Mum wasn’t normal or like other parents
My mum was an amazing woman. She had a heart of gold, time for everyone, consistently helped others and would never judge anyone on their circumstances.
Unfortunately, my mother was also an alcoholic.
I remember growing up and seeing Mum fall asleep on the sofa every night after three or four bottles of wine. I remember having to clean up broken glasses and spilt wine most mornings. For me, this was normal.
It was only the first time I stayed at my friend’s house that I realised this wasn’t normal and Mum wasn’t like other parents. This was when I was roughly 7 years old. This was when I first knew my mum had a problem.
In the end, this problem, her alcoholism, cost my mum her marriage, led her into an abusive relationship and ultimately cost her life.
Being around alcohol
As a child, my mum either worked in or ran pubs. This meant I was very used to being around alcohol and drunken adults. This furthered my view of this behaviour as normal. My dad worked away for 6-8 weeks on/off at a time – While he was away was when I would notice these problems more so, as he was no longer there to help clean up after Mum.
During this period, while Mum was definitely an alcoholic, getting through many bottles of wine per night, she was fully functional. She’d only ever drink after work, and would always be up in the morning.
Once we moved into a pub, her drinking accelerated, with customers regularly buying her drinks and having such easy access to drink.
Mum and dad split up
When I was 10 years old, Mum and Dad split up. He cheated on her with a barmaid who worked for Mum, no longer wanting to be with an alcoholic partner.
I remember the morning Mum found out – I heard screaming, shouting and smashing. Mum covered in ash as she came into my room to tell me Dad was leaving, a cut on her head. It turns out she’d been throwing ashtrays at him and one had smashed and caught her in the crossfire (this was in the days when smoking was allowed in pubs).
Naturally, I took Mum’s side, the instinctive behaviour of protecting a parent who has been wronged. This was difficult for me as I’d always been a ‘daddy’s boy’, and he did very little to stay in touch once he left – although I have to admit I wanted very little to do with him at the time.
The separation broke my mother’s heart and started a whole new chapter of her drinking.
I had to become the parent
In the months that passed, Mum was no longer functional. She would fall asleep downstairs in the pub after bottles of wine. Customers and staff would have to help her upstairs.
She stopped cooking and cleaning. I had to become the parent, cleaning the flat, locking the pub at night, cashing up the till, doing my washing, cooking my dinners (although I would often call on the kitchen staff for some help!).
This path continued until one night, Mum tried to end her own life with an overdose.
I remember coming upstairs to see her on the sofa, pills in hand, vomit down herself and barely responsive. The sheer panic that enveloped me has never left me. I remember not knowing what to do. I knew if I called an ambulance I risked being taken into care and taken away from Mum, but I was worried for her safety.
I called a family friend ‘Mary’ who rushed over and came to look. Mum began to respond and we helped her with lots of fluids. She made it through the night and this was a small turning point in her drinking improving.
Along came Mike
Then came along Mike, who began working for Mum and shortly turned into a relationship. I always had a bad feeling about him. The way he spoke to me and Mum set alarm bells ringing. I tried to talk to Mum about this, but the concerns were brushed away as the typical child not liking the new partner.
Mum’s drinking returned to high levels, with Mike being more than happy to let Mum drink to control her.
He then began to bully me. It started verbally, telling me things such as it was my fault Dad left, my dad didn’t love me, I’d ruined Mum’s life and so on.
After a while, I began to bite back. This was when I then got physically abused by him for the first time.
It would always be when Mum was in a drunken coma. I tried to speak to her about it but he always said I was lying, I was jealous of him being the new man in the house, that I was giving myself the bruises to get rid of him.
None of Mum’s friends or family approved of Mike. They could all see him for who he was. This led to us moving, a tactic I now know is typical of abusers.
He became physically abusive
However, Mike couldn’t find work so Mum took on another pub. During this time, Mum became friends with many of the customers while many of them didn’t like Mike.
This led to his jealousy showing and caused lots of arguments, before leading to him now becoming physically abusive to Mum.
I’ll never shake off the feeling of the first time I saw him hit her and feeling helpless, the guilt of not being able to help more will always haunt me. As time went on, I tried to step in but he’d simply hit me as well.
Moving again
Before long, Mike wanted to move again. This time to Spain, further away from our friends and family. I protested but I was 14 and didn’t want to leave Mum alone. I hoped something would change. It didn’t.
While over there, he bullied me just as much. He would insult me, hit me, and break my things. Mum would say she didn’t believe me. I now realise she did, she was just scared and didn’t know what to do.
Mum and Mike ran a bar while we were in Spain. After the 2008 recession, business faded and they decided to sell the business. They found a buyer and sold the business. Once they received the money they agreed to split it 50/50, but this wasn’t enough for Mike. He demanded more.
I remember being in bed, waking up to hear shouting, smashing and crying. I came out of my room to see Mike hitting Mum. I tried to step in but I simply got hit back and was hit while on the floor.
We ran away
We ran away that night, to a family friend’s, ‘Simon’ – me, mum, our dog and just the clothes on our back. ‘Simon’ went to see Mike, demanded Mum get her half of the money and, in no uncertain terms, said he was to leave us alone.
Mike left and things improved briefly. However, I noticed Mum wasn’t coming home most nights. I caught her coming home one morning as I was leaving for school. She was still drunk. I asked her where she had been and she drunkenly admitted she was seeing Mike again. I stormed off.
I pleaded with Mum to stop seeing him but she kept meeting with him.
And then, one night several weeks later, I woke up to voices in our front room. Mum came into my room asking me to come out, I said no as I had school in the morning. I then realised she was crying, I followed her out to see two police officers and one of Mum’s friends.
The police officers explained to me that earlier that evening Mike had tried to kill Mum. He tried to throw her off the third floor of a shopping centre and only thanks to a security guard was she safe. He’d been arrested and was being kept in.
The feelings of anger, sadness and relief overcame me. Anger at what he’d tried to do. Sadness my wonderful mother was in this position. Relief that he was locked away and couldn’t harm us.
Eventually, Mike was deported from the country and told not to come back. As a non-Spanish citizen, they didn’t want him in their prison system. I’m told this is quite a common occurrence for non-residential criminals.
Her drinking left us incredibly poor
After this, Mum’s drinking worsened.
I think she was swallowed up by guilt by what had happened over the last years to me. The emotional overload of being an abuse victim herself. And likely many more emotions.
Her drinking left us incredibly poor. She was smoking 40 cigarettes per day and drinking four to five bottles of wine per day. The cost very quickly adds up. There was a month or so period, just before we returned to the UK, that my diet was entirely bread and butter, bar a frozen pizza I could afford once per week.
As finances worsened, an old family friend of Mum’s offered to let us live with her back in the UK to get back on our feet. We returned home with all of our belongings – which was whatever we could fit in one suitcase. I vividly remember being in the airport having to unload my suitcase to get it underweight as we couldn’t afford the additional weight charge.
Then she met Colin
Once back in the UK, Mum tried to get back on her feet. She helped at her friend’s pub before getting to run one herself. She then met Colin.
Colin by all accounts is a nice enough man, but he himself was also a big drinker. Together they made each other worse. But after what we’d been through, I was just glad neither of us were being abused.
As her relationship with Colin continued, he moved in with us at the pub. This access to alcohol made his drinking worse, coming down to Mum’s level.
Between them, they would do three to four bottles of wine, a bottle of Bacardi and 80 cigarettes a day. They’d then wonder where all their money had gone.
The toll of Mum’s drinking on her health
Fast forward a few years, Mum turned 50 and her drinking went up a level. She now drank in the early afternoon, went to sleep, woke up in the evening, and drank again before going to sleep for the night.
This increased drinking took a huge toll on Mum’s health.
Her skin was discolouring, she wasn’t getting nearly enough sleep, her memory was almost useless and falling down the stairs was a regularity. Soon after, she began to start having ‘mini-strokes’.
An ambulance call-out was nearly a biweekly occurrence, with the advice to slow down her drinking always ignored.
I knew something was wrong
Fast forward to Thursday 18th December 2021, I was driving to football with my friend when Colin rang me. I ignored it, thinking to call him back later. He then tried to call several other times. As did several of Mum’s friends and staff – I knew something was wrong.
I answered the phone. Mum had been rushed to hospital and put in the high-dependency unit and her condition was declining.
I got there as quickly as I could. Her consciousness was in and out, but we had a brief 30-60 second spell where I could see in her eyes she was herself. She told me she loved me and she was sorry. I will never forget that moment, I’m so grateful and lucky to have had that moment.
She was kept in hospital. At roughly 2am on Sunday morning, I had a call from Colin, drunk, telling me the hospital had rang him. I hung up and rang the ward immediately.
A nurse answered, I said I was looking for an update on Gini Secker – Silence followed by, “Let me just get the doctor” in a very gentle tone. I knew at that moment it was bad news.
The doctor explained that her condition was rapidly declining and she didn’t have long left. I raced to the hospital. I remember the doctors explaining the situation. It being up to me to decide whether to move her off life support (I can’t remember the exact wording). I had to decide to essentially end Mum’s life.
Saying goodbye
I was with her for the next 15 or so hours as she slowly passed. No one tells you how long it takes someone to pass once you turn off their support. Films and TV make it seem instant, but it rarely is. The confusion of wanting it to be over for them, but not wanting to say your last goodbye is agonising.
She passed at roughly 7pm. I then began to let family and friends know. Another part of someone dying no one talks about. Having to repeat over and over again that your loved one has died.
I got home that evening, my girlfriend came over as soon as I was home. I remember crying as she hugged me, the first time since Mum went that I simply let my emotions take over. She was my rock and supported me endlessly. I’m extremely lucky to have had her support.
In the weeks that followed I then had to organise the funeral – a job many people have little experience in. Who do you call? How do you organise a funeral? What do you need? Luckily, I had an incredible support network who helped me through every step.
Mum’s funeral was a celebration of her life, the wonderful person she was. Not the illness and addiction that plagued her.
An alcoholic parent is never your fault
Now I’m older, I know my mum wasn’t some drunk. She was ill and never got the help she needed.
An alcoholic parent is never your fault, and you should never feel that way. Remember in these situations you’re not alone, there are people who care about you and can help you.
Thank you for reading my story,
Ryan
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