Therapy with alcoholic parent?
Has anyone been to therapy with their alcoholic parent?
My mother has struggled with alcoholism (and depression and insomnia and previously misusing sleeping pills) since I was about 12 years old. I am 36 now. It was really bad when I was a teenager and in my 20s, but it got a lot better once she got the right medicine for her insomnia, and that thankfully happened just before I had kids ish. Now she never touches alcohol in front of me and my kids (I set a hard boundary here after an episode) and very rarely/never drinks alone, according to my dad. But she still drinks with friends, for instance last weekend my dad was away and she had a friend over, they shared a bottle of wine and then after the friend leaves my mom finishes another bottle on her own. So it seems she is in a place where she can abstain to a certain degree but cannot control herself once she takes a glass. I’ve told her before I think she should quit completely but she claims she can control it. Obviously in denial. My dad says she will stay in bed the entire next day.
I’m so fed up and after going through therapy I know I can’t change her and I’ve finally learned to set some sort of boundary (after years and years of feeling guilty for being upset with her..). But my kids adore her and I just don’t want to give up completely. I want her to really know everything, how it makes us feel. I also want my dad to stop enabling her, he told me they often share a bottle of wine. Why?!!?????? Ugh. So frustrating. I’m really disappointed in him too even if I know my mom has to be willing to change. But he always let me down in my youth and I guess I still carry resentment there too for letting me be so much alone with my super alcoholic mother when I was a teenager.
ANYWAY if you read this far - thank you! Would love to hear other peoples experiences if you can relate somehow.
Being an adult child is really complicated and stressful.