To say its not a disease its a habit which started with choice. Alcoholism

[TreeFu]

My mother is a prolific binge drinker much to the detriment of myself and others around her, she has accepted she has a problem with drink but cannot be bothered to do anything to change her habits.

She can and does go for periods of time without touching one drop of alcohol, this is when she has no money to access it. During those periods she is just fine without it but as soon as she has access to money, she will binge until it runs out.

AIBU to believe this has nothing to do with disease and is down to her being weak willed, selfish and enjoying booze more than she cares about the wellbeing of those around her.

It helped me to remember that I had absolutely no control over my mum’s drinking and her decisions. And that however much I was suffering from seeing her like that, her experience of actually being the drinker was a hundred times worse. Vomiting blood until she tore her oesophagus, losing the ability to walk unaided, soiling herself on the sofa cos she couldn’t make the toilet, getting booze delivery companies to come to her sofa with a key left under the mat, shaking and seizures and emotional mood swings. I can’t tell you how traumatic it was to see the person I loved most in the world suffer so greatly. After seeing that first hand it truly challenged my preconception that addiction is simply a choice. She wouldn’t choose to die like that.

@FearLoveAndTheTimeMachine I'm so sorry your mum suffered so badly and my heart goes out to you for the fact you had to witness it That scenario is what I'm petrified of myself, of my mum progressing to that stage.

I think the reason I struggle to let go and leave her to her own devices is because mum isn't what would be considered a 'normal' mum, in terms of intelligence and ability to articulate her feelings and process emotions, she's got a mental age much lower than her years and although she's lead a normal and independent life she is socially childlike. I feel fiercely protective of her because she's vulnerable, yet find her ridiculously infuriating at the same time.

I don't know whether her intellect has anything to do with her decision making when it comes to drinking alcohol, I sometimes wonder if she was 'smarter' perhaps she'd understand the impact of her actions more, but she's not slow to the extent that she doesn't know what she's doing and what it's doing to me.

All I can say is that whether that happens to you and your mum or not is literally and completely out of your hands, and if it ever does happen you’ll survive, many of us have. I’m eight years on now and have mostly lovely memories of her and I miss her like mad but you can’t change the past and I feel no shame at all for what she went through. I’m very proud of her.

The smartest people in the world can become addicts too so I can’t imagine your mum’s mental age is the cause, as you say she understands what she’s doing. I think it’s really important for you to try and take a step back and accept you can’t control or influence her decisions at all, if she ever does decide to get sober she’ll do it come hell or high water, and if she continues to drink she’ll do it even if she’s lost everything and everyone she ever held dear. That approach helped me to just enjoy my relationship with my mum and mum and daughter without the horrible futile power struggle of trying to change her. Do you think you can work towards that?

children of alcoholics certainly do, and not all of them by any means seek solace at the bottom of a bottle or expect everyone to pity them

I agree with this. My cousin who went to a 12 step rehab was told not to blame circumstances for his alcoholism.
Op did the support centre suggest your mother go to AA?
Also, I realise you have got a baby at home but I agree with pp who have suggested al Anon. It’s brilliant.

@FearLoveAndTheTimeMachine I really admire your strength in the fact of what you (and of course your mum) went through. I do agree that adopting that mindset is something that would benefit me, and I'm going to try my damnest to get there.

@dapplegrey AA was recommended yes, although mum is adamant she would feel hugely uncomfortable in a group setting because of her social difficulties. Personally I'd like to hope she would give it a go, but I won't try to force her and am glad she's at least accessing some support now. Whether that lasts will remain to be seen.

I'm very interested in Al-anon and have looked up the meetings for my area but they fall at a time that would be difficult for me to attend due to my DS. I have been finding MN and another group very helpful though when it comes to sharing and hearing from others who can relate

It must be so hard when you feel so protective of your mum. I Don't feel that way about mine at all anymore. Although she is not a very nice person, also spoilt and of average intelligence.
I'm also pg though and know I wouldn't want to be dealing with her right now especially. I hope you can put yourself first now that you've got the ball rolling for her

Some people seem almost proud of being the sort of person to say ‘no sympathy from me’ even though it doesn’t reflect well on them.

You don't know what their circumstances are or have been. People suffer horrendous and frequent abuse from (some) alcoholics, physical, emotional, verbal. Walking on eggshells and feeling totally helpless while they watch the person they love destroying themselves and everyone around them. Your sympathy can wear off after years of it. Or you can be sympathetic to the problem but it's hard to switch off from the damage caused to people around the drinker and the pain it causes.

OP I do hope your mum recovers. A group will give you regular support and al-anon could be life changing for you. It's not your job to manage your mums problems and its out of your hands whether she recovers or not. Detaching with love is the best approach

Mums being uncharacteristically optimistic about new beginnings and not drinking anymore. I'd love to believe her but I've heard it all before, although I do hope she means it.

The tablets she's getting are called Acamprosate

It's like a kind of boom and bust cycle isn't it
every high brings on a low which then inevitably brings on another high followed by a low
and so ad infinitum

Acamprosate is another name for antabuse. She will be very very unwell if she drinks on them so fingers crossed!

That approach helped me to just enjoy my relationship with my mum and mum and daughter without the horrible futile power struggle of trying to change her
I think that's a very interesting insight, do you think that this futile power struggle also inadvertently fuels the addict?
it makes me think of that phrase don't wrestle with a pig you'll just get covered in mud and the pig will enjoy it

not suggesting that the mother is enjoying the alcoholism more that the struggle to help her plays into her narrative and gives it fire

I've been reading the Brave Babes Battle Bus thread with interest and it's been giving me a lot of insight that I've not been able to get from my own mums point of view as she doesn't talk very openly.

If DM was at all tech savvy I'd tell her to join and participate in that thread but she can barely work her old Nokia

The torture inflicted on families is due to them sticking with the alcoholic. If they walked away the problem would disappear.
Just reading the thread made me realise that the alcoholic could choose to give up booze and the famuily could choose to give up on the alcoholic.
I mean we are condemning the alcoholic for being selfish and not giving up their addiction but not condemning the family for not giving up and leaving.
I imagine it's because
1 a non alcoholic can't believe they will not give it up eventually and
2 society would condemn the wife or whoever for walking away as well as condemn the alcoholic for drinking.

To an extent I agree with OP. However, if you follow that logic you also need to apply it to smokers, the overweight, the severely underweight and parents!

All of these start with a choice and can end up in people really struggling- unless you’re willing to apply it to all of these don’t apply it to alcoholism.

Well I've walked away from my alcoholic, with the dcs and because of social services, contact order and "best interests of the children". I have to be in regular contact with my alcoholic.

For me the only thing that's changed is I don't have that crushing feeling if coming home to a pisshead pissed and the constant worry of being drunk in charge of the children. That was nigh on impossible to stop.

Silkie I've walked away from my alcoholic F. The rest of the family are still deep in their codependency but I've explained that the alcoholic has choices, as I do, and I'm off.

Like a weight lifted from my shoulders.

Highly recommended leaving them to stew in their own self imposed pity party.

I think that's a very interesting insight, do you think that this futile power struggle also inadvertently fuels the addict?

Kinda. I mean, in a way no, cos an alcoholic who isn’t ready or able to quit doesn’t need any fuel, they’ll keep drinking no matter what. But on the other hand a little bit, for two reasons:

1. if you’re trying to force someone to stop drinking and they won’t or can’t, the guilt and shame, such strong emotions, could either contribute to someone drinking even more to mask them.

2. if you’ve ever looked into motivational interviewing, you’ll realise that most people really don’t respond well to being told what to do, so will push back by digging their heels in with their behaviour and doing it even more. Like the teenage daughter whose parents hate her boyfriend and try and split them up, she will only dig deeper and try even harder to make it work as it becomes them against the world, united against a common enemy. And even if she eventually does feel she wants to end the relationship, the fear of ‘I told you so’ or not wanting to let her parents win might keep her in it longer than she really wants to. Same with drinking, and other addictions. It’s been proven time and time again that a curious, non judgmental stance where you explore someone’s aims and gently start to understand together the way that their behaviour is in conflict with those aims, works a hell of a lot better in smoking cessation initiatives than just telling someone to stop smoking or shaming and judging them for it. Whenever I tried to force my mum to stop drinking (via many methods: hiding the booze, openly shaming or judging her, trying to strongarm her to AA or her GP, trying to monitor her every move), she’d respond by either taking the drinking deeper underground or by kicking back understandably with ‘i’m an adult and you can’t tell me what to do’.

But ultimately the reason I took that approach eventually of accepting where she was at unconditionally and loving her and seeing her and making sure she knew I was there for her was to save my own sanity, cos I was exhausted by trying to find every trick in the book to stop her drinking and save her life. It’s an exercise in complete futility. All you can do it a) be there for someone so they know if and when they’re ready they have your support and b) above all else, protect yourself, if their behaviour is damaging you walk away, save yourself, don’t enable them, don’t be afraid to set your own boundaries. If my mum’s alcoholism had been wrecking my life other than the pain it caused me to witness her suffering, I’d have cut her out while I healed. There’s no shame in that. And I know she’d have supported me in doing so had she been in her right mind.

I know a lot of that seems a bit contradictory Wordthe, sorry. But addiction is such a complex issue. There are so many moving parts. I certainly don’t have the answers :)

@FearLoveAndTheTimeMachine, I found that post really interesting, thank you for sharing your knowledge and experiences!

Thanks so much Wordthe, that’s really kind of you to say!

I will add actually that I think most close friends and relatives of the person experiencing addiction are usually too close to the situation to be able to set their own feelings aside and figure out rationally how best to respond, it can be so upsetting and shocking that most people are just bumbling about in the dark driven by their feelings about the situation, which is fully to be expected. I don’t expect many people to be able to take that step back and really assess what the best thing to do is (both in terms of whether and when to protect themselves and how best to treat/support the drinker) and that’s fine. I was fortunate in that even though I was fairly young (19), I’d had enough experience to be kinda used to dealing with difficult situations and had a strong belief in self determination even when that person was so close to me. But even then, it still took me a good year or two to actually get to the point where I stopped bashing my head against the brick wall.

It’s really tough but thankfully there is a lot of support and help and advice out there for relatives and friends of addicts. You just have to know where to look and be willing to try and think clearly and calmly for a while instead of being purely driven by emotion.

Well my DH relapsed again two nights ago. He had been sober 4 months since his last relapse.

I was angry, upset, worried, stressed and many other emotions. However recovering from alcohol is not a straight line from A to B. Expecting a recovering alcoholic never to relapse is totally unfair and unrealistic.

The reason I stay with my DH is because I know how hard he fights, every hour, every day, to stay sober. Most of his life he has been an alcoholic, his version of reality is a drunk one. Going into a sober reality is terrifying. Along with withdrawals, there is a period of almost grief, losing a best friend, the coping mechanism and so on. Because he has drank from a young age, he hasn't learned to cope with stressful things the way non addicts do.

It's not as simple as stopping drinking. There is a fair amount of support for just stopping drinking, there is next to none in how to learn to live a sober life.

My DH had been stuck in a transition stage. He was sober, yes but he wasn't living. Just existing. He had no hobbies, no interests because they had all revolved around alcohol. No confidence, no self belief because of his addiction to alcohol and the pain that had caused him. No friends because they were all alcoholics. No job because he had lost it due to being drunk at work. No ability to cope with stress, deal with insomnia, fight anxiety etc. And to top it all off, he is trying to be sober in a world where people doubt him, expect him to fail, think he is a write off and generally think less of him as a person because he is one of many that made the choice to drink as a teen and somewhere along the way, develop an addiction that has ruined his life for years. His own family can't even congratulate him on his determination to be sober, not even when he managed ten months of it.

Sometimes I think, if I was an alcoholic, would I bother stopping? People think you are scum anyways, so what's the point?

No alcoholic can pinpoint the moment they became an alcoholic. Drinking is a choice yes. Something we all choose usually in our teen years. Becoming an alcoholic is not a choice. It's a disease that develops as a result of making that choice in people that have a predisposition to it. Stopping can and does kill them. Not just withdrawals but suicides from trying to live in a new, terrifying, sober world.

I find it quite strange that people refer to people in their lives who have problems with alcohol as "the alcoholic" and lump them all together with everyone else who has that problem as if they all shared the same personalities, strengths, weaknesses, influences, affects and contributions to the lives of others. I personally have "an alcoholic" in my life and, whilst I would so wish they were not damaging their health in the way that they are, am so happy and grateful for their warm and loving influence on my life

Sometimes "the alcoholic" is your very much loved friend or relative

It sounds like you don't live with that person tigerpaws Who said on here that alcoholics can't be kind and warm. Living with one is a different matter imo. Of course everyone's not the same but certain behaviours may be common and the problem of being addicted to alcohol is common.

collywombles that sounds tough. Does your husband go to AA? (you don't have to answer, I was just thinking about the help and support he might get in a group)

fearlove I agree, what you wrote was so interesting and insightful

I did live with them for many years. I didnt need to rely on them for practical or financial input and that probably made a difference. They were a lovely warm , interesting, life-enhancing person, but could not go a day without a bottle of wine.

Tigerpaws they sound nothing like the alcoholic in my family, to whom none of those descriptors apply. Try having an alcoholic, abusive step father and then get back to me with your sanctimonious gratitude for having an alcoholic in your life.