my first relationship post break down of my marriage, thankfully therefore not also the Dad of my children.)

Just to echo that self care and self protection are not selfish but also absolutely vital.

My ex, like your Mum, like everyone’s loved ones of this thread had ALL the reasons for drinking, an endless supply: living alone after the breakdown of his marriage, not living with his children anymore, the decline and eventual stop of contact with his children after he relapsed very quickly after each rehab attempt, poor health, poor mental health, arguments with his siblings, arguments with his Dad, arguments with his friends, and of course me and all my perceived failings and wrong doings. So many times I have fallen into the trap of believing him and feeling sorry for him, and of course when we were together running around trying to fix crises and cover everything up so that he wouldn’t have a trigger to drink.

But ultimately, they have to learn to cope with life stresses and strains without abusing a substance which makes everything worse. We cannot do that for them and we have to step away to protect our own lives and sanity until they are ready to do so. And many sadly are never ready to put in the hard work daily to do so.

While ex and I were still together, the stress and strains and covering up made me less of a mum, less of a friend, less of a colleague because I was so exhausted and worried all the time. You are brave and justified setting your boundaries so that a loved one’s alcoholic addiction doesn’t ruin your life as well as theirs

Welcome @Adultchildalcoholic @jessiefletch . It’s a thread none of us want to be on. I’m new here too and just reaching the angry stage as I realise how bad it is.

@Nogoodusername I really needed to read this today. He’s on an abusive phase here. It’s all my fault, I drain him, I don’t support him, he doesn’t get any work done because he constantly has to do things for me because I can cope without him. Truth is, I’ve been thinking about leaving him since the summer. He went away on his own for ten days and the house was bliss. No tension, no criticism, no mess left around, no drama.

@jessiefletch DH is also intelligent. I had a rant when I first joined about how it can be that an intelligent person can do this to themselves. That’s why I find it useful to be here and be reminded it is an illness, no matter how hard it is to accept that. I get so angry with him when I look at our children, our home and all he stands to lose. It would be tragic but sometimes it’s like he’s hell bent on destroying it all.

The abusive phases are really tough. When I first joined this board I remember being shocked but also relieved at how many women’s stories were the same as mine - blaming us for being triggers for drinking or causing relapses is literally the modus operandi of an addicted partner. I spent so much time trying to be the perfect partner and making Ex’s life perfect so there wasn’t any cause to drink. Madness! Sent myself half crazy in the process and was ultimately fruitless because it is never our fault.

we didn’t cause it, can’t control it, can’t cure it and also shouldn’t cover it

Welcome @jessiefletch! We have all been there. Made to feel the drinking is our fault, wondering what we should be doing differently. And judgy neighbours, friends and relatives can make that so much worse. My DH's relatives were (probably still are) convinced that he drank himself to death because I 'abandoned' him. They never seemed to consider that we split up because of he was on that downward trajectory, making no effort to stop and making my life hell. You can't change your mother's behaviour but you can and should try and protect yourself as much as possible.

Welcome Jessie. Another adult child of a (now deceased) alcoholic here. I recognize a lot of what you are saying, the victim mentality/pity party really used to get to me too, partially because he was so good at it! For years he had me and everyone else around him making endless allowances and forgiving quite frankly appalling behaviour because 'poor him, he's had such a hard life, so many struggles' 🙄.

Now with some distance I can see that while yes, he had some inherent / genetic health/neurodiversity issues and some outright bad luck in his life, he was also objectively speaking really an extremely lucky and privileged person - white middle class male, affluent circumstances, top notch education, very intelligent, a charming personality, everyone predisposed to like him, somehow managed to marry a very kind and supportive wife and have (if I may say so) some lovely kids - 99% of his problems were self inflicted and down to the drink, which is why it was so particularly unendearing in his sloppy drunk phases that he'd want everyone to listen to him for hours on end and make sympathetic noises about how he had no friends, no money, no respect - he seemed to think all this was his birthright and not contingent on being a reasonable human being. I still have to deal really with all my own sadness about the person he could have been were it not for the drink - the kind of husband, father, friend, career - we used to get (increasingly occasional) tantalizing glimpses in sober periods.

You're absolutely right to put boundaries in place and try to protect yourself, particularly for your own children's benefit, I won't lie and say it's easy, it's incredibly hard and outsiders will judge you whatever you do, but it's all you can do really. Try really hard to shut down that inner voice that makes the drinking in some way related to your relationship (if she loved me she'd stop, if I found the right thing to do/say she'd stop, it just doesn't work that way and you can drive yourself mad with that kind of thinking)

So I saw ex and ex-ILs a few days ago with my children. We hadn’t seen them for over a year and a half. The trip was ok, no dramas. But gosh he doesn’t look well. He’s got cirrhosis and acities and isn’t very mobile. It’s also definitely affected his brain, he’s less “with it”, forgetful and oddly deluded in some ways.

I had a quiet word with ex-MIL and checked with her if she really believed he was sober. She said yes she did, as she believes any more drinking would kill him. No one knows what his prognosis really is or what the future holds for him. It’s all so sad and such a waste of a life. They are clinging onto the idea of a liver transplant.

I’m glad it went as well as it could have done @Addictforanex , I know you were (rightly) anxious about it.

I’m sorry that Ex looked so unwell. How did the children feel about that?

my Ex’s brain is definitely damaged from the alcohol. He is very forgetful, poor track of time and events, but is mainly (for want for a better word) just ‘weird’ now: definitely delusional and just not quite there, if that makes any sense? Even his eyes and face look odd. I can’t really describe it very well.

I saw my Ex this week. His friends are trying to get him back into rehab and asked if I would attend an appointment with a psychiatrist for a review of his options. However when we got there the appointment was confidential so I have no idea what was really said (we all know truth with an addict - lots of misrepresentation). But he doesn’t seem to plan to go back into rehab. All depressing.

@Nogoodusername can definitely relate to your description of the brain issues. He’s a bit “glazed”, and what infuriated me (I didn’t react just bit my tongue) was how pleased with himself he seemed to be about all the benefits he get - flashy new car on disability- was telling us he’s soon getting this big new iPad. This is the man who has paid me a grand total of £58 in child maintenance in the last 3 years.

The children were largely unaffected/ neutral. They enjoyed the visit, but didn’t really talk with him much - their grandparents and the dogs got much more of their attention. He didn’t ask the kids many questions and anything they offered up as a conversation starter got kind of closed down by him with “ah that’s nice…” or similar, and no follow up questions. Unbelievable really that he seems to have no real interest in their lives or vice versa. Afterwards they didn’t have much to say about the visit - weren’t upset or anything - main conversation on the way home was about The Traitors!

I’m really pleased the children were unaffected @Addictforanex . Good that grandparents and dog were on hand to make it less of a ‘seeing Dad who we haven’t seen in ages’ to ‘a family visit at which Dad is also there’.

I wonder whether at this severe end of addiction/ brain damage from addiction, they are actually incapable of thinking of anyone else anymore beyond fleeting moments. Ex certainly lost the ability to think about anyone but himself, and how people related to him. He’d tell me everything I was doing wrong, but have zero interest in my life - how was work, whether I was coping with bereavement and the pressures of being a SEN parent etc. child contact breakdown was felt in terms of how it affected him. It was all the ex show and we were parts in his main character game.

@Addictforanex His mother is clearly saying what she wants to believe, so I wouldn't take his sobriety as gospel. When I took the children to visit late DH, his total lack of interest in their lives used to infuriate me. It was all moaning about how shit his life/health was now and occasional gloating about all the free stuff/support he was getting. At the time, the kids seemed to just accept it and didn't say much. But it definitely left a huge mark on them and I wish I'd talked to them more about it at the time and arranged counselling, which I didn't do until after his death.

@CharlotteByrde thank you, your post made me talk to my daughter yesterday about the visit. She opened up a bit and one of the things she said she didn’t understand was all his talk of his disability. She said he has never mentioned a disability before and was left thinking “what disability?”. So she’s going to ask him to explain it on their next video call - what is it, what caused it, how does it affect him? I’ll aim to talk to my son today.

I’ve also been googling and seems that decompensated cirrhosis with acities has a very low life expectancy without transplant (couple of years??) so I keep having a flash by thought of - “what if that’s the last time they see him?!” - hope I don’t sound too morbid.

Hi I lost the thread for a while. Had some contact with my relative recently. She asked me to be a trustee for her. I very politely refused, and she politely accepted my refusal. So that was really good, and very surprising. I’m trying not to hope that it means anything, because it is the hope that hurts.
Sad to read the new posters stories , but glad that we are still here, holding each other up, and offering that support to anyone who needs it. It is very helpful for me that we have the daughters of alcoholic mothers posting, as I raised my relatives child. They are now a young adult. Relative suggested they could take on the role, and I tussled with myself , but they’re not ready for contact, and I knew that even asking the question would trigger their PTSD, so I refused on their behalf. Hope that’s readable, I’m trying to cut down on identifiable features, like sex markers.

Hi @Zebracat I am one of those new posters and daughter of an alcoholic like you mention.

The timing of your post is interesting as I was having an argument with a relative of mine yesterday about whether it was right that we were allowed to be raised by my mother. Relative was adamant it was “fine” and completed dismissed the trauma it caused.

I don’t know your full story, but it sounds to me like you have done a wonderful thing in protecting that child. Never underestimate it.

Checking in. It’s been a tough week here. Tackled DH about the alcohol and the verbal abuse that goes with it. It’s all my fault, I misinterpret him. I make him miserable, he’s terrified he’s going to be kicked out and homeless. So now I feel terrible and like I should apologise for upsetting him. I haven’t and I won’t. Every now and then I see a bit of hope, he’ll be normal, the old him, then he does something really stupid like eating autistic DS’s Halloween chocolate that DS has been saving and I just wonder why I bother.

It’s all my fault, I misinterpret him. I make him miserable, he’s terrified he’s going to be kicked out and homeless.

This is the alcoholic's litany: 'Poor me, poor me, pour me another drink'.

If they accept that they and they alone are responsible for their drinking, their whole edifice of victimhood comes crashing down. That's what you are dealing with - well done not buying it. Set those feelings of guilt aside when they try to get you.

As for the potential consequences for your husband - well yes, they are a possibility. They can be resolved by him - he has to acknowledge he has a problem, he has to seek help in one form or another, he has to accept that he cannot drink. His circus, his monkeys.