Recovery

My mother is an alcoholic. I was the daughter who pampered her through it all and took the abuse. She is a very mean drunk. Last year I experienced a breakdown as I was still allowing her to control my life. This wasn't good for me or my family.

I am married with two children under the age of four. I am thankful for the breakdown as I sought help in dealing with my alcoholic mother. I tried many years to help her and begged her to get help, to no avail, while enduring hours and hours of drunken abuse.

Recently, after realizing I had to control my life, we tried a family intervention and it didn't work. We may try again with a professional interventionist, but for now I have placed boundaries. I told my mother we--my husband, children, and I--couldn't see her until she gets help.

My question is this. My 3-year-old daughter asks almost daily about going to see grandma. She saw her frequently before we issued the ultimatum. She loves my mother, and my mom treats the children well while maintaining a "happy drunk" when they are around. At least, most of the time.

So what do we tell our daughter? She is a smart little girl, very verbal and very thoughtful. Is it okay to explain grandma is an alcoholic? It breaks my heart every time she asks, "Can grandma come to dinner with us?" I don't want to tell her grandma is sick, as she has dealt with family members and surgery and knows we visit and support people when they are ill.

Megan

Megan, congratulations. Isolating yourself and your family from the craziness and abuse of your alcoholic mother is something which took a great deal of courage, and it is something which will pay pidends in the future.

Alcoholic parents inflict a huge injustice on their children. They reverse roles. These parents act like children, and their children are forced to parent their parent. No child should have to endure that. The result is children of alcoholics go through each day with a sense of dread, never sure when chaos will erupt. They double-think themselves even as adults.

The hard fact about chemical dependency is that it ruptures families. Blood may be thicker than water, but it isn't thicker than booze. Or drugs. That's just the way it is. We may not like it, but that's the way it is. Keeping a chemically dependent person in our life may be the ruin of our life.

In our experience interventions usually fail. If you are thinking about a professional intervention and it involves a large financial outlay, don't think about your mother. Think about your family. Unless money is of no concern, the money is better spent on your own family and things under your control.

You suffered for years under an abusive drunk. Enough is enough. You must protect yourself and your children. Aside from the obvious, there is another simple reason to keep your mother away from the children. We go to the familiar. The fisherman's son becomes a fisherman. If your children grow up around an inebriate, it will be familiar. They may accept a potential mate with the same problem.

You have a deep relationship with your daughter. You have a natural conversational style with her. She's a smart little girl. Explain to her what the problem is. Explain what life as a little girl was like for you. Distinguish between the kinds of illness your daughter is used to and the problem your mother has.

Let your daughter know this is not only hard for her, but hard for you as well. However, even though this is hard, it is something which must be done. It's like getting a vaccination for polio. It's going to hurt, but it absolutely must be done.

Wayne & Tamara

Authors and columnists Wayne and Tamara Mitchell can be reached at http://www.wayneandtamara.com/