I am 29, my mum is 55 and is an alcoholic. This has been a problem for I would say well over ten years. Just to make you aware myself and my sister (24) had a how you would say “normal upbringing”. We lived in a three bed semi, parents married, both worked etc.
From when I was under ten, I was aware that my mum went like a weeble when she had had wine. My parents did not go out much so we used to go to my mum’s best friends or auntie and uncle’s on a weekend.
My mum’s brother was an alcoholic and died ten years ago at 38. He had Huntington’s disease, as did her sister and dad. They have also passed away now and my mum never spoke to her family for over ten years. Maybe this is the reason she is an alcoholic.
I can’t really remember my mum being really bad drunk when I was little. (The photographs and video cameras state different now). It was more as I got older and I noticed that it was ALWAYS my Mum who was the drunkest at EVERY party, spilt red wine on her best mate’s new cream carpet, fell off the chair, fell into the door, fell into her mate’s front bush when we were getting in the taxi home.
She even got paralytic at my eighteenth birthday party and went flying and sat in my chocolate cake! She had to be driven home sitting on sheets in the back of my auntie’s car so the chocolate never got on the seats.
She kicked off at my friends and had to be physically restrained. I think it was after that night that both me and my sister realised we had a big problem on our hands. My mum also got drunk at my sister’s 21st and made it all about her.
So to try and cut a long story short, my mum used to work 4.45 until 10pm Monday to Friday and seven nights a week my dad used to go the supermarket and buy two bottles of white wine and her twenty fags.
Me and my sister spoke to my dad about it and he absolutely flipped at us. This was after we went on holiday for my mum and dad’s twenty fifth wedding anniversary with my dad’s family. My mum got blathered the first night and was still drunk the next day, came by the pool started dancing to Irish music. She fell head first into the pool in front of everybody. I was mortified, my dad took her to bed and it wasn’t spoken about again.
My mum left my dad in May the next year; said she wasn’t happy and left. The divorce was messy and she moved a new fella in who she worked with. She continued to drink, black eyes appeared, bruises etc.
By this time I was 21 and having my first daughter. My mum helped look after her overnight sometimes etc. and when I had my second daughter, my eldest who was around three said “nanny drinks her special juice out of a cup”. The drinking has got worse and worse over the last five years and my sister addressed it. My mum only admitted she had a problem last year. She has since then thrown her boyfriend out. He had his own issues. So we have managed to get more of a grip on her. Everybody has been blamed besides the kitchen sink for her being the way she is.
She has been drinking secretly in her room, now drinking in the day. She even went into work drunk and I caught her totally by accident so god knows how many times she has done that! She won’t go to the pub now because people are on to her.
When my mum would finish work last year she wouldn’t get home until two hours later and my sister had to drive around looking for her, she would always find her drunk walking. My mum had been to the shop and bought wine, drunk it while walking and then my sister would find her.
She’s not drunk in the morning, but you can smell it on her most times when you see her. She has been going to AA but that is totally to get my sister off her back. My mum says she’s “not that bad, there are people so much worse than her”. She went to her mate’s two hours away and was drunk on the train.
Without a drink, my mum is one of the nicest people you could meet. She works hard (she has two jobs) and loves myself and my sister and especially my children so much and my kids adore her. It’s when she drinks she’s like a totally different person. She gets abusive and acts like the whole world is against her.
She also drinks the majority of the time on her own. It’s when she goes into total self-destruct mode, people see that side of her. She doesn’t go out much.
My mum took a funny turn in the shop last week, light headed etc. and maybe that’s a sign the damage is coming because she has felt sick for weeks and it doesn’t seem to be shifting. I have got three kids now. My sister is doing well in her job and so am I, we both have partners that love us etc. and are so understanding of my mum. She says she wants help but won’t stop drinking so god knows what’s around the corner.
