My mother has always been a difficult, stubborn and independent woman with an alcohol problem that was largely mitigated by my father when he was alive. Since his death seven years ago, she has been in a spiral of anger, depression and alcohol dependency. She has been verbally abusive, is full of resentment and rage that her life is not what she wants it to be, is lonely and, at 72, believes she has nothing to live for despite having children, grandchildren, friends and family. Over the past 18 months she has become largely voluntarily bed-ridden, drinks all day, suffers from depression, has a poor diet, doesn’t exercise and has no interests. She is drinking herself to death and refusing to seek any advice or support.
My brother and I live overseas and we Skype her each weekend; she also has friends and family literally knocking on her door, but refuses all help. She is financially secure, with a wonderful life available to her, and we have all been trying to motivate her by encouraging her to be well enough to visit us, but we are at an impasse; she will not seek medical assistance or let friends or family help. I am unable to speak to her doctor, because he will not take my call and discuss a patient. I do not know what else I can do. She had a mental-health assessment last year, and her struggles have been documented and shared with her doctor formally, but nothing has changed. My aunt, brother and I do have power of attorney for her assets, but not her health and welfare.
What you want is to save your mother but you can’t unless she is willing to save herself: it’s a cliche, but you really need to start believing it. So you need to learn to build emotional boundaries. You’ve already built physical ones by living on the other side of the world from your tricky mother but, emotionally, you are still very enmeshed with her and, as she’s highly manipulative, some separating out is vital to stop you being hurt.
I use a visual aid to help me with emotional boundaries. Imagine you are sitting on one side of a thick, glass barrier, and the other person is on the other side. You can see the person, but you can do your bit only “up to the glass”. You can’t stop the other person from doing what they want, and sometimes you have to sit and watch them self-destruct. It can really help you to understand that, sometimes, you can only do so much – the rest is up to them. You have to learn to let go.
Addictions specialist and psychotherapist (and a former addict himself), Mike Delaney (bacp.co.uk), says that addictions are often based in past trauma. He explains that people with addictions “can become really arrogant, but what they feel underneath it all is shame. Anger is usually the default, easy-to-go-to, secondary emotion. It pushes people away.” And this pushing away allows them to avoid facing up to their situation; the cycle of shame, anger, denial and the need to blot everything out with the addiction continues.
I know you and your brother feel guilty for living on the other side of the world, but I think this is a good thing. Even if you lived nearby – and plenty of people who care about her do – she would refuse help and you would just feel even more wretched.
It’s true the GP can’t discuss your mother with you, but you could write a letter explaining the situation again and saying it’s not improved. You could also call the social services department in her area and talk about what, if anything, can be done. You mention having power of attorney; even if you had that for health and welfare, it would kick in only if your mother no longer had the capacity to act for herself.
You might want to consider writing to her to say you love her and that if she wants help, you are there for her. It may help remind you that you have offered her something concrete.
Finally, take the emotion out of it and think about this practically: what can you do? Not very much beyond what’s mentioned above and what you already do. It’s not going to be easy. Watching a loved one do this to themselves is heartbreaking, but it is your mother’s choice; you haven’t done this to her and you can’t save her on your own.
Look into ways of supporting yourself, too – there will be organisations where you live that support the families of alcoholics.
• Send your problem to annalisa.barbieri@mac.com. Annalisa regrets she cannot enter into personal correspondence.
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