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.

Just checking in after a difficult couple of weeks with my elderly mum.

She ended up in hospital with acute heart failure. The doctors were all wondering why she had a sudden exacerbation after a long period of stability on her meds.

What I know, and what my mum won’t tell them, is that she started drinking again recently after 2 months sober. Which is likely what caused her cardiac stress.

Her doctors are unaware of the extent of her drinking - I tried to speak to her GP a few months back, but the GP downplayed it and said if I was really that concerned I should make my mother go to rehab.

She’s sober again for the moment, which is weirdly not much easier, as it means I’m back living on tenterhooks waiting for her to fall off the wagon.

And also when she’s not drinking she is a lot needier, and seems to expect me to want to spend lots of time with her, and chat away cheerfully together as though all the periods of sloppy confused drunken behaviour never happened - all the angry incoherent outbursts and the sad, preventable injuries, and the unexplained damage to her car.

When I try to talk to her about her drinking she gets exasperated and says it was a temporary blip, and a silly habit that she’s knocked on the head, and I’m a drama queen and a hypochondriac for making a big deal of it and I want there to be something wrong with her.

And a perverse part of me does want her to start drinking again, so I can know I have correctly identified what we’re dealing with here.

I just want someone to agree with me that it’s not normal for a tiny little old lady to drink a bottle of vodka a day, in secret, starting the moment she wakes up in the morning.

That this is not just some random bad habit most people fall into at some point in their lives and then snap out of, of their own accord.

It feels inevitable to me that she’ll start again - but am I just being a doom hound?

It sounds so mad that I need this reassurance - but I am living in this crazy bubble of denial from my mother (and to some extent my DH who just wants there not to be a problem because he’s tired of hearing about it)

Is it awful that I wish she’d just go all out and drink herself to death NOW if she’s not going to acknowledge or get help with it? That we could get this over with now rather than dragging it out over a decade of intermittent crises, and having to perform encouragement and support I don’t feel anymore, as she pretends to quit again and again?

@VoltaireMittyDream Her drinking is not normal. You're definitely not wrong there! And no it's not awful to wish it would all stop. It's completely understandable. I often thought "if you're going to drink yourself to death could you just get a move on and get it over with". You know it's more than likely your mother will start drinking again. But you don't have to listen to her telling you lies and gaslighting you. Spending time with her is draining your mental health and damaging your relationship with your DH so it might be best to step back physically as much as possible, even if it is too hard to do emotionally.

@VoltaireMittyDream I'm sorry. This is how it makes you feel like you're going mad. Been there.

I think the uncertainty is particularly hard. When will it start again? When will it end? How exactly will it end? And it's like a part of your brain is preoccupied with all of this 24/7. It is exhausting.

You're absolutely correct that it is not normal. You aren't a drama queen or a 'nag' (I got that one constantly). You're the one seeing clearly here and your mother is deep in denial.

Can you take a break from her for a bit? It sounds like you need it. You deserve a bit (a lot) of peace.

Thank you, @CharlotteByrde and @amlie8 . It's hard to get a break as we live next door (an arrangement that seemed like a great idea before I discovered she had a drink problem - well concealed for a long time as I lived thousands of miles away). She'd expressed excitement about being on hand to help out with autistic DS - but it turns out she has less than zero interest in interacting with him, and we can't let her be around him anyway now, as half the time she's drunk and behaving weirdly which unsettles him. So now I'm caring for DS full time with the added instability of never knowing when my mother's going to have another self-inflicted health crisis.

It's just so helpful to be in touch with others who have been in similar situations, and who can reassure me I'm not losing my mind. Thank you.

@VoltaireMittyDream So sorry you are dealing with this, just keep reminding the medics that she drinks a bottle of vodka a day. It’s not your secret! It would be so easy for me to say that you could issue an ultimatum , that if she starts again, you’re out. I told my relative that I would cut contact if she was abusive again, and did, but it wasn’t my Mum. Can you sit down with your Dh and figure out some boundaries/ protective measures to put in place, like only answering the phone for 2 hours a day? it’s ok to tell her that you’re finding her alcoholism very upsetting, and choosing self care instead. And it’s fine to not try to persuade her that there is a problem, cos that’s all bluster, she knows full well there’s a problem, so don’t engage with that nonsense. Just fall back on a stock phrase like “if you say so” or “ good for you”. You are worthy of happiness and a quiet life, if that becomes your goal rather than fixing what may be unfixable, all sorts of stuff can fall into place. I look back on those sleepless nights and days when I was rigid with anxiety with a kind of wonder now. I know the ties that bind us are strong , but our first responsibility is to ourself. 🪷

Sorry, just seen your update. Living next door is tricky, but , it seems to me it may be even more important to have firm boundaries. If Dh tends to downplay the issue, maybe you could ask him for help for you, explain you are really struggling and let him be front of house for a while. I might also be thinking of putting the house on the market though…

@VoltaireMittyDream the one thing that kept me and Dsis sane when we were in it with our mum was the fact that we didn't live in the same country. I can't imagine what it must be like being next door and I second everyone who has suggested putting boundaries in. One of the things I suggest to people in my RL group is that they block their addict during set periods of the day so that they can go about their business knowing there won't be any calls - and telling their addicts that this is happening and there's no point chasing contact.

And my mother claimed to the last that she didn't drink - despite the empties being everywhere and her carers seeing them every single day. She too was a tiny old lady going through a full bottle of vodka every day.

Thanks for this thread - my sister died recently in her early fifties - she had multiple health issues including diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and heart disease. I actually thought she had been sober the last few years but found her in her flat after getting the emergency services to break in after we didn’t hear from her. We found her in a deep coma and she never woke up. It is heart breaking but sadly I feel she thought she wasn’t an alcoholic as she didn’t drink in the mornings. The alcohol killed her as it made her wholly unable to take responsibility for her health and she died from a brain injury caused by low blood sugar. Looking back now it now seems clear she had always been drinking but had hidden it well and learnt not to text or call me when overtly drunk - I had always told her I couldn’t stop her drinking but had made clear that I would not have her around my kids if she was drunk. She just slept walked into death and the irony is the drink was what she felt gave her comfort as she was scared of dying. It is so sad that she thought tomorrow was a new day but so many years of drinking destroyed her reserves and now she is gone.

@pointythings they all claim to not drink. The bottlers found are old ones - even dh after having his flat cleaned and all bottles moved when in hospital , then first week he was out and a bottle found hidden down the sofa , he said was an old one. Was very convincing and if the flat hadn’t been cleaned We maybe would have believed him

how can they lie so convincingly

@Daisycakes9 Sorry to hear about your Dsis. Mine died at 38 and never really accepted or took responsibility for her alcoholism. Once the drinking became obvious (she lost 3 jobs, including 2 in childcare) I didn't want her alone around my DC even if 'sober' because I couldn't trust her judgement. It rarely came up as an issue because we lived a couple of hours away but the realisation hurt - I should have been able to trust her but couldn't take the risk. Both she and our parents also thought for a while that she was 'managing' and 'pacing herself' because DM only ever saw her buying small (1 or 2 glass size) bottles of wine... Til DM found an empty vodka bottle in her room (Dsis was living with them in her 30s because she lost her job cos of drinking and couldn't afford to rent in another city).

My parents never talk about anything difficult, including mental health problems which DF has made clear he thinks are nonsense. This made it harder for her to recognise she had a problem and easier to ignore what was causing it.

Sorry not really helpful advice, but it has helped me on this thread to know I'm not alone, particularly since the worst has happened and everyone has to find a way to deal with the aftermath.

Voltairemittydream oh your post resonates with me so much. And you are saying all the things I also find myself thinking but scared to say.

we have recently found out that my 75 year old dm is drinking 2 bottles of wine a day. we always knew she “liked a glass of wine” and suspected she drank too much. But it is absolutely shocking to find out how much it is. Some blood tests done at the doctor confirmed her liver was struggling but only fatty liver, not fibrosis. We have been to appts with her where she flatly denies how much she is drinking and insists it’s fine cos she will just stop tomorrow no problem. then she makes zero absolutely zero attempt to stop. My df tells us it just continues as normal. there aren’t really a huge amount of physical symptoms. She still seems quite active, walking a lot but does get shaky hands in the morning. But she is absolutely insistent that she is very healthy. And any attempt to discuss with her she gets very angry and actually quite mean and nasty about it. Insisting we are making it up and trying to drag her name through mud etc. so we have given up and no longer discuss it.

i feel so upset that I have effectively lost my mum. I wish I could just call her for a chat like a normal mum and daughter relationship. I don’t know whether I should tell my teenage children as they will be wondering why we see less and less of them. I don’t want to have to tell them, but maybe I need to?

I do understand your thoughts of thinking well if you are just going to drink yourself maybe you should just get on with it. cos the next 5-10 years are surely going to be fraught with heartache and drama. I want to not have my memories of her dominated by alcoholism.

also it is so confusing when she has a better day and you start to wonder if maybe she isn’t as bad as we thought. I do find myself kind of prefer preferring a consistent bad. So I can be sure of what I am dealing with. They last time she phoned my and sounded completely normal I ended up in tears. More so than when she is having a bad day. Cos you get a little insight to what normality would be if she didn’t have the addiction and it’s heartbreaking

A long post here!
I’m completely fed up with alcoholics in my life. I’m someone who has never even had one drink.

In my twenties I was with someone for 4 years who was extremely unpleasant and would drink half a bottle of whisky plus a whole bottle of wine at night, then change into someone very dangerous. I got out, but lost about £120k and took ten years to recover.

At 35 I married someone completely wrong for me, who had a lifelong severe alcohol problem. Every time he fell off the wagon I would go and rescue him. It almost destroyed me and we are currently going through a horrific and never ending divorce. It’s year four and still no sign of a conclusion. I will never understand why I thought he was a good choice.

Then now in my 40s I have a really lovely man who should be the one I stay with. He was a very highly qualified and respected airline captain, 40 year flawless career, now retired, and he shares my passion for travelling, music, and boats.

However…. he also carries a huge amount of trauma from questionable parents and some really nasty relationship stuff. Two divorces, one of them extremely unpleasant, and later a long term partner who beat him up and left him bleeding, bruises and bitten. She then subjected him to abusive emails for years, which left him shaking. Her sister is married to one of his brothers and they’ve taken her side, incredibly.

He is wealthy and has spent massive amounts of money supporting ex wives and two ungrateful, spoilt, entitled children who now don’t speak to him despite him paying for their cars, education, weddings, careers etc.

His brothers (one is a lawyer) recently took out court action against him simply because he asked for money his father had left him and his mother had refused to give. His mother died this year.

I cover this background briefly because it provides the reasons why he now finds life so incredibly difficult that when he stopped flying due to depression about 8 years ago, he tried to take his own life, then when that failed he began drinking vodka and developed a severe alcohol problem.

I have been with him 3 years and initially he stopped. Seven months without a drop. Of course, he promised he would stop completely if I was with him. Gradually however it has got so bad that he is now once a month going on a massive life threatening bender and consuming at least a litre of neat vodka every day. He also drank methylated spirit when the vodka ran out, and I called an ambulance.

When he is not drinking, alongside normal life we are battling his shitty family and my shitty divorce, so there is sometimes extreme stress. I won an occupation order recently to live in my own house while my divorce trundles along so I have my own space now, and my partner is 15 minutes away. This has not helped him as he feels I am leaving him, rather than just living partly in my own house. It is however helping me.

When he is not drinking we also have a boat and have spent many happy days sailing around the coast. I have a caravan and we have climbed many mountains in Cumbria together. Sober, he’s the nicest person, intelligent and funny.

Drunk, he shouts all sorts of abuse at me, throws bottles, and becomes so incredibly nasty, lying and pushing every button and saying all the things he knows will hurt me the most.

Then he’s briefly sorry afterwards but never accepts how massively his behaviour affects me. Never listens to what he’s done.

He has tried AA, rehab, antidepressants, counselling- but he has never wanted to stop enough to make it work. Drinking is his pressure release valve for all the crap in his head- his mother’s cold judgemental upbringing, his awful divorces, his daughter taking £40k off him for the wedding and then not even inviting him, not even sending a photo. His only siblings taking out a court writ against him. I understand it’s a hard life, but he’s destroying me too, and our future together would be wonderful if he could only see it and move forwards.

I finally got to the point two days ago where I couldn’t cope and went to Alanon. BUT nobody said it was based on giving yourself to God and trusting a higher power and readings and prayers, and I’m atheist and what I need is actual help and advice. I cannot go back, I felt extremely out of place.

People say ‘why don’t you just leave him’ but I would still worry all the time- you cannot just switch off caring for someone with whom you have shared so many wonderful moments as well as the bad ones. Someone whose deep trauma you understand. I am trying to change the way I deal with it. I have stopped trying to find his vodka and pour it away.
I no longer follow him around for 2 days until he sobers up. I have never stayed in the house with him overnight when he is doing this. I have spent 54 nights this year on hotels, tents, once in my car.

I need help. I need to learn how to care, without it destroying me. How to detach enough that I can breathe, sleep, eat.
this is the hardest thing I’ve ever been through but I’m starting to set boundaries and I’m at the point where I’m actively looking for support instead of keeping this secret and hoping it goes away.

Thanks for reading, and love to all others going through the same.

I didn’t want to read and run….my heart goes out to you for the amount of sh*t in your world. It all seems so complicated, and it is clear you are still dealing with the fallout from your previous relationships. My thought would be that you have to heal yourself first before you can help anyone else.

I know you can’t switch off your feelings for him, but you have to put yourself first. It sounds like like he could be violent, and that is not acceptable in any way. You have to ask yourself why he has had so many failed relationships in his life, this may not be a recent problem, and he will not change until he really wants to.

Put yourself first, and well done for starting to talk about it.
There are many wise people on this thread who have been there, so please keep posting. 🌷

Thank you.
You simply can’t fly if you are drinking, so it really is since then that it’s become a problem. He’d have lost his career many years ago otherwise.
I think it’s a recognised issue, going from that sort of career to nothing, with no transitional help. A common cause of substance misuse.

Hi @Fibblet. I am so sorry to read your post, that is a LOT to go through over the years.

I’m in the process of separating from my ex who is addicted to alcohol. He also used coccaine for a year but has managed to stay off that after rehab no3, but sadly never managed to stay sober after a rehab or detox for more than 6 weeks.

When I say ‘process of’, we split up in July as I could take no more and decided that a relationship with an addict, who has brief weeks of sobriety before back to 30 units per week and physical dependency for months at a stretch, was no life for me. Even though I had got slowly less reactive to every crisis and relapse, it was still making me less of a person - constant low level or high level of stress and anxiety, distracted from work and family and friends. Being with an addict is all consuming. I still get drawn back in every now and again, especially if he is reaching out to me with a request to support him through the latest treatment attempt.

The thing is that many of our addicts have underlying trauma, mental health problems, neurodiversity that leads them to self medicate with the substance. I can sympathise with that. But it also isn’t inevitable. Other people who have experienced trauma, mental health difficulties, are ND are not addicts. And even still, the main point is that it really is not a good life loving/ being in a relationship with an addict. The good periods get fewer and fewer the longer it goes on. I realised that I could count on one hand just a handful of happy days in a 6 month relapse period and realised I needed to save myself. it’s your life too, and I would think about whether the good days are worth sacrificing yourself so much misery for.

Al Anon seems really variable depending on the group itself. Around my area it was fairly secular on approach, but I still found my tribe more with Smart friends and family - many online meetings.

@Fibblet .I really feel for you. You're been through so much and are obviously a very caring person. But you can't fix your partner. He had a drink problem when you met him. If he is at the point of drinking methylated spirits he is in a very bad way and he is clearly abusive and potentially violent when drunk. My DH was a lovely man too, with a good career, but when he was drunk he was vile and he was very often drunk. I eventually realised that while he may have had a lot of bad experiences in his past, it was the drinking that was causing the problems right now. He was the only person who could change that, and any underlying issues were irrelevant, as the other stuff could only be treated/dealt with if he was sober. All you need to consider right now is your own physical safety and the damage this is doing to your mental health.

Also, I would be very wary of accepting his version of events regarding his divorces etc. He could well have had a hidden drinking problem for many years, pilot or not. It is possible that excessive drinking has been an issue behind all of the bad stuff in his adult life.

@Fibblet I can only second what everyone else has said. Where are you in this? Setting boundaries is a good start, but you need to protect yourself from this man and learn to put yourself first. You can't save him, but you can save yourself. He is not fit to be in a relationship.

He needs to do a lot of work on himself, and you need to detach. Al Anon may not be for you, but the secular alternative is SMART Family & Friends - both organisations offer online meetings and you will find support there. You can't do this alone.

I second this. I totally fell for ‘my ex wife was emotionally abusive/ controlling/ alienated me from my family. I drank because of how she treated me and then drank because she left me’. Until I was the one who became to blame for the drinking and the relapses and the shoe finally dropped. Poor woman, don’t know how she put up with so many years. She had much more at stake than we did (children together) and she must have been desperate to save him and save her family. I mentally apologise to her a lot in my head!

mistake in my first post - 30 units per day not week. God I wish it was weekly!

Agreeing on the ‘version’ of story theme. I had the chance to talk properly with my late husband’s previous wife (they split at least 10 years before we met). It was uncanny, like looking in a mirror, we both found it was surreal. Yet she was the ‘crazy’ ex. I also heard some very disturbing stories about some other exes of his, which led me to realise it had been going on a very long time. So sad, and so much collateral damage. After a while you have to wonder why someone so ‘kind and nice’ has so many broken relationships and friendships.

@Fibblet you are relatively unentangled with this man, Try not to do anything that tangles you up more.

@Fibblet oh my goodness, you’re story is so heartbreaking. It does seem trouble does follow your partner around. Am sure there are faults on the other sides, but I’d be suspicious of the common denominator in all of this - your partner - and the fact you are seeing his behaviour for yourself will give you some insight into why he has so many broken relationships with friends and family in his wake. If I were you, I would run for the hills. I have, as have many on here, been in romantic relationships with alcoholics and if I could travel back in time and talk to my younger self, that would be my advice to myself “just leave, see that first red flag over there, don’t wait until you have so many you can make bunting, run and don’t look back”.

And also find help for yourself to heal. I also had a bad experience with AlAnon, they didn’t want to help me one iota when I told them that my husband abused drugs as well as alcohol, told in a particularly desperate time that I would have to find help elsewhere - not really forgiven them for that. But I did find a lovely family support group that taught me so much.

@Nogoodusername phew, I did read your post and thing back to a few weeks in the summer holidays this year I am sure I have topped 30 units myself!

I just wanted to temper my previous post. My husband was definitely 2 people, one I loved, and I miss every day. The other was awful, and every day I feel relief that I no longer have to walk the eggshells and be scared about what might be happening when I came into the house. At times that life turned me into someone I didn't recognise. His ex wife put it wonderfully 'we are mouring a wonderful man who could be unbelievably horrible'.
I really find it helpful to acknowledge those 2 people, and to hate the alcohol that contributed to the horribleness (there were a range of underlying issues too, but as someone mentioned above not everyone who experiences trauma turns to alcohol).
🍁

Ah, @Userccjlnhibibljn8 I nearly cried reading your post. It sums up DH. I’m at the point where it’s changing me and it’s got to stop. We have a day off booked together next week and I’m going to tell him I need to divorce. Not looking forward to it but it’s time. I’m drowning in the chaos at the moment and it’s not fair on the children. I’ve come off my antidepressants and although I’m crying more, I can feel straight and think straight. There have been times when they’ve been helpful but for now I need to feel the truth. I hate him so much and love him so much. I desperately want to save him but it’s not possible. Not possible, not my job and not fair on the children. I never imagined my life would end up like this. None of us did.

It's good that you have chosen to save yourself and the DC. Sadly, it's all you can do. Keep posting here for support along the way.