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alcoholic mother ruining family; nothing we can do

  • 12-12-2011 10:38pm
    #1
    LegacyUser
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 166,026 ✭✭✭✭


    Hi, I'm looking for some advice.

    Bit of background, we would be a middle class family, there's me (21), my younger brother (18) and our parents.

    Dad is self employed and works 5/6 days a week in the family business. Brother in college, Mam doesn't work.

    Basically our mam is an alcoholic, only us would know this though, as she only drinks at home (wine). bottle a night or thereabouts. Once she has any bit of drink in her her mood varies wildly, often all she does is row with us over anything and everything and every other evening the house descends into chaos. She cannot be reasoned with in any way.

    The thing which I find most difficult to take is that she blames everyone else in the house for everything. Ultimately blames dad for any row involving herself and anyone else in the house. This isn't fair and I'm very worried about Dad as a result, he seems v depressed that everything he does for us is seemingly for nothing.

    She would often ostracise herself from the rest of us by sitting in the other room on her own for any reason. I think she is very insecure which is the reason she puts no blame on herself for all our family problems and drinks to the extent she does.

    The thing is at other times she can be so caring. Like she cooks a beautiful dinner every evening, does all the washing/ironing etc and I think she feels she gets no gratitude for this, which may be true to an extent, although I try to convey my appreciation where possible.

    I don't really know what to do. Would this be a common thing and what can we do to either help her our just cut ties. To be honest I'm not sure if I keep wanting to live in a house with this atmosphere.

    Sorry for the rambling post I'm just on the laptop in the room after yet another row with her (where she ended up blaming Dad because he was so upset earlier about marraige/business etc and was telling me such)

    Thanks


Comments

  • #2
    username123
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,484 ✭✭✭username123


    problem mother wrote: »
    I don't really know what to do. Would this be a common thing and what can we do to either help her our just cut ties. To be honest I'm not sure if I keep wanting to live in a house with this atmosphere.

    Hiya,
    My father was an alcoholic and everything you say rings true, until he got really bad he went to work everyday (similar to your mum cooking a nice dinner etc), then he would have dinner, start drinking, and chaos would descend - I was younger than you during those years of it though.

    Heres the thing. Theres not anything YOU can do about the drinking. Only your mum can do something about that. But there ARE things you can do as a family to stop enabling the alcoholic and to stop falling into this bottomless pit of frustration.

    First things first. Has anyone in the family spoken to each other about this and whats the general outcome of these conversations. Is there denial from the other family members? If there isnt and you all agree that your mum is an alcoholic and you want things to change then you can try an intervention with her, sober, where you all explain how her drinking is affecting you and ask her to stop and give her support to help her stop. Have a plan, if she agrees to get help, have the help ready (ie, a visit to GP, a treatment centre set up etc...). It probably best to ring a treatment centre to ask advice on how best to go about an intervention - they will give good advice.

    Sounds too easy eh? In my own experience, it doesnt work for a few reasons - usually its hard to get full agreement with all the family members to do it, sometimes the alcoholic stonewalls and refuses to admit there is anything wrong, sometimes the alcoholic breaks down, promises the sun, moon and stars (this was my own Dads speciality), and then waits til your back is turned to hit the sauce again, and sometimes the person does actually agree to get help but is unable to stop the addiction for whatever reason.

    So, allowing that an intervention may come to nothing - what can you do to help you? I went to Alanon - Id literally tried everything else and I was very sick both physically and mentally by the time I went. It really helped. I learned how not to make it worse, how not to enable the alcoholic, how to detach with love - all these expressions that mean nothing in words but actually help in practice.

    There are regular meetings all over the country, a quick google will give you a list.

    Good luck - remember, you didnt cause it, you cant control it and you cant cure it - but you can learn to cope with it.


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