to not let his mum be involved with our baby

[gta]

DPs mum is an alcoholic but wont admit it
In September 2017 she was in hospital with liver disease, had horrendous jaundice, hair fell out etc she didn't respond to treatment in hospital and was told to basically go home and if she lived long enough to get a liver transplant , great ! but we should get ready for her to die .

So between September to the end of October everything was fab, she made an AMAZING recovery which even doctors were shocked at.
On her 50th birthday at the beginning of November she had 5 glasses of wine at the birthday meal. She has 7 children and we were all understandably very concerned when we saw this.
The next day she reassured my partner and his brother (the eldest out of the 7) that it was a one off and she wont be drinking again. We were all very stupid to believe this.
It has since gone from a one off on her birthday meal, to a one off on special occasions (Christmas, NYE, her DPs Birthday). She is the matriarch of the family and a very fiery woman and i think everyone has brushed it under the carpet in fear of starting an absolute shit storm with her.

Until on Mothers Day when me and my DP went round to see her and he basically lost the plot at her , she looked horrendous , her hair has started falling out again , she was bloated and puffy and stunk of alcohol. She admitted she was drinking a bit more than she should and told him she would pack it in. All good or so we thought.

After seeing his mum we nipped into town and bumped into my partners younger sister who is 18 where she told us she had found a bottle of vodka hidden behind the cleaning products and she had a sip of her mums "water" and it was actually vodka and she was very worried.

We went back to his mums house to confront her about this as she hadn't mentioned any vodka just she was drinking a bit too much wine on quiz night at the pub, on a friday night etc.
She wasnt in as she was out with her own mum , partner and his mum for a mothers day meal. My partner decided to search the house and go through the bottle bin where he found 33 LITRES OF EMPTY VODKA BOTTLES! and 11 BOTTLES OF WINE! the bin was last collected on the 22nd February!

There was a massive confrontation where my partner bagged up all the bottles and dumped them at her table in the restaurant where she was having her mothers day meal in the hope of shaming her into admitting she was an alcoholic and needed help.

When she was in hospital in September, my partner took a week off work and gutted her house as it was rancid, and was at the hospital every single day after work.
My partner has said he simply cant do it anymore that shes just causing us stress and until she can admit that shes an alcoholic and goes to AA meetings, the GP, whatever, then we need to cut contact and that includes when our baby is born early August.
She still wont admit to being an alcoholic and is trying to guilt us into talking to her/seeing her .
Are we being unreasonable ?!

Oohmavis have you pulled many alcoholic parents out of a hole? You make it sound so easy.
My parent was in icu on life support. I took photos of him. Photos of the family crying round his bedside. Photos of the priest giving him the last rites. 7 months later when I found him in a bar I went to a printing shop printed them all off in all different sizes. Went back to the pub the next day and threw them on the table, left them on the bar, showed them to his mates buying him drink. Did I think it would stop him drinking? No but I hoped. Did I feel so helpless I didn't know what else to do? Yes. I was 26 and 7 months pregnant but I was still the child of an alcoholic who didn't want her parent to die.

It's awful op and I can see why he is so stressed and torn with his feelings.

For the sake of his own mental health, your DP probably needs to leave his mother to it. I speak as the child of an alcoholic; I am done mourning for my father & he's not even dead yet. He has showed very clearly that drink is his priority - despite it having bankrupted him, broken up my parents' marriage, & caused a stroke from which he has never properly recovered, & which we didn't spot for several hours because he was drunk, he still drinks. I am done & I feel better for it.

Op.... how did the rest of the restaurant react to the dumping of the bottles?

She keeps trying to guilt us , she has rang my DP at work this morning and left him a voicemail saying if he doesn't come round tonight she'll be so upset she will have no choice but to go to the pub ! It's so unfair on him

@MrsRyanGosling15 Your alcoholic parent has a 2yr old? Please tell me they're not actively alcoholics as in still drinking daily?

RTFT Utterly the OP's DP's dad's dead.

My father was an alcoholic. Many times he went on “clean” episodes but always came crack to a very serious addiction. There’s nothing you can do. Support your husband but, the woman can only come off the booze for herself, not by proxy.

He is barred from the resteraunt , quite rightly so but i didn't have the heart to tell him off he was sobbing so much when he got back

I absolutely agree with GoldenHefaLump, how dreadfully cruel.

My paternal grandparents were alcoholics, as were their partners. My dad struggles with alcohol in his 60s. He never allowed us to see his parents because of it.

Please cut ties. Get your DP support from someone like Al-Anon, as they have a families support group. Do not allow her to see you or your daughter.

No more visiting her. Can you or other family members take in the sisters? They need protecting. Call social services, the girls will need extra support living with this woman as their mother.

Anyone who thinks they can fix her is wrong. Very wrong.

Sudden alcohol withdrawal may well kill her. If she really wants to be sober, she needs medical help first. No more interventions, they aren't working.

Motherof that's a whole other thread. In fact I had some great help on here about it from very understanding posters. He hasn't drank as far as we no since the child's mother died (also an alcoholic) but I really don't want to distract from the op with that. Op some help and support for your dp would be something to look into.

And change phone numbers and / or block hers. Contact your service provider for help with this.

My bil is a functioning alcoholic and abusive husband. I try to keep my children from him as I do not them to view his behaviour as normal or acceptable. His health is deteriorating and I don't want my children to watch him drink himself to death. Sorry if this sounds harsh but I want to break and not repeat the cycle. I can also understand the anger your dp felt and why he dumped the bottles. Having an addict in the family is hard and relentless. It is not surprising someone has an extreme reation to a truly heartbreaking situation.

Having supported a friend with alcoholic parents, i totally agree with how your DH is acting, and agree i'd go NC too with baby.

She does want to be part of the baby's life , she's bought outfits and is already saying she will be round everyday to help when I give birth . If she makes it until then is another story though

I am finding the anger towards her DP quite odd - while going to the restaurant was a bad idea he sounds like someone who having seen his Dad die and his mum going that way was at the end of his tether and he snapped and he cant do it anymore.

Thats ok OP if he cant

Gta I doubt even if she is alive then that she will follow through with any of those promises. Not that I'm sure you would even want to see her everyday. If you don't let her see they baby she will weep and wail and drink and say she is drinking because of your actions. I can guarantee tho that even if you did let her see the baby they're will be another reason why she is drinking. Master of lies and manipulation.

Your maternal instincts should be trusted. You can bring the baby to see her if you wish but don't let leave baby alone with her for a second.

I can’t believe the people calling the OPs DH abusive and calling for them to have a bit more understanding. Jesus Christ. She’s an alcoholic.

OP, if going NC is what you’d DP needs to do, then who could blame him? I just think he needs to make sure that he will still be absolutely ok with that decision, should she die suddenly. But clearly he can’t help her or stop her and he needs to protect himself and his family.

Completely agree about the pain, shame and guilt felt by families and children of alcoholics. It makes me wish we lived in an alcohol free society. Another one of mine is down with it: no one can describe the walking on eggshells, the lies and distortions and the anger and manipulation. What pp said about addicts destroying whole families is right.

I do think some people with little experience of alcoholism fundamentally misunderstand the effect it has on people. They don’t just sit around calmly sitting vodka and then going ‘darling, I’m so sorry I was a bit merry again last night.’ They change completely, they have drunken rages, they say and do hurtful horrible things that they then can’t remember so expect you to just forget as well. They go out and drive and you never quite know if they’re sober or going to kill themselves or worse, someone else or someone else’s child. Your whole conmunity knows and it’s so shaming, esp if they have scenes in public. They get so angry and hateful, they resent you for ‘doing so well’ (because you have energy to go to work and do the laundry and hang out with your kids, because you’re not an alcoholic by the grace of god). They are like a toxic time bomb tick tick ticking away in the centre of your lives, you spend hours thinking about them and worrying about them and discussing how best to help them and then resenting them. Eugh it’s awful.

MrsRyanGosling15 My mother died six months ago from an illness related to the various addictions she'd had throughout her life, at the age of 56. So no I didn't save her in the end. But she loved my children, and they loved her. Addicts are people too and they are capable of love, though of course it's not always as simple as that.

But the OP's updates are painting a very different picture to the one I had in my head when I posted.

I think the best thing you can do is encourage your DH to seek counselling or contact al-anon to get support from people who have or who are experiencing similar situations. He cannot fix this , but he can learn how to deal with it without it harming him any further.