Why am I so pissed off by this?

[furrywombat]

My mum is a functioning alcoholic and has been for years although it's got worse over the past 3 years since we sadly lost my dad.

She isn't a horrible or violent drunk. But I've found that as I've got old I find her absolutely intolerable when she's been drinking. Everything about the way she looks to the way she speaks enrages me. I don't have a problem being around drunk people in general, just her. She can be annoying but like I said, she isn't abusive as such she just talks rubbish. I've accepted that this is how she is and I can't change her drinking. I can't rely on her for childcare or for anything really.

Sober she is fine and we get along well but if I pop round and she's been drinking I have to leave immediately or we end up arguing. Im struggling to understand why her drinking has this effect on me where I literally cannot stand to be around it. She would argue that she's not doing anything wrong and makes me feel bad for leaving her on her own. But I simply can't be around it.

I could have written exactly the same. My mum turns from the loveliest person ever into someone who enrages me. She’s not violent, loud, stupid or anything dreadful, but I cannot stand her if she’s had a drink.
I think it’s because she suddenly becomes very aloof and slightly ‘off’ and it’s so far from her normal personality that she might aswell be a total stranger. We’ve had so many disagreements about her drunk persona.

Because she is your mother, and you know what she is doing is unhealthy, selfish and will probably kill her. You mention childcare and I imagine you would never want to do the same to your children. There are support groups and lots of information online for adult children of alcoholics.

Because you don't like it.

A healthier question would be 'Why am I questioning my natural responses?' or 'Why would I choose to be around someone who insists on drinking when she knows it makes me uncomfortable?'

Respect that that's how you feel, and leave when you want to. She can say what she wants, or she can learn that this is what happens, and if she wants you to stay, she can choose your company over having a drink.

It is infuriating isn't it? I don't know if it triggers something from the past or because she's just such a pain. She doesn't realise how obvious it is to others when she's been drinking. Her whole face and mannerisms change. I just called her and she's clearly pissed now, at 3pm on a sunny Tuesday afternoon. Alone. Why waste your life doing that when you have family and friends who care for you?

Probably because it makes you feel like she is a let down or a shit mother, and no one, not even hardened heart people like to admit to themselves that their mum is a shit parent, it hurts.

OP I'm not at all surprised that you are pissed off. That sounds really tough to deal with, I can't relate but don't feel bad about how you feel. It's terribly sad for you to witness that

@Blarn and @Watchkeys - these are sensible suggestions I just don't understand the utter rage I feel about it. It seems disproportionate but I suppose actually it isn't. She is selfish and she is letting me and her grandchildren down and every time I see her drunk it's a reminder of that.

I don't know, but I'm the same with my dad. He can be very aggressive when drunk, but even when he's being affable, he really pisses me off. He's usually very gruff and quiet but with alcohol, he turns emotional, stupid, rambling and boring. Like you, I've accepted that at this point he will not change, but that doesn't mean we have to like it, does it?

Yanbu

I have felt like writing this exact same post for the last few months. My mother has always had a drink problem but just won't do anything about it but the last few months it's really starting to piss me off.

Around 15 years ago when I was still living at home (just out of school) we had a big argument and I lived with my nan for a few months and I thought it would change her ways and stop the drinking but it just did nothing.

Like yours, she's not violent or abusive she just completely changes. Even from a text or one word spoken I know she's had a drink and it just makes me cringe (not sure if that's the correct word but it's like my body shuts down). She will just chat crap about other people, not herself and just generally awful company. After one drink she'll start flirting her words, you'd think after drinking everyday for years she'd not be such a lightweight!

There's absolutely no point intervening as we've been round and round it for years, she just doesn't understand she has a problem. She once said to my brother 'what else can you do in your 50s?'

I just hope my children never feel the same way about me when they're older. To be fair I think the way she is has put me off alcohol, I hardly ever drink.

I was the same. My DM is now 15 years sober.

I would know if she had a sniff of it. I felt exactly the way you do. It's horrific. You're absolutely valid to feel like that by the way.

Slurring not flirting *!

You're being quite disrespectful of yourself, you know. Something's happening that you don't like. Do you question yourself on why motor racing pisses you off so much, or why broccoli is so abhorrent to you? Or you just think, well, this is a representation of my personality, of who I am. I won't watch motor racing, and I won't eat broccoli.

We do this stuff when it comes to relationships, this 'Am I wrong to have my feelings?' but there's no right and wrong. You feel the way you do because of who you are, and where you're at emotionally.

Probably when you were small, your Mum would drink and you'd have to shout louder and louder to get her attention. Might that be true? So, now, because you don't want to have to do that, adult to adult, it pisses you off that she's still putting you in that position.

You're right @Watchkeys - I'm trying to make sense of a feeling when it's valid either way. I think when you have your own kids it makes you look at your upbringing in a different light. I'm not tee total but I would hate for my dc to have these thoughts about me. If drinking or any other personal vice had a detrimental effect on our relationship I would stop immediately. Mum knows how I feel yet still repeats the same behaviour. I understand its probably an addiction not a choice at this stage but regardless I can't help but feel massively let down by her.

It’s valid, you probably just don’t like the way her behaviour changes when she is

I think that you'd understand a sensitivity to, say, dogs, if someone had been bitten or mauled by one as a child. Even an adult feeling edgy around a chihuahua makes sense under those circumstances, even though, objectively, it's not a dangerous dog.

Are you trying to see your feelings objectively, perhaps? When, really, they develop very subjectively, and are generally there for a very good reason, even if the specific trigger isn't very big? So, your Mum's behaviour is now a pretty harmless chihuahua, but it hurt you badly enough in your childhood that you respond to is as if it's a pit bull?