How to talk to my alcoholic mum

[Ilovethekittehs]

Hi all,

My family haven't really ever spoken openly about it. It's a known secret and source of a lot of sadness in my family.

My mum is a high functioning alcoholic and has been since I was born. She drinks all of the time, but we thought she had been getting a lot better, out step dad told us she had stopped and I saw a marked change in her.

But the last few times I have seen her she has seemed 'off' and i just found out why, my sister has just found bottles galore hidden behind their sofa after spying on her going into the hallway randomly.

It just breaks my heart. I have a five month old and she has lied to my face about not drinking. I was just getting ready for her and my step dad to have him for a few days and I feel so stupid for believing she had changed.

I need to have a conversation with her but I would like some advice on how to do it. It's about my sons safety now which is why it has to come to the surface and something done. But, I am worried years of anger will come out and I'll end up making it worse. My mum is a real victim about everything whereas I am very fact based and not overtly emotional (you learn how to suppress yours when you grow up thinking your mum is crying and drunk because you've said something that has hurt her feelings).

I want her to know the pain she has caused me and will cause my son if she continues:

• being asleep most evenings from too much wine from as long as I can remember, leaving my sister and I to watch TV and take ourselves to bed.
• being drunk and saying she was going to kill herself when celebrating my sister and I I birthday when we picked her up at 9am
• going missing all night when I was ten, I had to bike around to find her
• crying all of the time, but doing nothing to change
• just that fucking way of talking with her eyes half closed
• crying at my engagement party and passing out on a desk chair, when it was the first time she had met my fiances family and friends (embarrassing)
• crying every single christmas when out of it

She doesn't accept she is depressed and she wont accept she has an alcohol problem, but now I have evidence I think she might listen.

I want her to know her grandson but I will not let him grow up around the fucking sadness I grew up around.

If anyone can help I would be greatly appreciative.

I have just found out my step dad knows about the hiding of alcohol and has been protecting her.

He does not want me to talk to her and is enabling her alcoholism very much.

He will unfortunately he missing out on a relationship with my son, as will my mum.

When I gave birth it was pretty traumatic and mum came to see me and her behaviour immediately set off alarm bells, I thought but that point she has stopped drinking wine couldn't even begin to think she would turn up drunk, she said she was tired and I believed her. I am not just realising she probably was drunk. And holding my poorly newborn son, who she could have dropped.

I'm so angry at both of them. It hurts.

Now just realising*

I am so sorry that is is as you suspected. Codependency is incredibly hard to get out of (speaking from experience here). All you can do is back away and look after yourself and your family.

So sorry to hear about this, it reminds me so much of my own experiences growing up with my mum - I really think you need to prioritise your son and shield him as much as you can from the trauma. You can't really do much to help your mum at this stage, she needs to realise the damage she is doing to herself and those around her. Your step dad is probably struggling with this also and doesn't know how to help her.

My mum died of alcoholic liver failure a year before my first child was born and as much as I wish she would have been around and a normal grandma, in reality I am so glad I don't have to deal with the stressful situation of denying her that. It's caused a lot of trauma to me personally that I only recognise now.

I am speaking to my step dad via phone on Wedneaday when he is not around my mum. He is excusing the drinking because of extreme stress currently, and via my sister he is basically going to say it's not to right time to confront my mum about her drinking

So I am going to say fine, first here are some links about being an enabler and you will not be seeing my son until this can be discussed openly, and if mum asks why, I'll leave you to think of a made up reason why.

It's always been protect mum, dont upset mum, dont cause your mum more stress and I'm sick of people not wanting to tell her that she is a fucking self absorbed drunk. Her feelings have been prioritised over mine and my sisters my whole like and I'm finally done.

Sorry I am ranting a bit.

@seaduck that's incredibly sad. I am sorry to hear she passed. It is such a cruel disease. I hope you're able to talk to someone about your trauma.

I am really sad that your childhood, adulthood and motherhood has been blighted by your alcoholic mother.

I have experience of this in my family. You have a choice now - you can continue as an angry, frustrated passenger on her futile journey and sacrifice your soul again - or you can choose another way. Al - Anon (or other groups) can help you “detach with love” which is a mechanism to support you and is the best method for your mother as well - as counterintuitive as it seems.

Don’t waste your emotional energy with your step dad (emotionally detach from him as well) - he knows what he is doing - it suits him - she knows what’s she’s doing also and has always prioritised her pleasure, urges, comfort and compulsions over you and your sisters childhoods. That’s quite special. That’s quite entrenched. She has her own personal journey to go on if she chooses - and she will need professional support for this.

Your childhood is one of at least emotional neglect - maybe even emotional and physical abuse. The consequences of poor parenting is an emotional deficit - many children bring feels of shame etc into their adult lives where they struggle with self esteem, mental health issues, relationships etc.

As well as al anon to help you manage your relationship with your mother right now - also have a look at Adult Children of Alcoholics website below to see where your emotional deficits might be and how to work on these.

This will be the very best thing that you can do for your son - to fill the gaps, to focus positively on your personal growth so that he has the best mother he can have. He is not best served by you wasting your finite emotional capacity by being negatively embroiled, drained and preoccupied with the antics of your DM and SF and your unrealisable hopes and expectations that she will display the safe, present, happy, loving behaviours as a grandmother that she has been unable to display to you as a mother for decades.

Seriously don’t waste a moment of these magic times with your baby where your head, heart and behaviours are redirected to her.

adultchildren.org/

It’s likely that your DM experienced some trauma or deficient parenting in her own life - this is the pain she is likely to be trying to alleviate but in a destructive way that has done exactly the same to her own children and is continuing as you are trying to be a mother yourself. Don’t let her rob you and your baby of this.

@Gutterton thank you, such great advice.

I was 31 years sober on April 5th. My DF has been sober for 44 years. I got sober through rehab followed by years and years of AA meetings several times a week.

But it took hard work and commitment. I was desperate to stop drinking. I loved my DH and my parents and I hated letting them down. And it doesn't sound as if your DM has that need to change. Until she's committed to sobriety nothing is going to change .

You write It's always been protect mum, dont upset mum, dont cause your mum more stress and I'm sick of people not wanting to tell her that she is a fucking self absorbed drunk. Her feelings have been prioritised over mine and my sisters my whole like and I'm finally done.

You have every right to feel like that and if you ever get the opportunity you might feel better if you tell her. Don't bother if she's drunk. She won't take it in. But if she's sober, or nearly so, you might tell her how you feel and the harm she's done before you tell her she won't be looking after your son.

You don't want any sort of re-run of what happened to you and your sister so I think you're going to have to go low or no contact. She doesn't get to neglect or ignore another child. Tell her so.

I agree with PP that you're likely to get a lot of support and useful advice from Al Anon.

This has just come through as a daily thought from the link above - hope it helps:

Family Relationships
"At an appropriate time, we review the relationship we want to have with our families. We will choose to avoid some family members because they are draining or abusive." BRB p. 123

Even though we lived through the same experiences as others in our families, we may have reacted differently and developed different scars and ways of coping that often divided us much more than it united us.

When we begin our recovery in ACA, this divide makes it more difficult to be around the circus that is our extended family. With practice, resolve and support from other ACAs, we give ourselves permission to avoid situations that can drain us of all energy and even cause us to revert to our own dysfunctional behaviors.

If we think some family members are too toxic and abusive, we can disconnect. We don't have to participate because we know how emotionally draining they are. We have a choice. We don't have to go down with a sinking ship.

This separation doesn't have to be forever. Many of us eventually get to the point of reintroducing our True Selves to the family, and we let them make the choice to interact with us on our terms, or not.

On this day I give myself permission to separate from my family's dysfunction. This gives me the opportunity to become who I am meant to be, not who I am expected to be.