I’ve been lurking here for a little bit; this is my first post.
the alcoholic in my life, my aunt, reentered our family’s life 6 years ago and then blew up her own life because of her drinking (lost her legal practice and was disbarred). she has been to inpatient rehab (I think 6 weeks), but I later found out lied to me about how she ended up there, telling me *she* reached out for help — I later found out her husband and children staged an intervention. she says she is sober, but I believe she’s still drinking and hiding and lying about it. no, I *know* she is. she has showed up to at least one family gathering drunk and has sent me what I’d bet my life are drunken texts. I don’t know how long this has been going on or how severe the drinking is because she is so secretive, but the more time I spend with her, the worse I suspect it is. her short-term memory seems to be severely impaired. she’ll have zero memory of a conversation from days ago — hell, from the day before.
I’d appreciate any advice you can offer about when “support” crosses the line into controlling behavior. my mother says we should avoid drinking in front of our aunt (I don’t drink, so it’s a moot point for me) and even mentioning alcohol or the subject of drinking — she once got upset with me when I made an unthinking allusion to alcohol in my aunt’s presence. my mom sometimes seems preoccupied with figuring out when her sister has been drinking and *why*, what exactly set her off. this last seems fruitless to me. it seems to me she drinks because… she drinks, and it’s no deeper than that — and more to the point, our obsessing about “why” she drinks helps no one. not her, not us.
I’ve found relief in the mindset I seen on this sub and in the three Cs, and I’m under no illusion that I can control or change my aunt. but I have no prior experience with alcoholism or alcoholics, and I don’t want to obliviously do something to make things worse for her. besides the obvious/egregious — like buying or offering her alcohol — is there anything I should avoid? or is that in itself the “wrong” question to be asking?