[sarah12]

Three months ago, my partner and I moved in with my sister and became very quickly aware that she is misusing alcohol.

I had some incline that she was not in a good place but I was really unprepared for how she was dealing with her problems. She is very selective with the information that she shares about her life. As for me, I have been away from my home city for about 10 years, since my father passed from alcohol related diseases.

Two weeks after we moved in she placed an electric kettle on the gas stove whilst drunkenly trying to make pasta. I managed to get downstairs and get the kettle off before anything happened. The next day she was terrified and in tears saying how sorry she was, I broached her drinking but she was very vague and avoidant but she did agree to go for a liver function test or try to start logging her units – though she never followed up on this. At this point, I also raised the alarm with my mum and brother. My mum was inconsolable and sobbed for hours. I felt so terrible that this was happening that I tried desperately to help. I mapped out a possible routes for us to follow in terms family mediation, what support was available for her and for us.

Since then she has continued drinking and I feel to have been living through her very emotional cycles. I have sometimes given her the cold shoulder because I don’t know how not to address the elephant in the room nor do I want to sit in the same room as her when she is drunk. I have confided quite regularly with my mum.

Last week a huge argument kicked off which spurred us to sit down later that day and discuss what was going on. She told me she felt like a lodger in her own home and that we treat her terribly. I tried to explain that she never participates with us and that I cannot always welcome her with open arms when she is drinking the way she is. I asked her to acknowledge that I am being really triggered by her drinking but she refused so I suggested that we try and live more separately here. She then went to my mum and said she feels I am always judging her, not including her and ganging up on her with my partner. She had completely twisted things and made me out to be really nasty.

My mum then called me and asked me to resolve the situation with my sister and told me that I am very judgmental and can have a brutally cold shoulder so no wonder my sister was reacting the way she was. She also started to criticize how I have been dealing with this, accusing me of trying to manage this like one of my projects. I insisted that I had only ever tried to help and that I needed to put some boundaries up to protect myself. She asked that I find workarounds if I ever need anything from my sister to do with renting from her, that I separate out issues that relate to living together and that I try harder to find out why she is drinking. I maintained that my problems cannot be removed from her drinking because I have always been reacting to that – hence the need for boundaries!

I was completely shocked that she had forgotten everything I have tried to communicate to her and didnt see why she didnt use the opportunity to speak with my sister about why she feels so judged and not included and how her drinking could impact on this.

I am now trying to move out, dealing with the guilt of leaving her here and the guilt of now feeling like I have mishandled this. I am so hurt by the argument with my mum, I feel like it has caused irreparable damage in our relationship and have gone from speaking to her nearly every day to not knowing when I will be in a space to speak to her again. My partner is very upset that we have moved here and have lost that family support. That being said, my brother has been very good and is very shocked by the way my mum reacted though didnt feel like her could voice that to her – she holds a monopoly of pain in the family and everyone is so scared of upsetting her

[Author]

Posts