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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To think she can’t be helped

5 replies

centralbee · 18/06/2026 07:41

My older sister is an alcoholic. She hasn’t always been like this, she was so intelligent, had a great life from the outside, 3 kids, big house, husband who worked hard but alcohol ruined all that. Shes now with someone who is only interested in getting his mortgage paid, and all she does is drink. He enables her. And I know she needs to want the help, but she won’t get it. The amount of late night/early morning phone calls my mum has got off this bloke over the last 8 years is ridiculous. Come and get your daughter, I can’t cope with her anymore, she is insane, she is an addict, she’s attacked me, she’s broken the kitchen window etc etc. then it all goes back to normal and a few weeks later it starts again.

She can’t keep a job down, has had about 20 jobs over the last few years, always the same story, no one likes her, everyone’s out to get her, her last job she threw something at the gaffer in anger and was obviously sacked. She thinks she’s a functioning alcoholic!!!

I Don’t speak to her anymore because she causes nothing but trouble and drama. She isn’t a nice person, physically aggressive, always having ago at people who’ve “wronged her” I had to take a step back. She was arrested last year for attacking her bf, she got pepper sprayed, nothing ever came of it.
I could go on and on, she hates my mum, says she’s a shit mom, my mum took her on holiday a couple of years ago and she attacked her in a drunken rage. Since then they haven’t seen each other because in my sisters eyes, my mum is a bad person! I feel sorry for my mum because she has our other brother to think of who has learning difficulties and cannot cope with the stress, so she feels awful she can’t have my sister in her house, but she’s done it before and she was bringing random men and drugs into the house, it was the worst few weeks of her life.

This morning she was running down the streets with a bottle in her hand shouting cunt repeatedly at the top of her voice, 16 year old niece on the phone saying she’s a good mom but she needs help. Social services have been involved 3 separate times but they always close the case. Mum told the bf to ring the police and she hasn’t heard nothing since.

We can’t do anything can we ? Is it really she has to reach rock bottom and accept she needs help? wtf is rock bottom?!

OP posts:
Larrythecatforpm · 18/06/2026 07:43

You can’t help her, rock bottom for her will be something like severe liver damage unfortunately.

xOlive · 18/06/2026 07:46

Sadly, no, you can lead the horse to water and what not.
Its heartbreaking. You feel like you’re grieving them before they die.
Your niece will need a lot of support.
The disease destroys their brain.
She can’t change until she wants to, and in the depths of addiction, they are so focused on their next drink they can’t make rational choices to stop.
I’m sorry you’re all going through this 💔

TheGardenPond · 18/06/2026 08:09

Very sorry to read this, so hard for everyone. I think you could make the biggest positive difference here by looking after yourself, your niece and your mum as much as possible. Especially the teenage niece, and any other children or young ones affected if your sister has other kids or stepchildren. And when your sister is in her right mind in the future (hopefully) she will be grateful you did.

centralbee · 18/06/2026 08:25

Her boys are older now thank god but I also feel for them as they have to put up with it all the time. My niece loved her mum obviously but she won’t accept our offers of coming to live with us. All we can do is be there when she needs us. It’s so hard for everyone but I’m just so so angry with my sister that I struggle to have any sympathy, does that make me a bad person?

OP posts:
centralbee · 18/06/2026 08:26

Larrythecatforpm · 18/06/2026 07:43

You can’t help her, rock bottom for her will be something like severe liver damage unfortunately.

She told my mom a couple of years back that she already had damage to her liver, that didn’t stop her

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