My mother has been drinking now for roughly twenty years and her situation only ever worsens.
As she gets older she comes up with more problems to worry about and more reasons to validate her drinking.

Since I moved out of home, the situation is no better for me as I am speaking to her on a daily basis with nearly every other day her being drunk.
I must point out my mum is not what you would call a heavy drinker but because she is on various drugs for her unrelated conditions, if she decides to have a bottle
of wine of an afternoon, within a couple of glasses she is already gone and worse than your average drunk as the alcohol mixed with perscription drugs results in a zombie type
state to the point where she will collapse somewhere.

She has already broken her leg becuase of this a couple of years ago. At that time she was unable to drink for 6 months which I thought might be a turning point as
it gave her a drying out period. However once able to drive again, and go to shops it was back to square one. She now also buys small bottles of spirits which she hides around the home to drink when she can't get out.

My mum and dads marriage is not a particularly happy one but then although my mum has had opportunities to leave it hasn't happened so I have accpeted that it's pointles
trying to change this unless she wants to.

My dad works outdoors and his work comes first and is quite happy working seven days a week and not going out.
Of course living in the country is quite isolating which I think contributes a lot to my mums drinking. Also to complicate matters
I think my mum has issues from her childhood that she still has not resolved. Obviously in an ideal world she would be having councilling but it is an uphill
struggle to get her to consider seeing anyone.

In all her years of drinking and all the arguments, she has not once admitted to me or herself that she has a problem. As far as she sees it she drinks
because of other people and problems and if these didn't exist she wouldn't need to drink.

I feel pretty helpless now living away from home as with my mum ringing me daily drunk it feels like groundhog day.

I do have older brothers but we are quite a disjointed family and it is hard involving other people as my dad for one is very private.
To anyone outside, my mum and dad would seem a very gentle country couple but since my mums drinking has recently worsened neighbours and friends do have an idea to some extent.

To give you an idea of how my mum thinks, my brother got married a few months ago in London. My mum spent the lead up to the wedding worrying about things especially travelling
as since breaking her leg, she has constant pain due to the breaks not healing properly. As much as you try to reassure someone and make things as easy as possible I thought
my mum would cope with it but on the wedding day I had a call from my dad early in the morning to say that my mum was flat out cold on her bedroom floor. I had to drive there, get my mum
off the floor, get water down her and dress her from head to toe before getting her in the car and sobering her up so that she could stand for the wedding. Fortunatley it was later in the afteroon
and no one there would have had much of an idea. It was one of the most stressful days I have ever had with my mum's drinking but is unfortunately not unusual.

My dad doesn't do anything as it has become the norm and his only way of dealing with something is having a blazing argument. I do sometimes think my mum would be better off in some sort of housing where there is a community and people to do stuff for her though I'm not sure how much of her drinking is due to her situation or whether it is purely now just an addiction.

I have been to see her GP so it is now on her records and I am going back with the hope that I can take her too. I want to try and make some kind of constructive plan but it is difficult to know where to start especially when the person is unwilling to even face up to the problem. I had also thought of maybe a rehab type setup as I think my mum would beneift from being taken out of her situation and looked after by professionals for a while.

I think she really needs a combination of councilling and also rehab to dry her out.

Has anyone had a similar experience or is currently having to deal with stuff like this?

I would appreciate any constructive advice or suggestions for how to go about dealing with this.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Getting one out off the drinking is not an easy task. To achieve your goal needs serious dedications from both of you & your mother. You can try yoga & meditation procedure. But i prefer to use yoga. Good luck!

Hi I just registered here to try and find some type of understanding for an issue that is affecting my own life and causing me a lot of sadness just now. But having read your ownpost and having had experience of a parents drinking myself I thought I might try and offer you some comfort however small it may be.

I was brought up with a father who drank alcoholically despite the fact that he had a job in construction and a wife and four kids to support. As you can imagine that played havoc with our family finances and so along with the ever present threat of drunken bouts of domestic abuse (mainly shouting and lots of arguing) our home was what you would call dysfunctional. All homes are were there is an addiction problem like alcohol or gambling or drugs etc. I don't mean to be rude but I'm guessing your mother may be addicted to prescription drugs as well as alcohol as she passes out having taken both you say ?

Anyway as an adult man my upbringing left me with very low self esteem, zero confidnce in my self and my abilities and a prone-ness to stress and depression. I find it impossible to allow people to be intimate with me as I cannot trust people very well and always expect them to harm me in some way than do me good if I allow them in. These are great indicators that I suffered abuse by being brought up in an dysfunctional environement were alcohol abuse was the main theme.

I won't go into too much detail but I did join a support group called Al Anon once and spent several years with them trying to understand my own and my families problems. You see it is a family illness and it does affect everyone connected to the drinker, even friends can be affected in a negative way.

What I learned was that it is impossible to stop anyone from drinking or gambling or taking drugs etc. The road to recovery lies in accepting this and accepting the drinker has his own will and will do what he wants to do regardless and so looking after oneself first.

When my mum used to try and stop my dad drinking or even when I tried to persuade him we would do it by shouting at him and trying to get him to see how angry his drinking was making us but as I said this is counter productive. As is picking them up, forcing them to get dressed and washed and sober and taking on their adult responsibilites that they should be taking for themselves.

Someone put it to me like this and I thought it rang very true. Pleading and shouting at an problem drinker or alcoholic or crying at them is akin to whipping an already beaten dog. The poor creature will just go away first chance and console himself in alcohol etc.

Anyway I feel in my heart your best chance is to seek help form others who have this type of problem in their life and groups like al anon are the best at this as they know the score exactly as they are the one's who live with it. There you can get support and understanding from others and this is waht is needed for recovery if that miracle is to happen. My own dad still drinks and so I haven't had the miracle as to date but many in al anon have.

I wish you well and I hope you find the answer, I also hope I have'nt offended you in any way as this subject is very sensitive and involves our loved ones.

Thank you for listening to me.

Well I think you had a serious problem regarding with your mom..it is not easy for your mom to withdraw from what she has used to. I think she has to undergo some sessions that might help her.you can't omit it immediately but maybe you can help her to lessen her consumption one at a time so it would not be so hard for her to do so.