Mother’s Day: Remembering my alcoholic mum

Access to support so that recovery should be possible for everyone. Being a COA (child of an alcoholic) makes you feel like you have the weight of the world on your shoulders. Isolated and needing to protect your parent from the outside world ever knowing. No child should be left with such a large burden.

You deserve high-quality treatment and a fulfilling life in recovery.

1. Many family members of someone struggling with alcohol dependency try everything they can think of to get their loved one to stop drinking.
2. You may feel like you shouldn’t have to change your life just because they are unable to control their drinking but enabling an alcoholic parent will only make the situation worse.
3. This dd is under the same sort of pressure – expected to get back in there and suck it up, and forget the emotional abuse and the years of finding her mum after suicide attempts etc.

From a very early age Becky knew that her mum was a drinker, even though Pat never drank in front of her and never talked about it. A substance use disorder crippled my mother’s ability to be the mother she wanted to be and we needed her to be. I’m pretty sure she told her family my secret. They were always so welcoming to me for sleepovers. You’re actually a highly sensitive person, but you’veshut down youremotions in order to cope. You’re sensitive to criticism, which fuels your people-pleasing.

Hello! I’m Jody.

I find it extremely hard to reconcile the person she is sober with the person she is drunk. My dads and her relationship has been turbulent because of the drinking, peppered with violence on both sides. I feel very resentful of it and it makes me so angry.

Care for a Parent by Enjoying Family Time

My guess is that your mother really does love you but has a limited capacity to show it because of her own set of serious problems. And, experiencing aggression and cruelty from the mother who is supposed to be your biggest supporter could and in your case did lead to depression. If these feelings of depression return you must see a therapist. Your mother does not need to know about this particularly given her reaction to your speaking to “outsiders” in the past.

Taking Action for Your Parent

Whatever she does if you leave is her decision entirely. Whatever she does beyond that is her decision entirely. I will say that since my friend’s dd left the house, she has not made a suicide attempt. She has threatened, and she has disappeared for a night here and there to drink in a hotel on her own. My lovely friend is currently trying every emotional blackmail in the book to get her dd home.

Addiction can cause some really serious problems, and when it’s a part of your family, it also affects your everyday life and how you deal with your feelings. It’s really important to look for an adult you can talk with about your parent’s addiction and how you’re handling it. Talking with someone else who acknowledges that your parent has a problem can really lift a weight off your chest. I provide resources and inspiration to help people heal and create the lives they love.

I remember being 14/15 years old, walking home from school and dreading not knowing what i was going back to. The smell of red wine has a similar effect (I don’t drink but occasionally use it in cooking). For me the final straw was when I was late getting to hers as I’d been “involved” in an accident on the motorway.

That’s not because I have a drinking problem – I’m actually pretty good at knowing when to have a drink and when not to – but it’s because of two main reasons. We use qualitative data, including session replay, to learn about your user experience and improve our products and services. New strategy sets out how children will be safeguarded to prevent repeat of grooming scandal. Becky says there was a lack of structured support from her school.

It reinforces to her that she shouldn’t be held responsible for her drinking and that others (i.e. you) need to be responsible for her well-being. Nothing could be further from the truth.The lives of addict and enabler (because that is what you are, and I was) are very deeply entwined. The addict starts the entwining, but we eagerly continue it. Most of us have the mindset that if we just try enable hard enough, we’ll ‘get through’ and they’ll ‘see the light’.

People-pleasing is also an effort to avoid conflict. Enter your phone number below to receive a free and confidential call from a treatment provider. Work to explore whether the treatment could be offered to single people on the NHS in Scotland https://sober-home.org/ is now at an early stage. They are not allowed to smoke, drink alcohol or take drugs during the treatment and the woman has to be under 42 years old. “I’ve always wanted a child, always, I feel like I was born to be a mum and now he’s here.”

Alcohol addiction is not a choice, even though it may seem like your alcoholic father or mother is prioritising their drinking over you or your family. When addiction gets its claws into a person, it can blind them to the reality of their situation and cause them to deny that they have a problem or that they are harming their family. This is why an alcoholic parent will often make excuses for their drinking or their behaviour or act defensively when confronted. Watching a parent struggle with alcohol addiction can be heartbreaking and can have profound consequences on your own mental health, even increasing the risk of you developing an addiction yourself. While it may seem impossible at times, alcohol disorders can be overcome and your support could be the most important factor in helping your parent turn their life around.

I feel if I said it to her face it might cause her to do more damage rather than go the other way. She has been hospitalised several times due to drinking or drinking related injuries and it’s made no difference. As much as it would hurt, I would remove myself from situations that involve her. Go NC and save your mental health and that of your children. It sounds like your whole family is affected by her and she is bringing lots of misery. You can’t make her stop drinking if she does want to, but you can protect yourself from her words, actions and the impact she has on those around her.

It’s so hard, but you do have to let that aspect go. I know my friend’s dh is finding it extraordinarily hard. There was a vacuous gap of understanding between us, created by her combined lack of availability and intimacy. Sometimes I loved her, sometimes it was pity. At points, my feelings grew to a livid pulp of unspeakable hatred.

Thank you for reading this, sometimes it really helps to let things out. It’s very hard at times and people really don’t understand how nasty she is. My mother was like this, although much younger. Having my own child was the catalyst for that. I couldn’t let her damage him the way she did her own children. Funnily enough, from that day on, my own mental health improved significantly.

Al-Anon is the largest and most well-known support group for families of alcoholics. Modeled after Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), Al-Anon includes a 12-Step program for members to follow to help them cope with their family member’s alcoholism. Al-Anon holds regular meetings in all 50 states and in many countries around the world. Throughout the whole process make sure your mother or father knows that you support them 100% and will be there for them when they get out of treatment. Discuss anything they would like you to do for them while they are completing their treatment programme to ensure that the transition back into normal life is as smooth as possible.

The focus then becomes what you did (moved them) rather than what they did (drinking so much that they passed out outside). You may tell yourself that https://sober-home.org/treatment-issues-for-men-addressing-the-specific/ surely there is something you can do. But the reality is that not even the person dependent on alcohol can control their drinking, try as they may.

Remember that, unless violence is a concern, the risks of having this conversation are generally far outweighed by the potential benefits. If you are genuinely concerned about a violent reaction, however, it is best to not have the conversation alone. When you’re worried about someone else, you can also forget to take care of yourself. However, remember that you’re important and it’s crucial to look after your health and wellbeing too.

You cannot force your alcoholic father or mother into rehab but try to stay patient and persistent in your efforts to help them. She would have made that decision of her own free will. It was difficult for me to see it with my brother. But in the end I realized that he was making the decision to drink, which might have led to the decision to do himself harm. I know it’s very hard to understand that, let alone accept it. She is not entitled to ruin your life simply because she chooses to ruin her own.