[jjanon]

Hello,

My mother in law has a rather strange relationship with alcohol that we are struggling to understand and it is starting to effect our relationship with her. We want to help, but we don’t understand it, hence being here.

When I look through the 5 types of alcoholic, she doesn’t fit into any of them.

She can often go days or weeks without drinking anything. At social gatherings or events, she will drink casually and generally doesn’t appear to get overly intoxicated.

However, she sometimes drinks alone, in secret and then lies about the quantity. She does this when we visit her also. All of a sudden, she will take herself off somewhere and then come back visibly drunk. I don’t say falling over drunk, but enough so that for 3 hours or so there are visible signs.

Yesterday she did it an hour before dinner. The part I most struggle to understand is that at dinner we would have socially drank with her and she knows this.

She knows it upsets us. We ask her not to do it, but she continues to do it.

When we challenge her on it. She might quickly try to deny. Then it will turn to she drank a small amount to keep warm. Then she will list off all the things she accomplished that day and say she doesn’t understand the objection. This is repeatable, so she knows in advance we are going to notice, that we don’t like it and that she could drink socially with us.

The next day she generally appears sheepish about it, but this isn’t enough to stop her doing it again.

Her husband died 8 years ago. Her mother, who lived next door, 3 years ago. Apparently she used to do this every so often when they were alive, but it has intensified. I guess it’s a lack of supervisor issue to an extent.

We don’t understand the behavior. Has anyone ever experienced this or can they point us in a direction to do some reading?

[lindyloo]

Hi JJanon and welcome to the forum. Everyone here has a loved one with some form of addiction.

It’s good to share your concern of worries with others in similar situations.

I’ve been on threads before talking about my 28 yr old son who has alcohol and cocaine addictions. I thank God that he is currently 60odd days clean atm.

However I wanted to mention that I had an elderly relative, also a widow who had a dependency on drink. She took it in the evening to help her sleep. However i noticed over a period of time that she was sleeping late into morning, not getting dressed, not motivated etc.her memory was also poor.

She was in her late 70s by then, I noticed she was buying about 3litres of gin a week! I asked her about it and she said to help her sleep. I realised that she was drinking it neat with only dilute juice to flavour it! She didn’t seem to think it was an issue, but it was messing with her health. I got her to doctor who had a word. Explained the danger of drinking to excess especially at her age.

After several months, it became a real problem, doctor said she would need hospital to help her ‘detox ‘ . She refused but agreed to do it from home under our supervision for about 3 weeks.

She never took another drink after that, but unfortunately her mobility made her housebound and couldn’t venture out anyway.

I don’t know if that helps you any, I think its become a bad habit that’s turned into an addiction. She probably doesn’t think it’s an issue.

When it affects her daily way of life and health maybe she will seek help. Until then it’s hard to get them to stop. Like other addictions here, the user has to realise themselves that there is a problem.

I understand how frustrating it can be for you all. I hope you find a solution. Adfam has support, and reading the other threads are informative too.

Take care

Lx

[jjanon]

The doctor is a good suggestion, but the issue is she doesn’t drink to a level that any doctor would admit is dangerous. Sure, I’m sure more than the recommended units some times, but units wise on a daily, weekly or monthly basis, it’s not an unusual level.

We have tried to insist on a psychologist in the past, but at the time she laughed it off, but offered not to drink like that if it upset us and worried us. That lasted 3 months or so.

There is something child like about her attitude to it. Like a child caught having sweets before dinner.

At this stage we aren’t trying to get her to stop drinking. We are trying to get her to stop taking herself off, drinking a high volume alone, and then rejoining us.

Its like a tug of war at the moment. She tries to get us accept the behavior because she says it doesn’t stop her doing something and we are repeatedly saying it isn’t normal and that she does it on those rare occasions we are there and she knows it hurts us is the issue.

I’m thinking we need to refuse to visit until she agrees not to do it more.

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