The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
to exchange
information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
level.
My dad committed sucide last year and now I'm taking care of my mother in her late 70's. Mom was always a "functional alcoholic" who drank at lunch but held down a job and just got wasted with dad over the weekends. Last night I seriously thought she had overdosed taking ambein as well as drinking half a bottle of gin. She starts drinking at 11am ish until she passes out until 7pmish. I don't want to abandon my elderly mother. I love her. She says she knows she's an alcholic and apologizes to me but then doesn't do anything. I've told her, really begged her, to go to rehab and that I would support her but she's stuck in her ways and I don't think she will ever really change if she hasn't done so by now. How do I live with this? I always thought my parents would take care of each other as they grew old. I really thought last night I was going to find my mother dead like I found my father on a visit last summer. Any suggestions how to live with this?
This is a very sad time for you. Grieving is hard.
Your mother would be very unhappy and have heart- pain at the loss of her husband.... in the way he died especially. Even if they did not have a good relationship. And you also.
This is 'a day at a time' stuff.
Lean on your Higher Power what/whoever that is for you.
Often a crisis arises and things change.
Stay close to the people who care about you, in Al-Anon.
I am so sorry to hear about your father and now the painful situation with your mother. I am so glad you found us here! Al Anon (the face to face meetings as well as this site) really provided me the support and compassion I needed when my husband's drinking was destroying our family. Al Anon can provide you with an instant community of people who can understand and support you as you go through this. I am sending you so much support and compassion.
I am so very sorry for the loss of your father and the pain you are experiencing dealing with alcohol use in your mom.
As you know alcoholism is a progressive disease over which we are powerless. The best we can do is to learn new tools that will enable us to respond constructively to this illness while being compassionate to the suffering person.
Alanon face to face meetings enabled me to connect with others who are living with the disease and break the isolation that I felt while going it alone. New tools such as: minding my own business, trusting a Higher Power, living one day at a time with compassion helped me to feel better and a support group to do it with.
Please keep coming back here and sharing It works if you work it.
Thank you to everyone who replyed. I went to a few Ala-teen meetings a long time ago but always felt I was somehow betraying my parents. I guess that is part of the disease that we are made to feel that way. I should check it out again. Behind my mom's back which makes me feel bad! I tried so hard to separate my life from all of this, but here it is back again. I confronted my mom and her drinking and taking prescription drugs at the same time and she said I was "paranoid" and "we all die some time." After the shocking way my dad died I can't believe she can be so cavaler. At the same time she takes care of all of her feelings by drowning herself in gin.
