Hi OP, couldn’t not post on this. My mum is an alcoholic, drunk every day throughout my childhood but held down a normal job so from the outside nobody ever really knew how bad it was. As a family we just tolerated her being drunk every night! She was a horrible drunk, but is a lovely lovely sober person. I became finely tuned to knowing what kind of mood she was in / how drunk she was by the smallest of things - the smell of the house when I walked in, the sound of her voice, how she laughed etc. Children of alcoholics are expert mood readers and have spent their childhoods on tenterhooks waiting for the mood in the room to tip / observing how much drink is left etc. My mum eventually got liver disease and ascites, but for years and decades before this it was a case of watching her health deteriorating - no appetite, sallow skin, extended stomach from fluid build up (Ascites). Eventually we managed to get her to the GP, and he requested we go to get her bloods done. She was detoxed in hospital, told she would likely die if she continues drinking and was then sober for a year after that. The past 5 years have been her largely sober but with relapses here and there. I am so proud of her. For 30 years she drank every single day (no exaggeration) bottles of wine a day as well as whiskey / brandy when it was very bad. There were bottles in wardrobes, shoes, bushes in the garden you name it. For many years we didn’t dare say anything to her, it was the unnamed secret in our house. Eventually it got so bad and us kids grew up and we started to voice how sad it was making us.
I would really recommend Al Anon groups for families, as the only thing you can do if your mum is not at the point of realising she has a problem is to free yourself of trying to control her drinking. You can’t, and you will drive yourself mad trying to (believe me). If your mum wants to drink she will drink, and it sounds like she may already be at the point of hiding drinks etc to disguise how much she is having. Only she can stop this cycle. She has to actually want to stop for herself, not for you or your sibling.
What you can do is keep voicing that you think she has a problem, start to voice when you notice her speech is slurred so that she is aware her drinking is becoming obvious (this doesn’t need to be confrontational but could be “mum you are starting to slur a bit / stumble a bit, could we maybe get you a coffee and some food to sober you up as I don’t enjoy being in your company when you’ve been drinking”). Begin to voice some boundaries, (“that will be lovely to see you, I’m only going to be comfortable spending time with you if you’re sober though so hopefully we can spend some time without alcohol”.) The more your mum resists these boundaries, the more you will have to gradually retreat away.
it is really really hard to watch someone you love drink themselves to death. My mum’s personality was so different drunk that I found myself grieving the sober version of her that I hardly got to see. But nowadays I see my sober mum all the time, and she is doing really well. The only way that has happened is because she got to the point of realising she needed help.
You can help get your mum there by communicating with her that you think her alcohol dependency is harmful, and you can insist on only seeing her when she is sober, you can point her to support groups like AA but beyond that it really does all come down to your Mum. You will just need to decide how much you need to protect yourself and your sanity by putting boundaries in place.
Al Anon has people just like you and I who have been right where you are. I found the groups near me really helpful and comforting. Go easy on yourself, it’s so hard to love someone with an addiction x