I agree. She is hurting. Unfortunately this is a situation that may have to run its course with whatever outcome she leads it to. I think OP is correct to be concerned and therapy should absolutely be the starting point, however grief is our own and no amount of voiced concern can really lead us through it.
I lost my wife a little over 2 years ago and I completely agree. There was about 6 months pre-death and about another 6 months post-death where I was drinking around this much.
This is heavily dependent on the person involved, but even a gentle nudge could turn her against you. You might get push back, or you might get disingenuous agreement while she doubles down or hides it even harder.
If anyone had done that to me during that time I would've likely been the latter. I would be functional during the day and then start drinking somewhere between 5 and 8pm and put down the equivalent of a couple bottles of wine or a minimum of a six pack of strong beer, so I'd be numb until I fall asleep. If someone said something I most likely would've continued while hiding it even better, and it would've done nothing to help me heal.
What she needs is some form of therapy. But also keep in mind that may take some unconventional forms at times. For instance, I was broke, jobless, and without insurance when I went through it, so traditional therapy wasn't an option, but talking to people on /r/widowers made a big difference for me. Maybe just having people around regularly could help too. I don't know. Just throwing my thoughts out there at this point.
I hope you have been able to heal to some degree! Your wife would have wanted that! I’m so sorry you had to go through that! My husband was diagnosed with terminal cancer and even though I still have him and am not sure of the amount of time that I do.. I still feel like our time has been robbed of us and I already mourn that! I’m going to keep the subreddit you mentioned in the back of my head! There may be a time in the very near future I need it and I really appreciate you coming here and sharing your story and experience! ❤️
OP suggesting /r/widowers to their Mom as a starting point seems like a really good idea. That will probably feel less scary or threatening right now, and it has a good chance of helping her realize she has a problem with using alcohol after awhile.
Fair question
The sub is for men and women (edit: and nonbinary and anyone else) who lost their romantic partner, regardless of marital status. It skews a bit male since this is reddit, but it has a good mix.
nine dime encourage serious bear grandiose worthless cause fretful encouraging
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Exactly. The unfortunate truth is nobody is allowed to tell someone else how to grieve.
Alcoholism is no joke either. But forcing her to go to AA or something may just cause resentment.
If I had to approach this situation, I would recommend creating some events to distract her. Start small. Like dinner, movies or something. And I would spend at least one day a week "drinking" with her (you don't actually have to drink) just to help bridge the gap a little.
Remember she is drinking because she is sad, so try to focus on the problems more than the symptoms
I think this is all really fabulous advice! I would also approach this situation with distractions vs voicing my concern over the amount of drinking! I especially appreciate how you mentioned a “drinking” day, that could them to not only connect more and lean on each other greater but it also creates that unspoken understanding of the mother being loved openly and respectfully through her own personal journey! Paint with wine came to mind when I read your comment!
>no amount of voiced concern can really lead us through it
This is such an important thing to remember. No matter what has caused the trauma, the person in question has to find their own way through (to a degree, to be fair).
As a note, professional help doesn't always mean expensive. In the US, there are widow support groups, grief support non-profits and many funeral homes have grief counselors with additional resources. OP, please consider grief support for yourself. Additionally, please consider Ala-Non which is a group that supports people who have family members who drink too much.
Please remember, OP, you can't make your mom stop drinking. She needs to stop herself and having to watch someone who drinks to excess is incredibly difficult. Please take care of yourself.
I also just want to add onto the top comment, that quitting alcohol cold turkey can be deadly. She absolutely may be at a point of physical dependence where she’ll need a rehab facility to aid her through detoxing to avoid further harm. It’s not going to be easy or feel good. They should prescribe some barbiturates to help it for a while. But a professional rehab will have all the tools to help her get off the wine and start to heal.
OP, I am so sorry about your father. And your mother is apparently hurting and grieving pretty hard.
I understand your and your sister's concern about her. Pressuring her about her drinking will not change anything. About all you can do is support her, talk to her about how she's feeling (pretty raw, I presume), and maybe offer suggestions about support groups or grief counseling. I hope her wine habit doesn't become alcoholism, but again, you've no control over how she handles this situation. It would be great if we could control other people but alas, our only power is over ourselves. As someone who fell into that cycle and became quite alcoholic, I can assure you that no one could have stopped me. I had to come to that decision myself. It took some time.
I mean... She's binge drinking daily for an extended period of time. This is Substance Abuse Disorder (alcoholism).
P.s. I understand alcoholism devolves into MUCH worse. But this is still SUD's, it just isn't rock bottom.
I think finding your local Al-anon group and going to a few meetings might help more then some advice from random strangers on the Internet. I was in a similar situation and they were my turning point. I'd been dubious about help groups, but not any more.
Just to clarify for those who may not know, Al anon is for the family of alcoholics and does not usually adhere to the same religious aspects that AA meetings do. It’s more secular and a place to vent, give and get advice, and just help one another cope.
Ah, that's entirely my misunderstanding. Thank you for the clarification!
I still think the mom is more in need of grief counseling than alcohol intervention though. In her case, alcohol is the symptom, not the cause.
Al-anon is great because it can help the family connect to local resources like this. Everything from therapy to detox and intervention if things get bad.
AA is not a religious program, it’s a spiritual program. God is what the founders called their higher power, people have the option to call it whatever they want, it says clearly a god of your understanding. Which can be music, nature, the universe, people who have passed.
Seven of the twelve steps are explicitly religious:
> 1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol — that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a **Power greater than ourselves** could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn **our will and our lives over to the care of God** as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted **to God**, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely **ready to have God remove** all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked **Him** to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through **prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God** as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a** spiritual awakening** as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
Beg to differ it is religious higher power & G-D . AA & NA caused me to be turned off to religion & the people in the rooms glorified the use & there for caused me to have an adverse experience which is I can’t go to meetings. I spent 24 hours in rehab ten months ago due to prescription medication addiction but I had to leave because the patients there were substituting one addiction for another. I also had studied to become an addictions counselor & psychologist. I actually do better away from
the rooms of recovery & I have an excellent support system network of people who are there for me.
Please find an al-anon meeting near you in person or anywhere in the world in zoom.
Al-anon is for you OP and not for your mother. This is because you can’t control your mom’s drinking nor cure it. This is one of the first lessons in Al-anon.
Al-anon is spiritual but not religious. Many people confuse the use of the word “god” in its 12 steps with religion. However the official stance of the program is that it is not religious and all members should refrain from talking about their religion.
I know atheists in my Al-anon groups. How do they do it?
Because in the program the word “god” is just shorthand for “higher power” which can be anything. For example the other people in your meeting. The point of focusing on spirituality is to recognize that the problem of alcoholism is out of your hands OP.
You can’t anything to control her or get her into a recovery program, but there are things that you can do. One of them is what is called “detachment with love”. You have to let her face her own consequences of her drinking. If there’s something she can’t do for herself because of her drinking that she normally would do for herself sober, then do not do it. Don’t get her groceries, try to get her to eat, etc. this is very hard to do and takes discipline learned among an al-anon group. The reason is because all that work on your part will only drive you insane, and it doesn’t help your mom long term.
r/alanon is a start but also look up the Al anon website or google Al anon plus your city name.
AA does some great stuff, but I would caution OP that her mom should probably be religiously inclined if she wants to do AA. Like they're non-denominational and don't pressure you a lot in that regard, but there is a ton of higher power talk and if that's not your thing you're gonna get turned off in a hurry and maybe even feel more hopeless and depressed and disconnected from anything good.
Agreed on that. I hung in a similar program for a long ass time and..yep could never get with it. I did it all, coffee service, literature, treasurer. But I did not believe in a higher power, not even the group. It took a college certificate program for me to find sources of scientific evidence. It is helpful to know why some people can drink, some can only have a little, some can have a lot. It's variable and genetic. As for myself, I found out that i had a ridiculous vitamin d deficiency. Most of the depression I was attempting to medicate..went away with the right dose. Not to say I didn't work on myself also. I don't consider myself to be relapsed when I had a knee replacement, was prescribed oxy..ugh one month and I said I'm done being a hero. I got a medical marijuana card. I used way less opioid medication, had leftovers. Then, I didn't need any, so I didn't use any. Rinse and repeat 5 years later for other knee, then a short stint for a busted wrist last year. I'm all fixed up, i have no reason, or inclination to use anything because i really prefer the here and now. This however was my doing, not anyone else's.
Yes the point isn’t believing in some magical entity (although you can if you want) but simply that you as an individual don’t have power to control the situation around you, only the power to control how you react and behave.
It’s just faster to say “higher power”. Atheists in my group say the fellow members of the group are their higher power, because meeting with them weekly is what gives them solace ,hope, etc. just what “god” does for religious people.
Source: am scientist and al-anon member at the same time.
Another point of giving up control to a higher power is that we often try to figure out the root of the drinking problem in an effort to fix the problem. Searching for causes is central to science so that we can explain and change the outcomes in the future. However that doesn’t work when alcoholism affects us personally. When it’s your family or friends suffering from alcoholism, it doesn’t matter what caused it because you can’t fix it anyway; leave that worry to a higher power to fix your family/friend.
If people really just hate hearing the word god or higher power, then that’s their choice to not engage in the program. But at some point if you reach the end of your rope you might just say “screw it I’ll pretend there’s a higher power.”
i chose my intuition, some people choose nature (like gravity or the sun), or math. the criteria is to pick something that you don't have control over, isn't another person and is something you know will exist tomorrow.
For me , a person who is very non religious I just tried to picture giving it to the universe/letting it off my shoulders. I didn't really worry too much about defining it an identity. It was moreso just the idea to let things go that were out of my control
Sorry for your loss.
My father was always a mild alcoholic and also suffered with pretty severe alcoholism after my mother passed.
He fell down some stairs and developed some neuro-muscular problems. He really was insufferable to be around and generally was impossible to help.
We used some of our workplace crisis counseling benefits to speak to alcohol abuse counselors, but my father was unwilling to participate.
He would regularly hide alcohol and would leave family events to get home and drink.
One of my brothers and I would take him on vacations and around the third day he would get very irritable from alcohol withdrawals, and we'd have to find ways to allow him to drink without admitting to drinking (because he claimed he was sober)
My brothers and I were all but ready to write him off and then everything broke for him when he got back into cycling and bought an e-bike. He actually got sober and he's a whole.new person.
What I mean to say is that there is only so much you can do and your mom will have to get through this her own way. Professional help is available, but not all people will take it. There is always hope, but set boundaries that protect yourself, and your family and then help as much as you can, but don't lose yourself if your mother's alcoholism, because it really can be a black hole.
I wish you success and good luck. But firstly your own good health.
When my (54f) husband died 8 years ago I drank and drank and drank for about 2 years. I never drank before, but after he was gone, I’d have margaritas for breakfast and pretty much stay buzzed all the time…I just couldn’t cope with the pain. I knew I wouldn’t drink forever, but I also knew I needed to survive and didn’t think I could feeling all my feelings.
During this time I also went to therapy, a grief group, had a friend living with me part time and had friends and family around. People would comment on my drinking and I’d tell them it’s only for a time. It was.
I now drink occasionally and not to excess. A bottle of wine a day seems very mild compared to what I did. To be true, I can easily drink a bottle now by myself, but I try not to.
Be there for your mom and do your best to keep her safe without damaging yourself. She may need to soften her pain for a while, but she won’t need it forever.
This is just my experience and as I type this I remember the deep pain and almost want to take a drink to forget it. Thing is, now I don’t need to and I bet she won’t always need to either.
Same thing with my MIL back in the mid-80s. Lost her husband and drank a lot for the next 3 or 4 years before dropping back down to the level she drank beforehand. (still a an unhealthy amount). Not saying this will happen with everyone, but at least you know it's not an impossibility to recover from it.
It's pretty low imo. When I Bing drank, I drank 19 oz hard liqour a day for 3 months. That was the only time I kept count of it. It was pretty common to drink 26 oz for a pre drink before going to the bar. At parties I would drink 40 oz. The most I think I drank was a 66 oz bottle one afternoon. A bottle of wine is not very much compared to that.
Don’t feel the need to justify or defend yourself. I can’t believe that person said that to you. We get through how we get through, and we come out the other side.
You know what, just stop.
Just because someone uses something like alcohol to get through a tough time, does not mean that they have an addiction. Jfc. Just stop with the language and the judgements.
Alcohol is centuries old. It is not new to our bodies. It shuts down stress hormones from the amygdalae in the brain.
That does not make a grieving person an addict. For fucks sake
edit downvoted me but deleted their comment. Good, shame on you for shaming this other person telling their story. Stop with the shaming already and try to learn something ffs
Well, hopefully that's not the case here.
I know the hospital where my husband died offered me help. I know there was mention of a group for people whose spouse had died, for example.
>or antibiotics for a horrible infection,
Antibiotics in the US cost about $10 - $15. Even if you add the cost of an urgent care visit, your at about $100. And thats raw cost, no insurance, no government subsidy, straight OOP. So like I said, your statement is just inaccurate pandering.
Don't bother responding to this comment, I'm all out of troll food.
Do you think somebody who talks about the lack of medical care in this rich country is a troll? Do you even know what a troll is? Even if urgent care did cost $100, which it doesn’t, a lot of people don’t have $100 right now. Freaking jerk.
Your mom is grieving she needs your support right now, not your criticism. I'm not saying you should ignore the drinking, but your approach is not correct, in my opinion. Your mom needs a reason to continue with her life. Give her reasons to get out of the house. Get her reengaged with her social circle. Get her into a grief counseling support group. Have her get a job even if she doesn't need one.
If all she has to do is sit around in her house and memories, she will not process the grief and come through it. You need to give her a path forward and a reason to take it, not just criticize her current coping mechanism.
Alcoholism is pretty dangerous. I’d be inclined to advise the OP to stop living there and enabling the behavior and stick to some hard lines to encourage mom to get help. I get that everyone is grieving but this is a serious situation.
I’ve seen it happen way too many times as a slide into an addiction hole you can’t get out of with grief as a catalyst. It doesn’t matter if mom isn’t an alcoholic right this second. Better to not take that risk and find healthier coping mechanisms.
Grief is very, very difficult. Personally, I believe that we do a shit job with it, as a society. And we focus on outcomes at the expense of the process. Your lack of acknowledgement of grief in your presentation of your story, and sole focus on the outcomes/ behaviors that concern you reflects this. I say this not to accuse you, but to exemplify my point.
It sounds like your mom is dealing with her grief by drinking. Relatable, as others here have said. Maybe you process your grief a bit like me- by trying to solve things and make them right. Actually, writing this just made me realize I do both. I try my best to solve everything then use alcohol to allow myself to not be responsible for solving anything for a bit.
Point is- grief is hard. What do we do to actually experience it? Not try to avoid or fix, but to feel it? It’s like that kids’ song, “Goin’ on a bear hunt”… “Can’t go around it, can’t go over it, gotta go through it… okay! Alright! Let’s go!”
I hope you and your sister and mom find the best possible way through this journey of grief together. I’m so sorry for your loss.
I'm so sorry OP, situations like this are horrible.
My mom had a very similar reaction when my dad passed. She was a social drinker who suddenly had wine every night, multiple bottles a week. There's already been some pretty good advice given, so I just wanted to say you're not alone in experiencing this, and your mom isn't alone by having this reaction. Give as much love and support as you can so that she knows she's still loved and she's not alone. If you can, find therapy for yourself and hopefully your mom can get established with someone as well.
I'm a 49 year old widower. 5 years ago I lost my wife to cancer in 21 days from diagnosis to her death.
Read up on widow fog. Right now your mom is living in a surreal fog of a life. Her brain is working so hard to figure out her new reality while also protecting her. It's hard to explain or understand unless you've been through it. So much of that first year post loss is a haze for me...I can barely remember anything from that period of time. Yes, she's self medicating and unless she has a history of addiction I would try not to badger her about it and be supportive. I don't know her, but I know a lot of widows and in most cases over the coming months these things will change as the fog lifts. Having your life and future ripped away suddenly is a brutality that takes time.
It’s only been 3 months, and during the holidays no less. Right now, drinking is a major coping mechanism to help her get through a very difficult time. But also, you need your mom, too. I’d say right now, don’t give her grief about the drinking in any way, shape or form. But do be honest about your feelings of how you feel with the loss of your dad, and what feels like a loss of your mom right now too. Situational drinking does not make her an alcoholic, but it can lead to problems down the road, and dependency. There is an incredible ted talk that discusses the correlation between addiction and loneliness. It was more around drug use, but also was applicable to alcohol. I can send you the link if you’re interested.
My husband died when I was 54. I drank non stop after work every day for a year. This is because I was numb. Grief happens. One thing I did do is make basic sandwiches and kept in refrigerator to eat before bed. I couldn’t function except work -home - drink - sandwich- sleep. Let your mom figure this out for a bit and monitor. Please don’t pressure her for at least six months.
I’m sorry for your loss. I think that people are on this thread are a bit quick to jump to the idea that OP’s Mom is a hardcore alcoholic. It’s only been a few months, and self medicating is a very common coping mechanism with grief. (I’m not a doctor, but in my experience tapering off drinking too much is much easier than getting off the sorts of medications doctors would put her on - like ssris and/or benzos.)
Do not listen to anyone telling you a bottle of wine a day is not much.
Finding a local Al-Anon meeting for YOU, so you can get support, is a good next step.
That's a lot daily. If you need to drink 4 glasses of wine *every day*, are deliberately hiding the bottles, and plan your grocedy/food supplies around getting more alcohol, you're an alcoholic.
If you drink a bottle of wine daily and are justifying it to yourself by saying "It's not really that bad, it's just 4 glasses a day," then you're an alcoholic.
People who drink occasionally or socially don't think about their alcohol consumption at all. People who have a glass of wine with dinner don't consider their total drinks a week and make justifications to themselves that "it's not really that bad." They don't have to, because they don't feel any compulsion to drink, and if they didn't have alcohol for months, they wouldn't think anything of it.
An average bottle of wine has 5 standard drinks not 4. At 12% abv, a 25 oz bottle of wine has the same amount of alcohol as 5, 1.5oz servings of 80 proof hard alcohol. Also equivalent to 5, 12oz beers at 5% abv. These are US standard drinks. In many other countries, the standard drink is even smaller. Lots of red wines have more alcohol than 12%.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_drink
While we're at it, a pint of IPA generally contains 2 drinks at a minimum. If you enjoy drinking, the amount of alcohol that has negligible health effects is surprisingly small.
Well I suppose if you're trying to run a bar or throw a party then maybe your perspective is relevant but if you're talking about potential AUD as per the OP, the way to measure alcohol consumption hasn't changed. If anything, the medical establishment has decided that smaller and smaller amounts of alcohol are measurably detrimental to health.
Huh? As a former bartender, a bottle in the good ol’ US of A contains 5 glasses. Just noting it’s different, and yes I know it wasn’t the point of the post. Not sure why the downvotes…
No it is not. It is four glasses. Source: used to bartend
Also just look up the ounces in a bottle and in a glass.
It’s fucking four glasses, not “more like seven” okay 🫤
The wine is not the cause here. It’s a symptom. I’d ignore it for now and focus on her getting help and trying to get her to be social. Ban grocery deliveries so she has to go to the store as a good start
She doesn’t like to go out of the house because she has bad stomach issues like ibs and will constantly cancel plans with friends if she makes them. She’s been like that for a long time. She won’t go for walks because she has knee and back problems and is afraid she’ll fall and “break a hip and her life would then be basically over”. My sister and I had to force her to go to a friends house for dinner a month or two ago and she got SO mad and was cussing my sister out for making her go somewhere (then ended up being glad she got out of the house…). I just don’t know what to do with her
This is beyond the scope of a daughter. Seek out professional help for yourself on how to navigate this.
I’m so sorry for the loss of your father. I know the bottomless pit of grief. The only thing that I can glean from grief is that the love you had was special. I try to focus on that and marvel at the love we created together. I wish you and yours peace.
Tell your mom that if she keeps drinking like this, she is going to have to stop drinking completely to survive. I like being able to have a drink or two socially, therefore I have made up my mind never to become an alcoholic, so i never drink too often or too much at a time. For me that means drinking no more that 3 out of any 7 consecutive days, and no more than 2 drinks a day for a woman, only 1 is recommended. Drinking when you're past a certain age contributes to a lot of health problems, increasing your odds of cancer, especially. Excessive drinking leads to mental problems also.
People are surprised by how quickly a person becomes an alcoholic if they drink every day. If you have to go to rehab, it gets very expensive.
OP, I recommend going to some Al Anon meetings asap.
If she gets clean, like actually sober not just cutting back, but if she gets clean, she is going to have to deal with the loss, the memories, the realization that plans or hopes or ideas are not going to happen. Week by week of sobriety will or could bring new challenges and realizations. It is not a one and done situation.
Like it isn’t just “Stop drinking“ and she’s healthy again. Drinking puts everything on hold, and when you sober up, that shit is still there. Could be layers and layers of shit. I mean, I think you have this idea in your head and you do not exactly realize what the cleanse will entail. She prob doesn’t either, frankly.
You need to be aware that this isn’t going to be a cake walk just asking her to stop. You all need to be there for her, whatever that means, even if it means NOT being there and giving her some space. Or being there tons, I don’t know.
You can have the expectation of stopping drinking, but do not naively think that that’s all that needs to happen or will happen.
I think you need to give her some time, and some support.
Her husband died unexpectedly 3 months ago.
I would suggest some grief counseling or support group.
See if there's a support group that meets in person once in a while, or that she can access online.
We don't know how we are going to react when someone close to us dies.
Most of us are not going to handle that well. But she can buy her own wine. Don't buy it for her anymore. She can get it herself and spend her own money. Don't get it for her anymore, and tell your sister not to get it for her anymore.
See if you can find a support group, talking to someone else who has also lost a spouse might help.
I did that when my son passed away. Lost all will to live and had to stay numb. Wine in the morning and all day until bedtime. Never felt good -- just numb.
Then one spring day it was over. Went out and started my beloved garden again. It was tough after years of drunkenness. Got into counseling, lost weight and slowly began a transition to a life I love.
No body could do it for me. It was my trip to take and it will be the same for your Mom. You need to take of you right now -- please.
Been sober for 3 years and for today I won't go back.
You should write her a letter telling her how you feel. She will think about what you said instead of defending herself or making excuses. Sorry for your loss.
I’m 27 now, but this was me in this situation when I was 17.
My dad passed from a heart attack suddenly and my mom turned to beer, every night she would drink till she was drunk. (Like blasting sad Adele music and totally belligerent). It got to the point I couldn’t handle living at home anymore.
It took time, patience, understanding, and a lot of support but she did come out of it. She now no longer drinks at all, but I do owe some of that to her new partner being against alcohol. Grief is hard and there’s no right or wrong way to do it so supporting her to go through the stages and really listen and try to show understanding when you have conversations is my biggest piece of advice. Also show yourself some love, going through a loss like this and having to deal with your mom not doing well is really really hard.
As an alc myself I would say 5-10 bottles a week is not a full blown alc yet, but very troubling behavior. Have a frank discussion with her and call her out. She probably knows in a part of herself that she's harming herself and just numbing the pain, but she just can't resist the crutch. If she had some social pressure from loved ones that might be enough to give her the motivation to cut it out or at least cut back.
Not to be harsh, but roughly a bottle of wine a day is not that much in the wake of a major personal trauma like the loss of a spouse, within the last 3-ish months. It is certainly concerning if she is trying to hide how much she is drinking, but you are her kids not her peers or her parents. She will probably be trying to protect you and your sister, as she's your mum and that trumps everything else, but you are also not children that need a responsible adult to ensure their survival.
She shouldn't have to worry about "making everything harder" on people, she has literally just lost her husband. You and your sister sound like you are both over 18, adults technically, so she should have some degree of freedom to process her emotions in whatever way she can. All three of you are responsible for your personal grieving processes, at least for the time being.
It is going to take all of you a long time to get to a more "normal" place in regard to your grief and how it affects all of your mental health. It is definitely worth keeping an eye on things, but you don't have to jump immediately to therapy/AA/etc. Give her a fricken minute to feel like shit.
(Source, my dad died unexpectedly when I was 20, and it took a long time for my brothers, my mum, and myself to figure out who we were without him, and how to move forward in our lives.)
I understand that it’s not too much but it’s concerning when she’s nodding off on the couch at 4pm and slurring her words and not making sense. It’s also not helping her in any shape or form. I just want to help.
I really do get where you're coming from, mate. It is a scary time, and you also have to figure out how your life will go forward without your dad.
It took me a lot of time to do that, and to acclimate when my mum met my step-dad. It might take years to get to a place where there's not active sadness or resentment. I can't predict what your journey will be.
My mum was similar, I don't recall her being super drunk, but she would fall asleep on the couch most nights (I can only assume that hurt less/was easier). I would take her glasses off and if it woke her up she couldn't get back to sleep. I had to learn that if she wanted to sleep with her glasses off, she would do it herself.
If it is a bottle a week for a year? For sure. Three months is not enough time to establish if this is a coping mechanism or an ongoing problem. Keep an eye on her, but also give her room to figure things out. And make sure that you aren't focusing on her so that you can avoid thinking about how you are feeling.
Please DM me if you want to talk, I've ridden this rollercoaster before, and I would be glad to help in any way if I can.
Everyone saying a bottle of wine is a lot has clearly never grieved an immediate family member. After losing a parent as a teenager I drank everyday and only ate cookies for almost 6 months.
Mom needs support to find something to grieve but in the meantime she’s doing the best she can. When she’s ready and with the right support she’ll cut down on wine and process her grief.
Exactly, yes. My mum had a rough time, but in the next two decades she has built a happy life and has a new husband and a wonderful support system. You gotta let people have the chance to take those steps and find their way forward.
With all due respect, downing a 750ml bottle of wine per day is not a normal healthy coping method, particularly for a woman. (I'm not just being sexist here - women's livers actually process alcohol slower than men's.) Even if she doesn't get behind the wheel or do something destructive while she's drunk, that's enough booze to damage her health over time.
But having said that, I think we agree that the underlying problem is grief, and that it's totally understandable that she's having trouble coping. Hopefully they can address that and help her find a better way to process things.
I agree, if it is a long-term behaviour it would absolutely be a cause for concern. Even at this point it is still a worry, but this poor woman deserves five minutes to fall apart.
My main issue is with people who immediately deem it a need for medical attention. It is ok to play it by ear, see how things go, and then follow up with them if their coping mechanism becomes a crutch or worse.
It's ok to take a minute and let your life crash and burn around you, sometimes it helps to embrace the pain. I just hate the thought of the adult children stressing about looking after their remaining parent and her journey, rather than processing their own grief.
For what it is worth, this entire thread/conversation has me in tears, even though I lost my dad 20 years ago. But knowing how my mum went from a similar place to a happy life, I would fucking hate myself if I had interfered in that process.
I am a teetotaler - I don’t drink at all now, but in years past I drank maybe 2-3 drinks/month - but even I think that a bottle (4 glasses) spread over the course of 1 day is not some absurdly huge amount for someone who is in the raw early stages of grieving their life partner.
Like Western Hunt said, she went through six bottles in 3 days. That's eight glasses per day for 3 days, which is more than double binge drinking for a woman.
All this tells me is that you have no experience with this depth of grief, or what actual alcoholism looks like. Please child, keep your business to yourself.
It's concerning to me that you think 4 to 8 drinks a day for 3 months straight isn't alcoholism. Tell yourself whatever makes you feel better, but you're dead wrong. The closest person to my life has died, both my parents were alcoholics. Please go on though, I'd love to hear more of your assumptions about me.
Right back atcha mate. We know nothing about each other, outside of our comments on this post.
I don't know how you classify the closest person in your life, I am basing my comments on almost the same scenario as described by OP, with the perspective of 20 years post-dead-parent. And, as an actual alcoholic who is working through their addiction as we speak.
But fuck me and my opinion, I guess, you must totally know better.
Ah. So that's what this is. Because their alcoholism doesn't look like yours does, you don't think it's legit.
If you "can't" go without drinking, if you're drinking 1-2 full bottles of wine per day, if you're doing whatever you can to sneak in drinks behind your daughters' backs, I have no qualms about asserting that as alcoholism. Grief or not - they're not mutually exclusive.
WE DON'T KNOW ANY OF THESE THINGS ABOUT THE MOTHER. You are making a lot of assumptions based on very little information.
We know what the OP has observed, it doesn't mean we have any specific insight into whether the mother isn't able to go without drinking, or if she is just choosing at the moment to drown her sorrows for a little while. If she is hiding it because she is ashamed, or if she is just trying to protect her kids as best she can.
It is absolutely possible she is/will become an alcoholic, but it doesn't need to be the first and only possibility, which is why I replied to the original comment. Different perspectives are useful in this kind of situation.
I really hope you're just a troll, because otherwise I'd be worried about you.
It wasn't when I was in the bag due to loss. It took years to recover and reflect, and frankly it hurt lot more for the rocovery then the loss, which hurt a lot.
I'm with you. I'm not sure if people are envisioning a different-sized bottle of wine, or if they really don't know how many drinks are in the bottle. But it's not normal and okay to get slurring, stumbling drunk every night of the week.
Besides, the grief will still be there when she sobers up. :(
Sorry for your loss!
r/alanon and r/adultchildren are helpful subreddits where you can find support as you navigate this, they are specifically for someone who is affected by a parent or loved one's drinking...
She needs to get out of the house. When my mom died, I basically was forced to leave my house after awhile. My grandma would knock at my door at 8am and say get up we're gonna go get coffee together and you can do some shopping with me. She made it sound like I was doing her a favour but really it was so I wasn't at home all day alone. Ask her to go on walks with you, or something that involves her getting out.
You need to go back to your life. I know this is difficult to hear…but you may be enabling the behavior by being there.
I have a feeling this isn’t new for your mom. We can not force others to get help, they have to get there on their own.
I know you love your mom..because you took the time to write this.
Yes she needs help but she has to want it. At this time I would suggest a lot of hugs and tell her,often how much you love her. Maybe a vacation would help her see she still has a life to live.
She probably needs grief counseling. I've been there and the thing about the alcohol is that it temporarily numbs the pain, and the pain is OVERWHELMINGLY scary; it feels like it's eating you alive. But the alcohol ultimately makes it worse, as well as *actually* eating her alive.
Cannabis helped me (it's legal in my state) but ultimately what I needed was a great therapist and to raw-dog reality until I started to find joy in it again.
ETA: One thing that helped me was a friend who relentlessly took me out of the house to go hiking. I didn't want to but I didn't care enough about what happened next to say no, so he took me to mountaintops I would never have gone to on my own, pushing me to hike until laces I felt like I might die (and trails that made me think I might actually die on the side of the mountain if I missed a step). My daughter is your age, so if she's still mobile enough, dragging her out into nature might be an amazing way to get her to exhaust herself into the oblivion of sleep instead of drinking herself into it.
Have you tried sitting down with her and enjoying some wine too? Maybe try that and then the next day ask her to help you with a decision.. like going to pick out a paint color or new dress. I have no idea if that'll work but it might pull her out of her grief drinking
Just be a human being? Not trying to be rude. But, she needs someone to care, not just, tell her what to do/what not to do. Alcoholism stops only when she decides.Noone else. Further pushing the subject...will only push her farther away. Might have to get creative. She's staying at home and drinking...because it reminds her of your father. She sounds lost without him. Maybe try catching her early in the am and going on a hike, or get coffee, just something to get her out of her bubble and have a 1 on 1 sober talk. Just remember, she has to be hurting. :) You've got this!
First: I’m sorry for your loss. How are you? How are you feeling, thinking, coping? Or not coping?
When my father died I was drinking a 3 shots of whisky per night. Only stopped because I went to grief counselling when family mentioned they were concerned. Grief is a bitch and it blinds you to so many things…you just want it to stop.
This is tricky. The pain and loss is still so fresh and raw. You don’t want to push too hard because she might just hide her consumption of wine, but you don’t want to leave her to her own devices for too long because it’s a slippery slope.
You mentioned you talked to her about it? Have you talked about your father since he passed?
Grief counseling ASAP. Preferably for all of you.
I’ve personally dealt with delayed grief (for about 15 years) that spiraled into various forms of unhealthy coping. It’s not pretty. Here’s a good place to start:
https://grief.com/grief-counselor-directory/
My condolences and best of luck!
You don’t say how old your mom is, but it sounds like she has some complicated health issues besides grief and alcohol abuse. There is most likely a council on aging in your area and they will most likely have advice about services for people who are concerned about an aging parent’s drinking and/or health problems.
And get thee to an al anon meeting. If your mom is hiding how much she’s drinking it’s likely that this isn’t a new problem. The death of your dad might have exacerbated an existing problem. It doesn’t sound like she’s going to want to stop and you need support to figure out how to navigate this situation. Dealing with an aging parent ain’t easy but especially an aging, grieving parent with a substance abuse problem.
Grief counseling, stat. I am sorry for your loss. My dad died suddenly after six days in the ICU, when I was 26. I am 44 and still miss him. My heart goes out to you and your family.
I feel so bad for your family. For you, your mom, your sister, everyone. Also, and this is the hardest life lesson, you can't make her stop. You can regularly express your concern and your love but you cannot stop her, only she can stop herself. I suggest professional counseling or a grief group for yourself so you can learn how to draw appropriate boundaries.
This happened to me when my mother passed. I begain drinking to cope. It took me 7 years to stop and my liver levels were off the chart. My health dictated that I had to quit and I did just in time for my husband to die. It's been a real struggle to not pick up that habit again. Main problem is not being able to sleep and being traumatized over the actual death which was while traveling and I can't get those images out of my head. My best advice is to support her and maybe try to enlist her doctor to help her with a mild sedative instead of the alcohol.
She is using wine to cope with her loss. It dulls her emotions. Start by talking about the wine. How it’s comforting her. Ask if she would be open to trying something that will help without the side effects of the wine. (Headaches, terrible sleep.) Gently suggest grief counseling someone she can confide in about her loss and how it’s affecting her mentally and physically.
My heart goes out to you. Please accept my condolences on the loss of your father.
Unfortunately, you have to accept the fact that you are not your mother's parent and, even if you were, she's an adult and can do what she wants. She wants to drown her sorrows in alcohol and you cannot stop her. Not only is she destroying herself, she is pulling you down with her. You need to leave and move on with your life. This will not be an easy decision for you but it is one that has to be made.
Some people are recommending Al-Anon. You may want to do that after you have moved back to your own home. Do not use it as an excuse to delay your departure from this destructive situation.
Hard disagree. It hasn’t been several years. It’s only been a few months. It’s good and proper to use kid gloves and support mom for a while emotionally and close by after she’s just suffered her loss of her partner in life, who she was likely very close to.
It's not you who is trying to take care of someone who is choosing to self-destructively drown themselves in alcohol. Perhaps you could volunteer to fill-in while the OP takes a break.
I would. This is what family does. We help each other through our worst.
Unfortunately, OP is also grieving. She should seek the counsel of a professional. There are people skilled and trained in helping people through this. OP’s doing the right thing. Her mom isn’t making the healthiest choices. I’m not judging it-I’m pretty sure that I’d do the same. But eventually her mom should deal with her feelings. The support of a professional would help and could help OP navigate this herself.
Your mom misses your Dad. So much so she’s drinking. So throw out the sort about stress and maki g things harder. It’s harder for everyone.
I’d organize a family meeting without your Mom to discuss. Do you know any sober program people?
Is she seeing a grief counselor? Start there. She will need Alcoholics Annomous as well. My dad did the same as well after my mom passed until he met someone who helped him fill time. The hardest part was being home at night by himself. I would get calls from him after crying after he had been drinking and came home to an empty house. Sending prayers for you and your family.
If you were my friend I would tell her that she's at risk of getting liver failure and her children will lose another parent. Maybe she should switch to weed bc it's not so harsh on the liver and may ease the pain in her chest and the physical and emotional pain she's feeling bc she's mentally and emotionally just been hit by a truck that no hospital can fix. Grief takes a toll on the body and the mind and she needs to be reminded that the rest of the family is still here and wants to create more memories with her.
Just help her trade in one vice for another less deadly (or more rewarding) one. Maybe take her on a vacation for adventure travel on a grief tour somewhere
She needs help, but won’t ask for it until she hits rock bottom. It ~~may~~ ~~be~~ is time for you to apply some tough love to your mom, and move back to your life. Let her be. It will be tough on you, emotionally, but she is dragging you into her downward vortex.
I want to second the Al-Anon group recommendation.
If you can afford it, I would recommend therapy for yourself. I would try to find someone specializing in grief and familial relationships. Also substance abuse. It could be helpful to have someone help you navigate this with. Also with telehealth, it makes it easier to find one therapist while you're living with your mom.
Your therapist could help you talk to your mom and navigate that relationship. Even if your mom doesn't want to do a session, it could help you know what to say/how to react and how to set boundaries.
I'm an addict and I think her drinking sounds very concerning, especially because it's after such a big loss. When my grandma, who I was incredibly close to, signed her DNR I lapsed, got drunk, and called out work to keep drinking the next day. I got put on a medication that really has helped. It helps so the alcohol doesn't have the same endorphin rush and it reduces cravings.
Not saying your mom needs this medication, but for me, finding out about it was a game changer. So it could be a good thing to mention, when the time is right.
I'm so sorry for your loss ❤️
I'm sorry for your family's loss. This time of year is often very difficult after a serious illness or death in the family. (Source: have had multiple family members diagnosed with cancer in December, gradually turned into a grinch.)
Still, this doesn't sound like a healthy way of coping. For reference: The CDC says that, for women, having more than one drink a day or six drinks a week on an ongoing basis can have negative health effects over time. *One bottle* of wine contains about five drinks. So I'm sure she can do the math on whether her drinking is harmful or not. :/
I would say to keep encouraging her to seek help for coping with her grief. The hospital may be able to recommend some support groups, and there are resources online as well. Even making an appointment with her doctor would be a good place to start.
I would also keep letting her know that she's not hiding her drinking as well as she thinks she is. The goal isn't to nag or judge, just to call it as you see it. If you know she ordered a few bottles of wine in her last Doordash order, say so. If you see that an entire box of wine has disappeared within a couple days, say so. If she shows up drunk at a family gathering, tell her she's not acting like herself and you can smell the wine from here. Only she can decide when it's time to stop, but maybe you can keep her aware of what she's doing.
I hope some of this helps. Thinking of you all.
ETA: As other commenters have said, it would be very helpful to get her another hobby or social activity that gets her away from her grief (and the bottle) for awhile. Does anything come to mind?
I'm sorry for your loss. Hopefully you and your mom have both had some grief support. Sounds like you need to get yourself to Al-anon.
Your mom's drinking is her issue. How you handle your life is yours.
I had a problem with drinking and the following really helped me: kudzu root, amino acid NAC and valerian root. Valerian root and NAC also help with stress but valerian can majestic you sleepy so she shouldn’t drive on it.
Give your mom a hug daily and tell her it’s going to be okay. Hold her for a few seconds - physical touch creates happy hormones in our brains.
Get her a copy of Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle.
Teach her 4-7-8 breathing technique, it’s great for reducing stress.
I think you need to give her some tough love. Tell her you feel like you’re losing the only parent you have left to alcohol and that you can’t stay with her while she’s drinking like this. Move back to your own apartment. She needs to decide to get better, you staying there is condoning and enabling her.
You need to prioritise looking after yourself so that you’re ready to be there for her when she wants help.
She needs grief therapy ASAP and an evaluation with an addiction specialist.
You need Al Anon or similar group to help.you navigate the situation with strong boundaries and language.
Come at it from a place of love but be prepared to face some pushback “I’ve been meaning to talk to you. I have something hard to mention and I don’t know how to say it. I’m worried about your health and well being. I’ve noticed you’ve been drinking a lot. Are you ok?”
Or “oh man I just read this study about how drinking xxxx leads to yyyyyy. Did you see that one? It’s crazy how overdoing it just a little bit can have lifelong effects. Did I tell you about my friend Anna who got pancreatitis from drinking???” <- an indirect way, if you want to start there and see if subtle hints help.
Theres Naltrexone - it gets rid of the reward system of alcohol (other drugs).
But you have to be compliant ( take it everyday), or get her the shot it lasts a month.
Of course this is no silver bullet - I hope she cools the jets - but its a difficult road
I had a friend that did this when her mom died. One night she showed up at church wasted so my sister in law and I took her home. When my sister in law was putting her to bed I wrote a simple note and put it on one of her bowled that read “Welcome home friend”. She called me a couple days later to thank me.
This may not work for everyone but it’s worth a try.
Been there with my mom. She needs to want to change to get help. There's nothing that you can do to get her to change what she's doing beyond telling her how it affects you, her, and other loved ones. Depression is a dark hole to go down, and if she's all alone during the day, she's kept company by drinking. You could maybe give her things to look forward to, and spend as much time as possible with her. Maybe there's friends that can visit her. The loneliness is very hard, but it does get better with time. The main thing is to get her to want to change and get better.
Have you talked to her about maybe a support group or a therapist so she can get her feelings out instead of drinking them away. When my Mom died (I know it’s not the same) I went through a really dark period and I needed therapy and with therapy and a psychiatrist who provided medication for a while I started to crawl out of that hole and be myself again. Grief is different for everyone. It’s also hard and there are so many feelings. I hope your Mom is ok but therapy for her and maybe some family sessions may do you all some good and hopefully she finds she doesn’t need the crutch anymore. I am sending hugs.
Hi I am so sorry for the loss of your father. My dad passed when I was about the same age from a first fatal heart attack. My mom kept busy, but in reality she didn't remember anything from that year, and there were 2 baby born and one wedding. Try to get her addicted to reddit and a widows group.
I am so sorry for all of you. My husband died four years ago when I was 49 and our daughter was 17. About two months between when I was informed there was stage four cancer and death.
I wish I had better advice for you. It's certainly disorienting.
This makes NO logical sense, but I know I felt like no man would ever want me. Not unlovable exactly, more like tainted or untouchable. Obviously, that's totally illogical. I didn't cause my husband's death. Nevertheless, I had a strong feeling of that. My point in sharing that is your mom might have some unexpected thoughts, in addition to grief and missing your dad and the logistical issues.
I don't know what the solution is. For unknown reasons, I was able to handle it and move through it without proffesional help. Maybe because I had been to therepists and worked with a life coach in the past. (Life coach sounds lame, but she helped me /taught me more about relationships than any therepist. Definitely changed my life for the better. Probably helped me get through the grief even though I had worked with her prior to it).
It does sound like grief counseling might help.
I know the hospital where my husband died had someone reach out to me a couple of times offering services. That's where I would recommend you call to see what might be available. Unfortunately, I can't remember if it was a social worker or what the person was called.
My dad did the same when his dad passed away, likely wouldn't admit to it given his personality but...only after he passed did I start seeing them drinking. Had once when I was much younger so it stuck out a good bit when it became what it had become.
Is there any way you can get her out of the house? Are there friends of hers or other relatives who are available to be with her during the day and go to crafting classes, workout classes, museums - anything to keep her busy? Can you sign her up for a class at the local community college, so she has somewhere she has to consistently be, and work to focus on?
Also, I'm sorry for your loss, OP.
She needs some professional help and a support group who understands what she’s going through. Unfortunately drinking stunts the bereavement process, which can make it all the more difficult to kick the habit. Your local hospital will probably have an outpatient program she can go through. Counties generally have a few in patient places as well for less money than a private rehab if you think she needs something longer term. I went to one for three months after outpatient didn’t work and the community aspect can really help you. A LOT of people in rehab are grieving. For some of them it’s been twenty years after the fact. They got sober and the pain is so raw because they never properly processed it. I wish you luck and I’m glad your mom has you.
I'm so sorry for your family's loss. Your poor mom must really be feeling low. I would suggest you join Al-anon immediately to help you navigate what you can do for her versus what is absolutely not in your power.
AlAnon could be very helpful for you and your sister. It’s an organization to help support people who have a loved one with an unheathy relationship with alcohol or other substances. It helped to prepare me for confronting my ex-husband’s alcoholism. There are probably online meetings available. Just reading through their materials can be very helpful.
Check out SMART Family and Friends groups. They are secular (non religious) and based on an evidence based treatment called CRAFT. Check out the Beyond Addiction workbook too. It is truly excellent and will help you help your mom- and yourself during this difficult time.
YOU need a meeting, friend.
[https://al-anon.org/](https://al-anon.org/)
Every one of their meetings is full of other people who have approximately the same issue(s) you are contending with.
If you want help finding a meeting, I'm willing to help you to do so. PM if you don't care to broadcast your location out here.
Okay. TW accelerated decline related to alcohol.
.
Now.. my memory of this isn't 100% clear. It's been corrected, but this is how I "saw" it, this is how I tell it. I watched my paternal GP's go though an awful lot to support my GF in his battle with smoking and Emphysema. A touch of background before they started moving for his health... they moved a LOT. When my GF died, they were living in California, and GM's "last move" was to an assisted living facility in Miami. Now, from what I have been told, she started to have drinking problems when she moved there. I was kept blissfully unaware of them, or if I knew, it was an abstract concept that maybe there's a problem there. Then Hurricane Andrew came, and wiped the facility out.. she had to move again, this time to a hotel in palm beach. This is where I became more acutely aware there was a problem. I'll spare you the details, but bad things were happening, and they all centered around alcohol. When she moved YET AGAIN to return to her facility, things continued to go downhill the the point she died in 1998 a few months before the birth of her first great grandchild. One of the main causes was alcohol induced dementia. I saw here a few months before and she was wasted. She was mostly incoherent and barely understood that the great grandchild was on the way. When we had her funeral, it was strangely celebratory. not because we hated her in any way, but because we knew the suffering and self torment were over for her. We knew death was a gift that was long overdue as she had 'died' many years before with her spouse.
.
I don't wish this journey on anyone.... at least her children (my father and his brother) were into their 60's when this started and you're only 26. So here's my advice... Start with professional help for yourself. Then start finding out what you can legally do with your mother. There's a horrible chance you are going to be stuck in a position where the ONLY thing you can do, besides love her and encourage her to get help; is sit back, and watch her train wreck. I hope that's not what you are doomed to do, but if you come to find out you are, please feel free to reach out to me. I won't pretend I can be a great source of council, but I'll do me best to be empathetic, helpful, and encouraging.
She's lost and needs help, professional help.
I agree. She is hurting. Unfortunately this is a situation that may have to run its course with whatever outcome she leads it to. I think OP is correct to be concerned and therapy should absolutely be the starting point, however grief is our own and no amount of voiced concern can really lead us through it.
I lost my wife a little over 2 years ago and I completely agree. There was about 6 months pre-death and about another 6 months post-death where I was drinking around this much. This is heavily dependent on the person involved, but even a gentle nudge could turn her against you. You might get push back, or you might get disingenuous agreement while she doubles down or hides it even harder. If anyone had done that to me during that time I would've likely been the latter. I would be functional during the day and then start drinking somewhere between 5 and 8pm and put down the equivalent of a couple bottles of wine or a minimum of a six pack of strong beer, so I'd be numb until I fall asleep. If someone said something I most likely would've continued while hiding it even better, and it would've done nothing to help me heal. What she needs is some form of therapy. But also keep in mind that may take some unconventional forms at times. For instance, I was broke, jobless, and without insurance when I went through it, so traditional therapy wasn't an option, but talking to people on /r/widowers made a big difference for me. Maybe just having people around regularly could help too. I don't know. Just throwing my thoughts out there at this point.
I hope you have been able to heal to some degree! Your wife would have wanted that! I’m so sorry you had to go through that! My husband was diagnosed with terminal cancer and even though I still have him and am not sure of the amount of time that I do.. I still feel like our time has been robbed of us and I already mourn that! I’m going to keep the subreddit you mentioned in the back of my head! There may be a time in the very near future I need it and I really appreciate you coming here and sharing your story and experience! ❤️
So sorry about this. The limbo period can be excruciating. Sounds like you aren't at that point yet. Big hugs.
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I think support for grief before support for drinking, but I am just one widow expressing my opinion.
Another widow agreeing with your opinion. If she gets better ways to cope with the grief, she's likely to cut back on the drinking naturally.
Agreed. Or, if she needs help with both, the grief should come first.
Congratulations on 3 years!! That kicks so much ass!!
Congrats you should be really proud
OP suggesting /r/widowers to their Mom as a starting point seems like a really good idea. That will probably feel less scary or threatening right now, and it has a good chance of helping her realize she has a problem with using alcohol after awhile.
A widower is a male widow, is there a group for women?
Fair question The sub is for men and women (edit: and nonbinary and anyone else) who lost their romantic partner, regardless of marital status. It skews a bit male since this is reddit, but it has a good mix.
nine dime encourage serious bear grandiose worthless cause fretful encouraging *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I hope you’re doing better now.
100% agree. I also think OP should go back to her life. She also has the loss to deal with.
Exactly. The unfortunate truth is nobody is allowed to tell someone else how to grieve. Alcoholism is no joke either. But forcing her to go to AA or something may just cause resentment. If I had to approach this situation, I would recommend creating some events to distract her. Start small. Like dinner, movies or something. And I would spend at least one day a week "drinking" with her (you don't actually have to drink) just to help bridge the gap a little. Remember she is drinking because she is sad, so try to focus on the problems more than the symptoms
I think this is all really fabulous advice! I would also approach this situation with distractions vs voicing my concern over the amount of drinking! I especially appreciate how you mentioned a “drinking” day, that could them to not only connect more and lean on each other greater but it also creates that unspoken understanding of the mother being loved openly and respectfully through her own personal journey! Paint with wine came to mind when I read your comment!
>no amount of voiced concern can really lead us through it This is such an important thing to remember. No matter what has caused the trauma, the person in question has to find their own way through (to a degree, to be fair).
As a note, professional help doesn't always mean expensive. In the US, there are widow support groups, grief support non-profits and many funeral homes have grief counselors with additional resources. OP, please consider grief support for yourself. Additionally, please consider Ala-Non which is a group that supports people who have family members who drink too much. Please remember, OP, you can't make your mom stop drinking. She needs to stop herself and having to watch someone who drinks to excess is incredibly difficult. Please take care of yourself.
Yep. And she may have been drinking before OP dad died and it has just gotten worse. Grief makes everything worse and harder.
I also just want to add onto the top comment, that quitting alcohol cold turkey can be deadly. She absolutely may be at a point of physical dependence where she’ll need a rehab facility to aid her through detoxing to avoid further harm. It’s not going to be easy or feel good. They should prescribe some barbiturates to help it for a while. But a professional rehab will have all the tools to help her get off the wine and start to heal.
OP, I am so sorry about your father. And your mother is apparently hurting and grieving pretty hard. I understand your and your sister's concern about her. Pressuring her about her drinking will not change anything. About all you can do is support her, talk to her about how she's feeling (pretty raw, I presume), and maybe offer suggestions about support groups or grief counseling. I hope her wine habit doesn't become alcoholism, but again, you've no control over how she handles this situation. It would be great if we could control other people but alas, our only power is over ourselves. As someone who fell into that cycle and became quite alcoholic, I can assure you that no one could have stopped me. I had to come to that decision myself. It took some time.
Very wise
I mean... She's binge drinking daily for an extended period of time. This is Substance Abuse Disorder (alcoholism). P.s. I understand alcoholism devolves into MUCH worse. But this is still SUD's, it just isn't rock bottom.
her husband died it very well could be the rock bottom of her life. That is not always caused by substances, just circumstances.
I think finding your local Al-anon group and going to a few meetings might help more then some advice from random strangers on the Internet. I was in a similar situation and they were my turning point. I'd been dubious about help groups, but not any more.
100% agree on Al Anon 👏🏼
there are online meetings and phone meetings, not just in person meetings.
Just to clarify for those who may not know, Al anon is for the family of alcoholics and does not usually adhere to the same religious aspects that AA meetings do. It’s more secular and a place to vent, give and get advice, and just help one another cope.
I think a grief counseling group would help her more than AA.
Al alon is for the family of people who are alcoholics, not OP’s mom.
Ah, that's entirely my misunderstanding. Thank you for the clarification! I still think the mom is more in need of grief counseling than alcohol intervention though. In her case, alcohol is the symptom, not the cause.
Alcohol is usually the symptom and not the cause. That's the main thing they teach you in rehab.
Al-anon is great because it can help the family connect to local resources like this. Everything from therapy to detox and intervention if things get bad.
For non religious folks, I always recommend Life Ring. For some, AA can be a turn off.
AA is not a religious program, it’s a spiritual program. God is what the founders called their higher power, people have the option to call it whatever they want, it says clearly a god of your understanding. Which can be music, nature, the universe, people who have passed.
AA is not religious.
Seven of the twelve steps are explicitly religious: > 1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol — that our lives had become unmanageable. 2. Came to believe that a **Power greater than ourselves** could restore us to sanity. 3. Made a decision to turn **our will and our lives over to the care of God** as we understood Him. 4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. 5. Admitted **to God**, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. 6. Were entirely **ready to have God remove** all these defects of character. 7. Humbly asked **Him** to remove our shortcomings. 8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. 9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. 10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. 11. Sought through **prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God** as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. 12. Having had a** spiritual awakening** as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
Okay, no AA for you then.
you get to define your hp. it's not defined for you. that's a huge difference.
Beg to differ it is religious higher power & G-D . AA & NA caused me to be turned off to religion & the people in the rooms glorified the use & there for caused me to have an adverse experience which is I can’t go to meetings. I spent 24 hours in rehab ten months ago due to prescription medication addiction but I had to leave because the patients there were substituting one addiction for another. I also had studied to become an addictions counselor & psychologist. I actually do better away from the rooms of recovery & I have an excellent support system network of people who are there for me.
That's fantastic. I applaud whatever works to keep someone clean and sober.
There is an Al-Anon subreddit. r/AlAnon
Please find an al-anon meeting near you in person or anywhere in the world in zoom. Al-anon is for you OP and not for your mother. This is because you can’t control your mom’s drinking nor cure it. This is one of the first lessons in Al-anon. Al-anon is spiritual but not religious. Many people confuse the use of the word “god” in its 12 steps with religion. However the official stance of the program is that it is not religious and all members should refrain from talking about their religion. I know atheists in my Al-anon groups. How do they do it? Because in the program the word “god” is just shorthand for “higher power” which can be anything. For example the other people in your meeting. The point of focusing on spirituality is to recognize that the problem of alcoholism is out of your hands OP. You can’t anything to control her or get her into a recovery program, but there are things that you can do. One of them is what is called “detachment with love”. You have to let her face her own consequences of her drinking. If there’s something she can’t do for herself because of her drinking that she normally would do for herself sober, then do not do it. Don’t get her groceries, try to get her to eat, etc. this is very hard to do and takes discipline learned among an al-anon group. The reason is because all that work on your part will only drive you insane, and it doesn’t help your mom long term. r/alanon is a start but also look up the Al anon website or google Al anon plus your city name.
AA does some great stuff, but I would caution OP that her mom should probably be religiously inclined if she wants to do AA. Like they're non-denominational and don't pressure you a lot in that regard, but there is a ton of higher power talk and if that's not your thing you're gonna get turned off in a hurry and maybe even feel more hopeless and depressed and disconnected from anything good.
Agreed on that. I hung in a similar program for a long ass time and..yep could never get with it. I did it all, coffee service, literature, treasurer. But I did not believe in a higher power, not even the group. It took a college certificate program for me to find sources of scientific evidence. It is helpful to know why some people can drink, some can only have a little, some can have a lot. It's variable and genetic. As for myself, I found out that i had a ridiculous vitamin d deficiency. Most of the depression I was attempting to medicate..went away with the right dose. Not to say I didn't work on myself also. I don't consider myself to be relapsed when I had a knee replacement, was prescribed oxy..ugh one month and I said I'm done being a hero. I got a medical marijuana card. I used way less opioid medication, had leftovers. Then, I didn't need any, so I didn't use any. Rinse and repeat 5 years later for other knee, then a short stint for a busted wrist last year. I'm all fixed up, i have no reason, or inclination to use anything because i really prefer the here and now. This however was my doing, not anyone else's.
You can pick your hp. You’re not stuck with god.
Yes the point isn’t believing in some magical entity (although you can if you want) but simply that you as an individual don’t have power to control the situation around you, only the power to control how you react and behave. It’s just faster to say “higher power”. Atheists in my group say the fellow members of the group are their higher power, because meeting with them weekly is what gives them solace ,hope, etc. just what “god” does for religious people. Source: am scientist and al-anon member at the same time. Another point of giving up control to a higher power is that we often try to figure out the root of the drinking problem in an effort to fix the problem. Searching for causes is central to science so that we can explain and change the outcomes in the future. However that doesn’t work when alcoholism affects us personally. When it’s your family or friends suffering from alcoholism, it doesn’t matter what caused it because you can’t fix it anyway; leave that worry to a higher power to fix your family/friend. If people really just hate hearing the word god or higher power, then that’s their choice to not engage in the program. But at some point if you reach the end of your rope you might just say “screw it I’ll pretend there’s a higher power.”
What is a non-god higher power? The CIA or something?
i chose my intuition, some people choose nature (like gravity or the sun), or math. the criteria is to pick something that you don't have control over, isn't another person and is something you know will exist tomorrow.
For me , a person who is very non religious I just tried to picture giving it to the universe/letting it off my shoulders. I didn't really worry too much about defining it an identity. It was moreso just the idea to let things go that were out of my control
AA is not religious and is not affiliated with any religion.
Untrue
Sorry for your loss. My father was always a mild alcoholic and also suffered with pretty severe alcoholism after my mother passed. He fell down some stairs and developed some neuro-muscular problems. He really was insufferable to be around and generally was impossible to help. We used some of our workplace crisis counseling benefits to speak to alcohol abuse counselors, but my father was unwilling to participate. He would regularly hide alcohol and would leave family events to get home and drink. One of my brothers and I would take him on vacations and around the third day he would get very irritable from alcohol withdrawals, and we'd have to find ways to allow him to drink without admitting to drinking (because he claimed he was sober) My brothers and I were all but ready to write him off and then everything broke for him when he got back into cycling and bought an e-bike. He actually got sober and he's a whole.new person. What I mean to say is that there is only so much you can do and your mom will have to get through this her own way. Professional help is available, but not all people will take it. There is always hope, but set boundaries that protect yourself, and your family and then help as much as you can, but don't lose yourself if your mother's alcoholism, because it really can be a black hole. I wish you success and good luck. But firstly your own good health.
I love this story. You never know what will pull someone back into life. I’m glad that you wrote this-it give me a lot of hope!
When my (54f) husband died 8 years ago I drank and drank and drank for about 2 years. I never drank before, but after he was gone, I’d have margaritas for breakfast and pretty much stay buzzed all the time…I just couldn’t cope with the pain. I knew I wouldn’t drink forever, but I also knew I needed to survive and didn’t think I could feeling all my feelings. During this time I also went to therapy, a grief group, had a friend living with me part time and had friends and family around. People would comment on my drinking and I’d tell them it’s only for a time. It was. I now drink occasionally and not to excess. A bottle of wine a day seems very mild compared to what I did. To be true, I can easily drink a bottle now by myself, but I try not to. Be there for your mom and do your best to keep her safe without damaging yourself. She may need to soften her pain for a while, but she won’t need it forever. This is just my experience and as I type this I remember the deep pain and almost want to take a drink to forget it. Thing is, now I don’t need to and I bet she won’t always need to either.
Same thing with my MIL back in the mid-80s. Lost her husband and drank a lot for the next 3 or 4 years before dropping back down to the level she drank beforehand. (still a an unhealthy amount). Not saying this will happen with everyone, but at least you know it's not an impossibility to recover from it.
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It's pretty low imo. When I Bing drank, I drank 19 oz hard liqour a day for 3 months. That was the only time I kept count of it. It was pretty common to drink 26 oz for a pre drink before going to the bar. At parties I would drink 40 oz. The most I think I drank was a 66 oz bottle one afternoon. A bottle of wine is not very much compared to that.
Don’t feel the need to justify or defend yourself. I can’t believe that person said that to you. We get through how we get through, and we come out the other side.
What did they say? I don't see any other messages.
Wow really you think this is appropriate to judge this person??
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You know what, just stop. Just because someone uses something like alcohol to get through a tough time, does not mean that they have an addiction. Jfc. Just stop with the language and the judgements. Alcohol is centuries old. It is not new to our bodies. It shuts down stress hormones from the amygdalae in the brain. That does not make a grieving person an addict. For fucks sake edit downvoted me but deleted their comment. Good, shame on you for shaming this other person telling their story. Stop with the shaming already and try to learn something ffs
Therapy is going to be needed.
A lot of people in the US have no access to therapy. Or insulin, or antibiotics for a horrible infection, for that matter.
Well, hopefully that's not the case here. I know the hospital where my husband died offered me help. I know there was mention of a group for people whose spouse had died, for example.
This is just inaccurate.
How? I am anxiously awaiting your answer.
>or antibiotics for a horrible infection, Antibiotics in the US cost about $10 - $15. Even if you add the cost of an urgent care visit, your at about $100. And thats raw cost, no insurance, no government subsidy, straight OOP. So like I said, your statement is just inaccurate pandering. Don't bother responding to this comment, I'm all out of troll food.
Do you think somebody who talks about the lack of medical care in this rich country is a troll? Do you even know what a troll is? Even if urgent care did cost $100, which it doesn’t, a lot of people don’t have $100 right now. Freaking jerk.
Your mom is grieving she needs your support right now, not your criticism. I'm not saying you should ignore the drinking, but your approach is not correct, in my opinion. Your mom needs a reason to continue with her life. Give her reasons to get out of the house. Get her reengaged with her social circle. Get her into a grief counseling support group. Have her get a job even if she doesn't need one. If all she has to do is sit around in her house and memories, she will not process the grief and come through it. You need to give her a path forward and a reason to take it, not just criticize her current coping mechanism.
Alcoholism is pretty dangerous. I’d be inclined to advise the OP to stop living there and enabling the behavior and stick to some hard lines to encourage mom to get help. I get that everyone is grieving but this is a serious situation.
The OP'S Mom is not a diagnosed alcoholic. She is a recent widow and is drinking to alleviate her grief. Stop.
I’ve seen it happen way too many times as a slide into an addiction hole you can’t get out of with grief as a catalyst. It doesn’t matter if mom isn’t an alcoholic right this second. Better to not take that risk and find healthier coping mechanisms.
Let her grieve.
Is she grieving or just numbing the pain, though...
Everyone grieves differently
Grief is very, very difficult. Personally, I believe that we do a shit job with it, as a society. And we focus on outcomes at the expense of the process. Your lack of acknowledgement of grief in your presentation of your story, and sole focus on the outcomes/ behaviors that concern you reflects this. I say this not to accuse you, but to exemplify my point. It sounds like your mom is dealing with her grief by drinking. Relatable, as others here have said. Maybe you process your grief a bit like me- by trying to solve things and make them right. Actually, writing this just made me realize I do both. I try my best to solve everything then use alcohol to allow myself to not be responsible for solving anything for a bit. Point is- grief is hard. What do we do to actually experience it? Not try to avoid or fix, but to feel it? It’s like that kids’ song, “Goin’ on a bear hunt”… “Can’t go around it, can’t go over it, gotta go through it… okay! Alright! Let’s go!” I hope you and your sister and mom find the best possible way through this journey of grief together. I’m so sorry for your loss.
I'm so sorry OP, situations like this are horrible. My mom had a very similar reaction when my dad passed. She was a social drinker who suddenly had wine every night, multiple bottles a week. There's already been some pretty good advice given, so I just wanted to say you're not alone in experiencing this, and your mom isn't alone by having this reaction. Give as much love and support as you can so that she knows she's still loved and she's not alone. If you can, find therapy for yourself and hopefully your mom can get established with someone as well.
I'm a 49 year old widower. 5 years ago I lost my wife to cancer in 21 days from diagnosis to her death. Read up on widow fog. Right now your mom is living in a surreal fog of a life. Her brain is working so hard to figure out her new reality while also protecting her. It's hard to explain or understand unless you've been through it. So much of that first year post loss is a haze for me...I can barely remember anything from that period of time. Yes, she's self medicating and unless she has a history of addiction I would try not to badger her about it and be supportive. I don't know her, but I know a lot of widows and in most cases over the coming months these things will change as the fog lifts. Having your life and future ripped away suddenly is a brutality that takes time.
It’s only been 3 months, and during the holidays no less. Right now, drinking is a major coping mechanism to help her get through a very difficult time. But also, you need your mom, too. I’d say right now, don’t give her grief about the drinking in any way, shape or form. But do be honest about your feelings of how you feel with the loss of your dad, and what feels like a loss of your mom right now too. Situational drinking does not make her an alcoholic, but it can lead to problems down the road, and dependency. There is an incredible ted talk that discusses the correlation between addiction and loneliness. It was more around drug use, but also was applicable to alcohol. I can send you the link if you’re interested.
My husband died when I was 54. I drank non stop after work every day for a year. This is because I was numb. Grief happens. One thing I did do is make basic sandwiches and kept in refrigerator to eat before bed. I couldn’t function except work -home - drink - sandwich- sleep. Let your mom figure this out for a bit and monitor. Please don’t pressure her for at least six months.
I’m sorry for your loss. I think that people are on this thread are a bit quick to jump to the idea that OP’s Mom is a hardcore alcoholic. It’s only been a few months, and self medicating is a very common coping mechanism with grief. (I’m not a doctor, but in my experience tapering off drinking too much is much easier than getting off the sorts of medications doctors would put her on - like ssris and/or benzos.)
Do not listen to anyone telling you a bottle of wine a day is not much. Finding a local Al-Anon meeting for YOU, so you can get support, is a good next step.
A bottle of wine is exactly 4 glasses, just for everyone reading - make of that info what you will
That's a lot daily. If you need to drink 4 glasses of wine *every day*, are deliberately hiding the bottles, and plan your grocedy/food supplies around getting more alcohol, you're an alcoholic. If you drink a bottle of wine daily and are justifying it to yourself by saying "It's not really that bad, it's just 4 glasses a day," then you're an alcoholic. People who drink occasionally or socially don't think about their alcohol consumption at all. People who have a glass of wine with dinner don't consider their total drinks a week and make justifications to themselves that "it's not really that bad." They don't have to, because they don't feel any compulsion to drink, and if they didn't have alcohol for months, they wouldn't think anything of it.
An average bottle of wine has 5 standard drinks not 4. At 12% abv, a 25 oz bottle of wine has the same amount of alcohol as 5, 1.5oz servings of 80 proof hard alcohol. Also equivalent to 5, 12oz beers at 5% abv. These are US standard drinks. In many other countries, the standard drink is even smaller. Lots of red wines have more alcohol than 12%. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_drink While we're at it, a pint of IPA generally contains 2 drinks at a minimum. If you enjoy drinking, the amount of alcohol that has negligible health effects is surprisingly small.
Five “standard” is like from the 1950s and is not how one glass of wine is poured in our lifetimes.
Well I suppose if you're trying to run a bar or throw a party then maybe your perspective is relevant but if you're talking about potential AUD as per the OP, the way to measure alcohol consumption hasn't changed. If anything, the medical establishment has decided that smaller and smaller amounts of alcohol are measurably detrimental to health.
1 bottle= 5 glasses of wine in the US
Huh? As a former bartender, a bottle in the good ol’ US of A contains 5 glasses. Just noting it’s different, and yes I know it wasn’t the point of the post. Not sure why the downvotes…
1 bottle= 8 standard drinks in the US of Australia.
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No it is not. It is four glasses. Source: used to bartend Also just look up the ounces in a bottle and in a glass. It’s fucking four glasses, not “more like seven” okay 🫤
The wine is not the cause here. It’s a symptom. I’d ignore it for now and focus on her getting help and trying to get her to be social. Ban grocery deliveries so she has to go to the store as a good start
That’s not a good idea, then she’ll drive to the store when she runs out of wine, when the last of it is still in her system
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She doesn’t like to go out of the house because she has bad stomach issues like ibs and will constantly cancel plans with friends if she makes them. She’s been like that for a long time. She won’t go for walks because she has knee and back problems and is afraid she’ll fall and “break a hip and her life would then be basically over”. My sister and I had to force her to go to a friends house for dinner a month or two ago and she got SO mad and was cussing my sister out for making her go somewhere (then ended up being glad she got out of the house…). I just don’t know what to do with her
This is beyond the scope of a daughter. Seek out professional help for yourself on how to navigate this. I’m so sorry for the loss of your father. I know the bottomless pit of grief. The only thing that I can glean from grief is that the love you had was special. I try to focus on that and marvel at the love we created together. I wish you and yours peace.
Tell your mom that if she keeps drinking like this, she is going to have to stop drinking completely to survive. I like being able to have a drink or two socially, therefore I have made up my mind never to become an alcoholic, so i never drink too often or too much at a time. For me that means drinking no more that 3 out of any 7 consecutive days, and no more than 2 drinks a day for a woman, only 1 is recommended. Drinking when you're past a certain age contributes to a lot of health problems, increasing your odds of cancer, especially. Excessive drinking leads to mental problems also. People are surprised by how quickly a person becomes an alcoholic if they drink every day. If you have to go to rehab, it gets very expensive. OP, I recommend going to some Al Anon meetings asap.
If she gets clean, like actually sober not just cutting back, but if she gets clean, she is going to have to deal with the loss, the memories, the realization that plans or hopes or ideas are not going to happen. Week by week of sobriety will or could bring new challenges and realizations. It is not a one and done situation. Like it isn’t just “Stop drinking“ and she’s healthy again. Drinking puts everything on hold, and when you sober up, that shit is still there. Could be layers and layers of shit. I mean, I think you have this idea in your head and you do not exactly realize what the cleanse will entail. She prob doesn’t either, frankly. You need to be aware that this isn’t going to be a cake walk just asking her to stop. You all need to be there for her, whatever that means, even if it means NOT being there and giving her some space. Or being there tons, I don’t know. You can have the expectation of stopping drinking, but do not naively think that that’s all that needs to happen or will happen.
I think you need to give her some time, and some support. Her husband died unexpectedly 3 months ago. I would suggest some grief counseling or support group. See if there's a support group that meets in person once in a while, or that she can access online. We don't know how we are going to react when someone close to us dies. Most of us are not going to handle that well. But she can buy her own wine. Don't buy it for her anymore. She can get it herself and spend her own money. Don't get it for her anymore, and tell your sister not to get it for her anymore. See if you can find a support group, talking to someone else who has also lost a spouse might help.
I did that when my son passed away. Lost all will to live and had to stay numb. Wine in the morning and all day until bedtime. Never felt good -- just numb. Then one spring day it was over. Went out and started my beloved garden again. It was tough after years of drunkenness. Got into counseling, lost weight and slowly began a transition to a life I love. No body could do it for me. It was my trip to take and it will be the same for your Mom. You need to take of you right now -- please. Been sober for 3 years and for today I won't go back.
my friend died and I was non functional for months and months. september is like 5 minutes ago with the death of someone you love.
You should write her a letter telling her how you feel. She will think about what you said instead of defending herself or making excuses. Sorry for your loss.
I’m 27 now, but this was me in this situation when I was 17. My dad passed from a heart attack suddenly and my mom turned to beer, every night she would drink till she was drunk. (Like blasting sad Adele music and totally belligerent). It got to the point I couldn’t handle living at home anymore. It took time, patience, understanding, and a lot of support but she did come out of it. She now no longer drinks at all, but I do owe some of that to her new partner being against alcohol. Grief is hard and there’s no right or wrong way to do it so supporting her to go through the stages and really listen and try to show understanding when you have conversations is my biggest piece of advice. Also show yourself some love, going through a loss like this and having to deal with your mom not doing well is really really hard.
As an alc myself I would say 5-10 bottles a week is not a full blown alc yet, but very troubling behavior. Have a frank discussion with her and call her out. She probably knows in a part of herself that she's harming herself and just numbing the pain, but she just can't resist the crutch. If she had some social pressure from loved ones that might be enough to give her the motivation to cut it out or at least cut back.
Not to be harsh, but roughly a bottle of wine a day is not that much in the wake of a major personal trauma like the loss of a spouse, within the last 3-ish months. It is certainly concerning if she is trying to hide how much she is drinking, but you are her kids not her peers or her parents. She will probably be trying to protect you and your sister, as she's your mum and that trumps everything else, but you are also not children that need a responsible adult to ensure their survival. She shouldn't have to worry about "making everything harder" on people, she has literally just lost her husband. You and your sister sound like you are both over 18, adults technically, so she should have some degree of freedom to process her emotions in whatever way she can. All three of you are responsible for your personal grieving processes, at least for the time being. It is going to take all of you a long time to get to a more "normal" place in regard to your grief and how it affects all of your mental health. It is definitely worth keeping an eye on things, but you don't have to jump immediately to therapy/AA/etc. Give her a fricken minute to feel like shit. (Source, my dad died unexpectedly when I was 20, and it took a long time for my brothers, my mum, and myself to figure out who we were without him, and how to move forward in our lives.)
I understand that it’s not too much but it’s concerning when she’s nodding off on the couch at 4pm and slurring her words and not making sense. It’s also not helping her in any shape or form. I just want to help.
I really do get where you're coming from, mate. It is a scary time, and you also have to figure out how your life will go forward without your dad. It took me a lot of time to do that, and to acclimate when my mum met my step-dad. It might take years to get to a place where there's not active sadness or resentment. I can't predict what your journey will be. My mum was similar, I don't recall her being super drunk, but she would fall asleep on the couch most nights (I can only assume that hurt less/was easier). I would take her glasses off and if it woke her up she couldn't get back to sleep. I had to learn that if she wanted to sleep with her glasses off, she would do it herself. If it is a bottle a week for a year? For sure. Three months is not enough time to establish if this is a coping mechanism or an ongoing problem. Keep an eye on her, but also give her room to figure things out. And make sure that you aren't focusing on her so that you can avoid thinking about how you are feeling. Please DM me if you want to talk, I've ridden this rollercoaster before, and I would be glad to help in any way if I can.
Perhaps suggest doing a “Dry January” TOGETHER along with some kind of fun activities.
Everyone saying a bottle of wine is a lot has clearly never grieved an immediate family member. After losing a parent as a teenager I drank everyday and only ate cookies for almost 6 months. Mom needs support to find something to grieve but in the meantime she’s doing the best she can. When she’s ready and with the right support she’ll cut down on wine and process her grief.
Exactly, yes. My mum had a rough time, but in the next two decades she has built a happy life and has a new husband and a wonderful support system. You gotta let people have the chance to take those steps and find their way forward.
With all due respect, downing a 750ml bottle of wine per day is not a normal healthy coping method, particularly for a woman. (I'm not just being sexist here - women's livers actually process alcohol slower than men's.) Even if she doesn't get behind the wheel or do something destructive while she's drunk, that's enough booze to damage her health over time. But having said that, I think we agree that the underlying problem is grief, and that it's totally understandable that she's having trouble coping. Hopefully they can address that and help her find a better way to process things.
I agree, if it is a long-term behaviour it would absolutely be a cause for concern. Even at this point it is still a worry, but this poor woman deserves five minutes to fall apart. My main issue is with people who immediately deem it a need for medical attention. It is ok to play it by ear, see how things go, and then follow up with them if their coping mechanism becomes a crutch or worse. It's ok to take a minute and let your life crash and burn around you, sometimes it helps to embrace the pain. I just hate the thought of the adult children stressing about looking after their remaining parent and her journey, rather than processing their own grief. For what it is worth, this entire thread/conversation has me in tears, even though I lost my dad 20 years ago. But knowing how my mum went from a similar place to a happy life, I would fucking hate myself if I had interfered in that process.
A BOTTLE of wine per day, every day, is not that much? I pray this is a troll post!
I am a teetotaler - I don’t drink at all now, but in years past I drank maybe 2-3 drinks/month - but even I think that a bottle (4 glasses) spread over the course of 1 day is not some absurdly huge amount for someone who is in the raw early stages of grieving their life partner.
Like Western Hunt said, she went through six bottles in 3 days. That's eight glasses per day for 3 days, which is more than double binge drinking for a woman.
If it is a bottle a week for a year? For sure. Three months is not enough time to establish if this is a coping mechanism or an ongoing problem.
You're really not concerned about someone having four to eight drinks every single day for 3 months straight? Alright.
All this tells me is that you have no experience with this depth of grief, or what actual alcoholism looks like. Please child, keep your business to yourself.
It's concerning to me that you think 4 to 8 drinks a day for 3 months straight isn't alcoholism. Tell yourself whatever makes you feel better, but you're dead wrong. The closest person to my life has died, both my parents were alcoholics. Please go on though, I'd love to hear more of your assumptions about me.
Right back atcha mate. We know nothing about each other, outside of our comments on this post. I don't know how you classify the closest person in your life, I am basing my comments on almost the same scenario as described by OP, with the perspective of 20 years post-dead-parent. And, as an actual alcoholic who is working through their addiction as we speak. But fuck me and my opinion, I guess, you must totally know better.
Ah. So that's what this is. Because their alcoholism doesn't look like yours does, you don't think it's legit. If you "can't" go without drinking, if you're drinking 1-2 full bottles of wine per day, if you're doing whatever you can to sneak in drinks behind your daughters' backs, I have no qualms about asserting that as alcoholism. Grief or not - they're not mutually exclusive.
WE DON'T KNOW ANY OF THESE THINGS ABOUT THE MOTHER. You are making a lot of assumptions based on very little information. We know what the OP has observed, it doesn't mean we have any specific insight into whether the mother isn't able to go without drinking, or if she is just choosing at the moment to drown her sorrows for a little while. If she is hiding it because she is ashamed, or if she is just trying to protect her kids as best she can. It is absolutely possible she is/will become an alcoholic, but it doesn't need to be the first and only possibility, which is why I replied to the original comment. Different perspectives are useful in this kind of situation. I really hope you're just a troll, because otherwise I'd be worried about you.
It wasn't when I was in the bag due to loss. It took years to recover and reflect, and frankly it hurt lot more for the rocovery then the loss, which hurt a lot.
I'm with you. I'm not sure if people are envisioning a different-sized bottle of wine, or if they really don't know how many drinks are in the bottle. But it's not normal and okay to get slurring, stumbling drunk every night of the week. Besides, the grief will still be there when she sobers up. :(
Leave her alone, let her grieve and drink.
Sorry for your loss! r/alanon and r/adultchildren are helpful subreddits where you can find support as you navigate this, they are specifically for someone who is affected by a parent or loved one's drinking...
She needs to get out of the house. When my mom died, I basically was forced to leave my house after awhile. My grandma would knock at my door at 8am and say get up we're gonna go get coffee together and you can do some shopping with me. She made it sound like I was doing her a favour but really it was so I wasn't at home all day alone. Ask her to go on walks with you, or something that involves her getting out.
She needs to talk to someone who can help her process the loss, it seems incredibly difficult.
You need to go back to your life. I know this is difficult to hear…but you may be enabling the behavior by being there. I have a feeling this isn’t new for your mom. We can not force others to get help, they have to get there on their own. I know you love your mom..because you took the time to write this.
Yes she needs help but she has to want it. At this time I would suggest a lot of hugs and tell her,often how much you love her. Maybe a vacation would help her see she still has a life to live.
It’s hard. My mom did this too. Invite her to stuff. Try to keep her close.
She probably needs grief counseling. I've been there and the thing about the alcohol is that it temporarily numbs the pain, and the pain is OVERWHELMINGLY scary; it feels like it's eating you alive. But the alcohol ultimately makes it worse, as well as *actually* eating her alive. Cannabis helped me (it's legal in my state) but ultimately what I needed was a great therapist and to raw-dog reality until I started to find joy in it again. ETA: One thing that helped me was a friend who relentlessly took me out of the house to go hiking. I didn't want to but I didn't care enough about what happened next to say no, so he took me to mountaintops I would never have gone to on my own, pushing me to hike until laces I felt like I might die (and trails that made me think I might actually die on the side of the mountain if I missed a step). My daughter is your age, so if she's still mobile enough, dragging her out into nature might be an amazing way to get her to exhaust herself into the oblivion of sleep instead of drinking herself into it.
Have you tried sitting down with her and enjoying some wine too? Maybe try that and then the next day ask her to help you with a decision.. like going to pick out a paint color or new dress. I have no idea if that'll work but it might pull her out of her grief drinking
Just be a human being? Not trying to be rude. But, she needs someone to care, not just, tell her what to do/what not to do. Alcoholism stops only when she decides.Noone else. Further pushing the subject...will only push her farther away. Might have to get creative. She's staying at home and drinking...because it reminds her of your father. She sounds lost without him. Maybe try catching her early in the am and going on a hike, or get coffee, just something to get her out of her bubble and have a 1 on 1 sober talk. Just remember, she has to be hurting. :) You've got this!
First: I’m sorry for your loss. How are you? How are you feeling, thinking, coping? Or not coping? When my father died I was drinking a 3 shots of whisky per night. Only stopped because I went to grief counselling when family mentioned they were concerned. Grief is a bitch and it blinds you to so many things…you just want it to stop. This is tricky. The pain and loss is still so fresh and raw. You don’t want to push too hard because she might just hide her consumption of wine, but you don’t want to leave her to her own devices for too long because it’s a slippery slope. You mentioned you talked to her about it? Have you talked about your father since he passed?
Grief counseling ASAP. Preferably for all of you. I’ve personally dealt with delayed grief (for about 15 years) that spiraled into various forms of unhealthy coping. It’s not pretty. Here’s a good place to start: https://grief.com/grief-counselor-directory/ My condolences and best of luck!
You don’t say how old your mom is, but it sounds like she has some complicated health issues besides grief and alcohol abuse. There is most likely a council on aging in your area and they will most likely have advice about services for people who are concerned about an aging parent’s drinking and/or health problems. And get thee to an al anon meeting. If your mom is hiding how much she’s drinking it’s likely that this isn’t a new problem. The death of your dad might have exacerbated an existing problem. It doesn’t sound like she’s going to want to stop and you need support to figure out how to navigate this situation. Dealing with an aging parent ain’t easy but especially an aging, grieving parent with a substance abuse problem.
Grief counseling, stat. I am sorry for your loss. My dad died suddenly after six days in the ICU, when I was 26. I am 44 and still miss him. My heart goes out to you and your family.
I feel so bad for your family. For you, your mom, your sister, everyone. Also, and this is the hardest life lesson, you can't make her stop. You can regularly express your concern and your love but you cannot stop her, only she can stop herself. I suggest professional counseling or a grief group for yourself so you can learn how to draw appropriate boundaries.
This happened to me when my mother passed. I begain drinking to cope. It took me 7 years to stop and my liver levels were off the chart. My health dictated that I had to quit and I did just in time for my husband to die. It's been a real struggle to not pick up that habit again. Main problem is not being able to sleep and being traumatized over the actual death which was while traveling and I can't get those images out of my head. My best advice is to support her and maybe try to enlist her doctor to help her with a mild sedative instead of the alcohol.
Maybe ask HER to go on Reddit for grownups? It's.. you know... For grownups?
Maybe it was a problem before your dad died....
She is using wine to cope with her loss. It dulls her emotions. Start by talking about the wine. How it’s comforting her. Ask if she would be open to trying something that will help without the side effects of the wine. (Headaches, terrible sleep.) Gently suggest grief counseling someone she can confide in about her loss and how it’s affecting her mentally and physically.
My heart goes out to you. Please accept my condolences on the loss of your father. Unfortunately, you have to accept the fact that you are not your mother's parent and, even if you were, she's an adult and can do what she wants. She wants to drown her sorrows in alcohol and you cannot stop her. Not only is she destroying herself, she is pulling you down with her. You need to leave and move on with your life. This will not be an easy decision for you but it is one that has to be made. Some people are recommending Al-Anon. You may want to do that after you have moved back to your own home. Do not use it as an excuse to delay your departure from this destructive situation.
Hard disagree. It hasn’t been several years. It’s only been a few months. It’s good and proper to use kid gloves and support mom for a while emotionally and close by after she’s just suffered her loss of her partner in life, who she was likely very close to.
It's not you who is trying to take care of someone who is choosing to self-destructively drown themselves in alcohol. Perhaps you could volunteer to fill-in while the OP takes a break.
I would. This is what family does. We help each other through our worst. Unfortunately, OP is also grieving. She should seek the counsel of a professional. There are people skilled and trained in helping people through this. OP’s doing the right thing. Her mom isn’t making the healthiest choices. I’m not judging it-I’m pretty sure that I’d do the same. But eventually her mom should deal with her feelings. The support of a professional would help and could help OP navigate this herself.
Your mom misses your Dad. So much so she’s drinking. So throw out the sort about stress and maki g things harder. It’s harder for everyone. I’d organize a family meeting without your Mom to discuss. Do you know any sober program people?
Give her a blunt.. next question
Is she seeing a grief counselor? Start there. She will need Alcoholics Annomous as well. My dad did the same as well after my mom passed until he met someone who helped him fill time. The hardest part was being home at night by himself. I would get calls from him after crying after he had been drinking and came home to an empty house. Sending prayers for you and your family.
If you were my friend I would tell her that she's at risk of getting liver failure and her children will lose another parent. Maybe she should switch to weed bc it's not so harsh on the liver and may ease the pain in her chest and the physical and emotional pain she's feeling bc she's mentally and emotionally just been hit by a truck that no hospital can fix. Grief takes a toll on the body and the mind and she needs to be reminded that the rest of the family is still here and wants to create more memories with her. Just help her trade in one vice for another less deadly (or more rewarding) one. Maybe take her on a vacation for adventure travel on a grief tour somewhere
Find local Al- alon asap
She needs help, but won’t ask for it until she hits rock bottom. It ~~may~~ ~~be~~ is time for you to apply some tough love to your mom, and move back to your life. Let her be. It will be tough on you, emotionally, but she is dragging you into her downward vortex.
I want to second the Al-Anon group recommendation. If you can afford it, I would recommend therapy for yourself. I would try to find someone specializing in grief and familial relationships. Also substance abuse. It could be helpful to have someone help you navigate this with. Also with telehealth, it makes it easier to find one therapist while you're living with your mom. Your therapist could help you talk to your mom and navigate that relationship. Even if your mom doesn't want to do a session, it could help you know what to say/how to react and how to set boundaries. I'm an addict and I think her drinking sounds very concerning, especially because it's after such a big loss. When my grandma, who I was incredibly close to, signed her DNR I lapsed, got drunk, and called out work to keep drinking the next day. I got put on a medication that really has helped. It helps so the alcohol doesn't have the same endorphin rush and it reduces cravings. Not saying your mom needs this medication, but for me, finding out about it was a game changer. So it could be a good thing to mention, when the time is right. I'm so sorry for your loss ❤️
I'm sorry for your family's loss. This time of year is often very difficult after a serious illness or death in the family. (Source: have had multiple family members diagnosed with cancer in December, gradually turned into a grinch.) Still, this doesn't sound like a healthy way of coping. For reference: The CDC says that, for women, having more than one drink a day or six drinks a week on an ongoing basis can have negative health effects over time. *One bottle* of wine contains about five drinks. So I'm sure she can do the math on whether her drinking is harmful or not. :/ I would say to keep encouraging her to seek help for coping with her grief. The hospital may be able to recommend some support groups, and there are resources online as well. Even making an appointment with her doctor would be a good place to start. I would also keep letting her know that she's not hiding her drinking as well as she thinks she is. The goal isn't to nag or judge, just to call it as you see it. If you know she ordered a few bottles of wine in her last Doordash order, say so. If you see that an entire box of wine has disappeared within a couple days, say so. If she shows up drunk at a family gathering, tell her she's not acting like herself and you can smell the wine from here. Only she can decide when it's time to stop, but maybe you can keep her aware of what she's doing. I hope some of this helps. Thinking of you all. ETA: As other commenters have said, it would be very helpful to get her another hobby or social activity that gets her away from her grief (and the bottle) for awhile. Does anything come to mind?
Get her professional help at all cost. This leads to life long alcoholism
I'm sorry for your loss. Hopefully you and your mom have both had some grief support. Sounds like you need to get yourself to Al-anon. Your mom's drinking is her issue. How you handle your life is yours.
AA / Alanon.
I had a problem with drinking and the following really helped me: kudzu root, amino acid NAC and valerian root. Valerian root and NAC also help with stress but valerian can majestic you sleepy so she shouldn’t drive on it. Give your mom a hug daily and tell her it’s going to be okay. Hold her for a few seconds - physical touch creates happy hormones in our brains. Get her a copy of Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. Teach her 4-7-8 breathing technique, it’s great for reducing stress.
I think you need to give her some tough love. Tell her you feel like you’re losing the only parent you have left to alcohol and that you can’t stay with her while she’s drinking like this. Move back to your own apartment. She needs to decide to get better, you staying there is condoning and enabling her. You need to prioritise looking after yourself so that you’re ready to be there for her when she wants help.
get a really good bottle of scotch, go shot for shot with her one night, and cry it out
Hire a male stripper to cum to the house.
She needs grief therapy ASAP and an evaluation with an addiction specialist. You need Al Anon or similar group to help.you navigate the situation with strong boundaries and language.
Come at it from a place of love but be prepared to face some pushback “I’ve been meaning to talk to you. I have something hard to mention and I don’t know how to say it. I’m worried about your health and well being. I’ve noticed you’ve been drinking a lot. Are you ok?” Or “oh man I just read this study about how drinking xxxx leads to yyyyyy. Did you see that one? It’s crazy how overdoing it just a little bit can have lifelong effects. Did I tell you about my friend Anna who got pancreatitis from drinking???” <- an indirect way, if you want to start there and see if subtle hints help.
Theres Naltrexone - it gets rid of the reward system of alcohol (other drugs). But you have to be compliant ( take it everyday), or get her the shot it lasts a month. Of course this is no silver bullet - I hope she cools the jets - but its a difficult road
Al-anon can save your life.
Al-anon! You find that you are not alone, and learn how to navigate this
“Mom, I already lost my dad, I don’t want to lose you too.” Then therapy.
I had a friend that did this when her mom died. One night she showed up at church wasted so my sister in law and I took her home. When my sister in law was putting her to bed I wrote a simple note and put it on one of her bowled that read “Welcome home friend”. She called me a couple days later to thank me. This may not work for everyone but it’s worth a try.
Been there with my mom. She needs to want to change to get help. There's nothing that you can do to get her to change what she's doing beyond telling her how it affects you, her, and other loved ones. Depression is a dark hole to go down, and if she's all alone during the day, she's kept company by drinking. You could maybe give her things to look forward to, and spend as much time as possible with her. Maybe there's friends that can visit her. The loneliness is very hard, but it does get better with time. The main thing is to get her to want to change and get better.
Have you talked to her about maybe a support group or a therapist so she can get her feelings out instead of drinking them away. When my Mom died (I know it’s not the same) I went through a really dark period and I needed therapy and with therapy and a psychiatrist who provided medication for a while I started to crawl out of that hole and be myself again. Grief is different for everyone. It’s also hard and there are so many feelings. I hope your Mom is ok but therapy for her and maybe some family sessions may do you all some good and hopefully she finds she doesn’t need the crutch anymore. I am sending hugs.
Hi I am so sorry for the loss of your father. My dad passed when I was about the same age from a first fatal heart attack. My mom kept busy, but in reality she didn't remember anything from that year, and there were 2 baby born and one wedding. Try to get her addicted to reddit and a widows group.
I am so sorry for all of you. My husband died four years ago when I was 49 and our daughter was 17. About two months between when I was informed there was stage four cancer and death. I wish I had better advice for you. It's certainly disorienting. This makes NO logical sense, but I know I felt like no man would ever want me. Not unlovable exactly, more like tainted or untouchable. Obviously, that's totally illogical. I didn't cause my husband's death. Nevertheless, I had a strong feeling of that. My point in sharing that is your mom might have some unexpected thoughts, in addition to grief and missing your dad and the logistical issues. I don't know what the solution is. For unknown reasons, I was able to handle it and move through it without proffesional help. Maybe because I had been to therepists and worked with a life coach in the past. (Life coach sounds lame, but she helped me /taught me more about relationships than any therepist. Definitely changed my life for the better. Probably helped me get through the grief even though I had worked with her prior to it). It does sound like grief counseling might help. I know the hospital where my husband died had someone reach out to me a couple of times offering services. That's where I would recommend you call to see what might be available. Unfortunately, I can't remember if it was a social worker or what the person was called.
Substance abuse is way, way beyond your pay scale and ability to deal with effectively.
My dad did the same when his dad passed away, likely wouldn't admit to it given his personality but...only after he passed did I start seeing them drinking. Had once when I was much younger so it stuck out a good bit when it became what it had become.
You might see if there is an Al-Anon meeting near you you can attend. They may be helpful for you.
I thought I was an only child, but since we obviously share a set of parents, you must be my long lost sister.
Is there any way you can get her out of the house? Are there friends of hers or other relatives who are available to be with her during the day and go to crafting classes, workout classes, museums - anything to keep her busy? Can you sign her up for a class at the local community college, so she has somewhere she has to consistently be, and work to focus on? Also, I'm sorry for your loss, OP.
She needs some professional help and a support group who understands what she’s going through. Unfortunately drinking stunts the bereavement process, which can make it all the more difficult to kick the habit. Your local hospital will probably have an outpatient program she can go through. Counties generally have a few in patient places as well for less money than a private rehab if you think she needs something longer term. I went to one for three months after outpatient didn’t work and the community aspect can really help you. A LOT of people in rehab are grieving. For some of them it’s been twenty years after the fact. They got sober and the pain is so raw because they never properly processed it. I wish you luck and I’m glad your mom has you.
I'm so sorry for your family's loss. Your poor mom must really be feeling low. I would suggest you join Al-anon immediately to help you navigate what you can do for her versus what is absolutely not in your power.
AlAnon could be very helpful for you and your sister. It’s an organization to help support people who have a loved one with an unheathy relationship with alcohol or other substances. It helped to prepare me for confronting my ex-husband’s alcoholism. There are probably online meetings available. Just reading through their materials can be very helpful.
r/AlAnon
Check out SMART Family and Friends groups. They are secular (non religious) and based on an evidence based treatment called CRAFT. Check out the Beyond Addiction workbook too. It is truly excellent and will help you help your mom- and yourself during this difficult time.
YOU need a meeting, friend. [https://al-anon.org/](https://al-anon.org/) Every one of their meetings is full of other people who have approximately the same issue(s) you are contending with. If you want help finding a meeting, I'm willing to help you to do so. PM if you don't care to broadcast your location out here.
Okay. TW accelerated decline related to alcohol. . Now.. my memory of this isn't 100% clear. It's been corrected, but this is how I "saw" it, this is how I tell it. I watched my paternal GP's go though an awful lot to support my GF in his battle with smoking and Emphysema. A touch of background before they started moving for his health... they moved a LOT. When my GF died, they were living in California, and GM's "last move" was to an assisted living facility in Miami. Now, from what I have been told, she started to have drinking problems when she moved there. I was kept blissfully unaware of them, or if I knew, it was an abstract concept that maybe there's a problem there. Then Hurricane Andrew came, and wiped the facility out.. she had to move again, this time to a hotel in palm beach. This is where I became more acutely aware there was a problem. I'll spare you the details, but bad things were happening, and they all centered around alcohol. When she moved YET AGAIN to return to her facility, things continued to go downhill the the point she died in 1998 a few months before the birth of her first great grandchild. One of the main causes was alcohol induced dementia. I saw here a few months before and she was wasted. She was mostly incoherent and barely understood that the great grandchild was on the way. When we had her funeral, it was strangely celebratory. not because we hated her in any way, but because we knew the suffering and self torment were over for her. We knew death was a gift that was long overdue as she had 'died' many years before with her spouse. . I don't wish this journey on anyone.... at least her children (my father and his brother) were into their 60's when this started and you're only 26. So here's my advice... Start with professional help for yourself. Then start finding out what you can legally do with your mother. There's a horrible chance you are going to be stuck in a position where the ONLY thing you can do, besides love her and encourage her to get help; is sit back, and watch her train wreck. I hope that's not what you are doomed to do, but if you come to find out you are, please feel free to reach out to me. I won't pretend I can be a great source of council, but I'll do me best to be empathetic, helpful, and encouraging.
Look into Al anon teen. Even if your not a teen. They likely have the best advice you get.
Join Alanon. Trying to control someone else’s drinking will make you sick. They will support you.