My mother is 84, widowed, doesn’t drive, and is extremely lonely. She is an alcoholic who drinks around a 12 pack of beer a day. She has had numerous terrible falls, health scares etc. due to drinking, swears it off for about a month then starts back up. I clean up the mess. Blood all over the carpet, picks her up and drags her to bed when she falls drunk etc. She is in EXTREME DENIAL. Says drinking is not a problem regardless of pictures I show her etc. I do everything for her. Feed her, take care of her cat, pay all her bills, laundry, bed changing, appointments etc., yet she is still never satisfied, lonely, and won’t let anyone else help. I cry when I check on her through the Blink camera and see her sitting there lonely and by herself. I know days must seem like forever. I am 62 and don’t have a life due to always taking care of or worrying about her safety. Dementia has also set in. I don’t know how to help her. She says no to everything I suggest for enjoyment. Help.
Then you could call APS, they’d decide she isn’t capable of living alone, and maybe that would be the start of getting her help other than you.
Addicts are impossible to deal with. She’s very sick. You’re in over your head, and you need help too. So sorry.
You need to face reality and do it differently, whether she likes it or not. Read the options the other posters have advised, and pick what seems best. It can’t be more useless than sitting crying while M drinks herself to death.
You will learn more in one Al-Anon meeting, get more support and be guided to more resources in one meeting than I could write here in a week.
Saving your mother MAY be helped with placement, which did not however save my brother's ex partner who got alcoholic encephalopathy and continued to drink listerine, cleaning products and about anything else he could get ahold of. There is a reason you see those monster bottles of Listerine on the ends of the aisles all stacked up pretty, and it isn't bad breath. Cheapest drunk out there. Quite the most lethal to the brain, as well. And not like that isn't known.
So sorry, but there is nothing to be done for the alcoholic lest done by him/herself. Eventually something will take your Mom down. Then it will be the little pink elephants, so please, when she enters care with broken bones be certain they understand she is an alcoholic and how much she takes in daily if you can know; this will help them to medicate her though withdrawal, which, by the way, at this point and without help can be very deadly.
Al-Anon serves as an outlet and support system for its members. The goal is not necessarily to help the person with the drinking problem, but rather to teach the family and friends of that person how to cope, stay safe, and accept the things that can't be changed.
You keep wanting her to be someone she isn't and can't be if she just got enough or the right help. Others will be more effective in helping her in appropriate ways. You just need to accept that it won't be from you. You need to go to Al Anon.
If she has been an alcoholic for a long time, she may now have "wet brain", which is a form of dementia specific to alcoholism (Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome).
I have no tolerance for drunks or addicts either. My first husband drank himself to death and there's just been too many addicts in my family and we all know the manipulation, lies, and everything other behavior that comes with it.
And in the case of this OP, who says she/he has no life(your choice by the way)continues to enable her mother in her bad behavior, by not only buying her beer, but also by picking/cleaning up her messes.
This nonsense has to stop TODAY!!!
Next time you see that your drunk mother has fallen on the Blink camera(and dear God I hope and pray that you're not living with her, though it sounds like you probably are)just call 911 and have them come and take her to the ER.
Once there you let the social worker know that your mother is an unsafe discharge and CANNOT return home as there is no one there to care for her. They will then have to find the proper placement for her.
And then you get yourself to some Al-Anon meetings and start learning how your enabling is actually hurting your mother and not helping her.
You are NOT your mothers keeper, and you owe her NOTHING!
But you do owe yourself a whole lot, so I wish you the very best in getting the help that you need with therapy and Al-Anon.
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