Hi, I wonder if anyone can offer any advice on how best to navigate this?
My sister is addicted to both alcohol and cocaine. She has been struggling for some time with it and finally managed to tell me about it earlier this year. I live abroad but tried to provide as much support for her as possible - lots of research on support services, a nightly check in to see how she was doing etc. I also encouraged her to tell our family that she was struggling and she did eventually tell our mum and our brother that she was having issues with alcohol, but has refused to mention the cocaine as she is too ashamed and worried about being judged.
Since the first conversation we had, she's had multiple relapses and gone back to drinking and cocaine (she says they go hand in hand so I think it's normally both at the same time). She admitted that she'd lied to me when we'd been having our daily chats and not telling me that she was still using. She was so out of it at her DD's birthday party that she has no memory of the day itself and there are various other occasions/events which have gone the same way.
DH thinks I should tell our mum about the cocaine, on the basis that no one can really support her properly without having the full picture. I understand his reasoning and I agree that the perception that it's only alcohol is likely meant that it's not taken so seriously - my dad is an alcoholic (although a functional one) and so that doesn't feel out of the ordinary in our family, although everyone agrees it's awful, needs support, etc.
Recently my sister told me she'd been attending counselling - great, I'm so pleased she's accessed some help. She said the sessions are hard and emotional but that it's been really helpful. I later found out that our mum had to lend her the money, as she didn't have it. She's borrowed money from my mum before and always paid it back so no issues there generally but part of me is a bit concerned that if the sessions haven't been paid for upfront, then the money may have been spent on drugs and we have no way of knowing whether she's actually going to the sessions. I'm sure our mum would have been happy to lend it regardless, had she known about the drugs too, but might have paid for the sessions directly instead of giving my sister over a grand in cash.
I feel like I'm a bit stuck in the middle here - on the one hand I want to honour my sister's confidence and don't want to mention the drugs to anyone when she's not comfortable with that. On the other hand I'm not sure it's actually very helpful that the people closest to her don't know the full extent of what's going on and are trying to support her to get help with her drinking when the real situation is actually much more complicated.
I'd really appreciate any advice or thoughts you might have as I consider this and try to work out what to do for the best.