alcohol concern ..

[choclab]

I am really worried about my mum , shes been a heavy drinker for many, many years and i now feel its all catching up with her ..
she has been deteriating quickly , and i really think she has liver damage ...

does anyone els have experience with this or give advice ..i feel so helpless ...

she has a long term partner , who also drinks , and i have raised my concerns a few times only to be told im out of order and over reacting ...

im now begining to wonder if he is actually looking after my mum or making her worse ..

thanks

regarding helping my mum , im not sure as she s so confused she really doesnt know how ill she really is im , as her brain function is poor.. how would i get through to her to stop ..along side her depression of which i know is because of the long term alcohol abuse ..she doesnt , she thinks its just how she is and can shake it off .

i rally fel the AD are making her worse not better ...

her partner is totally useless to ...so i can not talk to him about it ...

so do i watch my mum just get worse what els can i do ..

Could you get her on her own and try to talk to her? Does she go out much? Is it easy to get her away from her partner for a bit of time just the two of you?

I don't think the ADs will be making her worse TBH - people function and work etc taking them long term. I suspect your mum's main problem is the drinking, although obviously you know her best

I found with dad he was depressed and the drink made it so much worse. Alcoholics think 'I am depressed I will have a drink to cheer myself up' - they really need to reverse it and say 'I am depressed because I drink and I am going to stop'! So so much easier said than done of course.

I would see her GP. It can't hurt and it might help.

thanks muriel , i will try to get her alone , but hes always there .. shes very fragile at the moment and to be honest so am i , i dont want to make matters worse ie..make her drink more ..

im not sure shes fully aware of the risk shes doing to herself ie , liver damage ect .. she seems to be way past evon that ..

today made me quite sad as i was talking to her like a child , have you eaten today ...how did you sleep etc ..

and no she doesnt go out ..hasnt been out for almost 2 weeks now .

she sadi she cant face it and just wants to go to sleep and it all to go away ..

im convinced her DP either turns a blind eye or scared or likes her the way she is as this enables him to carry on with his drinking habbit ....although d he is huge and eats for england ...hes so big he does very little ec=xcept eat and drink oh and sleep ...

no advice here, have been through this with my dad and dh, i was rubbish with both (i was def an enabler). my dad sadly died from liver failure last year. but dh has now been teetotal for 8 years, so dont give up on your mum. sending my love because i know how hard it is xxx

Frazzled, when you say you were an enabler what do you mean by that? As in, how did that manifest? I'm tortured by thoughts that I somehow contributed to my mum's death by enabling her but I'm also sure I did everything that I could do within my power to try to get her to stop.

dont torture yourself, you didnt contribute to her death. with my dad, i never challenged him or told him how it affected me,i should have done but i truly believe that it wouldnt have made a difference in the end.with dh, i covered for him ,lied to relatives,friends etc. bought vodka for him late at night when he was "needing it".
I often go over it all in my head and wonder if i could have changed anything by being stronger for them, if it was happening now i would definitely do things differently, but thats with luxury of hindsight and maturity.Im sure that you did the best for your mum.

thank you both ,

this seems to be on my mind morning noon and night ..

,im so sorry you lost your mum and dad this way...do you feel there is something i could do which im nor already ?

1/ .we have composed a letter to her doctor , stressing how worrier and concerned we are as her daughters , listing symptoms we know she has , as not sure if they know (im hoping they do , you just have to look at my mum and you can see)

i understand they can not tell us info , but if there not already looking into her at least they will have a better or another view on how she is .
2/ .i could try again to talk to my mum ...although im really frightened on pushing her further ...last time we talked before christmas ,she told me to but out and had no right to lecture her ...plus want to get her with out her DP there..
3/ . involve my dad ? they were married for 34 years and still have something ..if u know what i mean ...maybe he can talk sense to her ...

oh i dont know .....
i just got to do something , im worried THIS is my only chance to try before its to late ...

iv read about liver failure on internet , although she has many symptoms iv no idea what stage or % she may be at ...ie how long or can it be reversed if she stops drinking NOW .
will she be my mum again ....
(wiping away tears now )
what can i do ..

There is nothing more you can do here and you need to accept that fact as soon as possible. She has to want to help her own self and clearly she does not want to here. She's met a fellow alcoholic for a partner and these two are enabling each other.

You need to stop feeling guilty - all this will just make you feel worse.

None of the three things you've written down will make any difference at all; you can only help your own self here by talking to Al-anon. Her GP will likely not intervene further if at all as your Mother does not want to be helped.

The 3cs re alcoholism:-

You did not cause this
You cannot control this
You cannot cure this

I think Attila is right but at the end of the day if doing those things make you feel better and that you have 'tried' then do them.

The aim here is to learnt to live with this situation and to find ways for you to cope.

The aim cannot be to get your mum to stop, sadly, that needs to be her aim.

It's nice that Frazzled 74 has posted though as of course some alcoholics do stop. Great news that your DH is ok now....the stats are not good but there are some success stories out there.

I have a colleague who told his dad that he did not want to see him again while he was drinking. He stopped and is still dry 10 yrs later. That was what it took for him to see sense. I have always been quite envious of him for that.

Thanks Muriel ,

i guess i just dont want to be looking back at some point and wish id tried harder...said or done more to help her stop ...
i know this has to come from her to but if shes so mashed how can she know what is right or wrong ...

she told me yesterday she was going to call her doctor to see if she could be seen as she says she feels so ill and cant carry on ..
i honestly believe she thinks its something els ..nothing to do with the booze ..

i will call her later and find out , no point in ringing now as she wont be up ...

My father-in-law was an alcoholic and I feel very sorry for where you are now. I watched the whole family go through phases of anger, resentment, sadness, guilt, hope... just as you're doing now. By the end no-one was on speaking terms and everyone was at each other's throats. Nothing they did or didn't do made any difference whatsoever to the outcome but it took them years and years to see that they really weren't responsible for his illness.

It sounds harsh but I think it's a mistake to keep fussing over her. They talk about people reaching 'rock bottom' before they decide to do something for themselves and maybe if you said you weren't going to call her again until she'd been to see the doctor that would be the best thing you could do.

In the meantime, you have to look after yourself. Your mother has made certain choices in her life. Don't let those choices ruin yours.

thanks chil,

what happened to your FIL ?

i doubt im strong enough to cut off from her , but i will try to back off a bit as its really making me down when i do talk to her and shes like that.

We(my sister and i ) have sent a letter to her doctors today expressing our concern and worry .
and listing the symptoms we can see for our selves .
i know theres little they can do without her wanting the help , but at least they if not allready, will have a bigger picture of her full symptoms .
as im sure she would not be telling them all of them ...

i feel a bit better by doing that as at least we,ve done something ...

I think youve done a good thing by writing to her gp. Hopefuly he will be able to talk to your mum and offer her some help, good luck.

thanks frazzled

"what happened to your FIL ?"

He died pretty dramatically. He also brought everyone down who was unlucky enough to be around him. The family disintegrated as people argued about what to do about him. Marriages broked up partly because in-laws (like me) got heartily fed up with the way his behaviour dominated and manipulated our partners' lives. Do you have a partner incidentally?

I think you've done everything possible and - whatever happens next - you can rest easy in that knowledge.

sorry chil1234, i should have worded it better , did he die from the drinking is what i meant to say .(didnt mean to be insensative )

No apologies required. His health was basically ruined by drinking, spent his last few years in and out of hospital and finally died of a heart attack at the wheel.

sorry to here that .

hope all family members are on better terms now .

Yes my dad's was pretty dramatic too

The chaos and upset he left behind was pretty bad.

Luckily in terms of family (me, sister and mum)we stuck together and still do - that something else you can focus on Choclab, staying close to your sister.

thanks , muriel ,

was it because of the drink to ? or drink related ? (dont have to answer )

i am very close to my sister and we talk most days , she wrote the letter to mums doctor as she is far better at letter writing than me...
It may do little good but at least we will have tried ...its the only thing we can do right now i think .

spoke to mum today she wasnt to bad was 12.30 although still not really eating , said she ate little last night , then was sick min later ...and says she cant taste anything , things dont taste the same and she can not eat things to hot or cold ..(no idea what thats all about at all )

thanks again x

I have just posted a similar thread re my father, he has ascites, jaundice, and the docs are being evasive when it comes to his prognosis.
he too is in complete denial and before he was hospitalized, was an alcoholic heavy drinker,going through 2 bottles if wine and a quarter bottle of scotch a day.
Can anyone who has lost someone close to liver disease be brave and tell me what its like.
Thanks- and sympathies to all others watching someone closeself destruct.

hi charlieandlola,

sorry to here your going through this with your father , i think my mum has ascites , very swallen stomach , is your dad hospitalized at moment .?

be keen to watch reply as i to would like to know ..sadly ..

Yes I can, but choclab you need to look away as this is not nice and your mum is not at that stage yet by the sounds of things.

This is only how I saw it - my dad died of acute fatty liver which is basically liver disease. He had so many symptoms which ranged from tiredness and incoherence to acute sickness, near the end he could not even digest chips as they were 'too greasy' (oven chips, so not greasy at all!)

In the last 6 months of his life he lived alone as we had all left him to it (very painful - we hoped it would snap him out of it) and he couldn't walk properly, he didn't eat etc.

He used to blame his falls on the pavements (when I went to pick up the post etc) but his face and knuckles were cut to ribbons. His skin was grey and his eyes were yellow.

In the end he was picked up by the police for drink driving and went off the drink cold turkey (to go to court we think) and collapsed and ultimately died. It's very dangerous to dry out without medical help as he did (and had done several times before) and that last time was the final one.

We were shocked when the post mortem examination came back that there was zero alcohol in his system until we found the court papers and realised what he was facing.

He hallucinated a lot - and forget things
too. He lost all sense of time.

Sorry I'm not being very coherent myself. It's a tough memory.

But do ask any Qs if you have them X

Thanks muriel , for sharing that with us .

i really have no idea what stage my mum is at , but i know its not good ,

she has as iv said
confusion ,repeating herself constantly , hard to hold conversation ,
sickness to a degree
not eating ..poss one small meal if luck
bloating ,
vit problems ,
blood clotting prob,
depression ,
muscle wasting due to lack of food ,
mouth gum problems ,
sleeps alot .

i would love to find out from her doc what they think , but guess they wont tell me ..
she wont tell me thats for sure .

all exactly like my father - confused, repeats himself constantly, depressed, wont get dressed or wash, he is now in hospital with jaundice, they are trying to get the ascites out of him via diuretics, they have put him on steroids, he is nauseous, doesn't eat, on IV liquids to keephim hydrated, sleeps most of the time but is quite lucid ( more than he has been for years) when awake.

the main thing is to realise the persons drinking is not your fault.