My mother is an alcoholic. she doesn't drink socially, she drinks daily and to a horrifying extreme. I have seen the level of her vodka bottle in the fridge and she is drinking over a liter of vodka a day. To put that into perspective, a liter is 33.8 ounces of liquid. A mixed drink by Indiana law will only have 1.5 ounces of liquor in it, 2.5 if it is a double. Broken down, my mother is drinking just over 16 mixed drinks a day. To make matters worse, she is not drinking her drinks out of a rocks glass as most drinks are, she is filling a 16 ounce red solo cup with a splash of a mixer and some ice. Typically, she only has three, but I know she can have more.
She justifies this by saying that "I take care of myself, I pay my bills, I am 65 years old and don't have any responsibilities to anyone but myself. I can drink if I want to." But she doesn't see that it deeply effects everything around her. Like her relationship with me.
My mother surrounds her with people who enable her, who take advantage of her. Her boyfriend didn't hold a job for 6 years when they first met, and would drink with her daily. he would consume a 12 pack of heineken a day. He didn't have a license but drove her Z28 or her mercedes always. He convinced her to invest thousands of dollars into one scheme after another that ended up fizzling out. And he still comes around now that I am back in her life after 5 long years of being out of it. This is just a brief recap of this man.
She has a trusted friend Christine who in a drunken tiff, left my mothers house and met some stranger at a bar, did lines of coke, and then when she couldn't drive herself, brought this coked up girl back to my mothers house. Then left her in the living room for 5 hours until I came over and my mother woke up. Long story short, after getting this girl out of there and driving her home, we come to find out that she kept Christine's car keys as well as my mothers house keys for 2 days. Christine is another drunk, who can only drink with my mom and the two of them can really tear it up going through a bottle of vodka and then some in an evening.
There are so many people in my mothers life whom do this, take advantage of her, con her into spending money, con her into investing money, buying this and that. At one point, my mother had 4 phones on her cellular plan one for her, one for sam, and two for his friends.
I moved to Florida to rekindle that relationship with my mother after my health scare in May where I was in the hospital for 7 days and had not eaten solid food for the whole time. I had called my mother to tell her that I still loved her, that I didn't hate her even after 5 years of not speaking. I wanted her to know that after being close to death twice because of my health, that she was still my mom and in my heart. I truly wanted to die. After reconnecting with my mom, I went back into the hospital two more times, this time going without food or liquid for 10 days and then 12 days because I would get sick after eating and throw up. I lived off of saline each time I went into the hospital. She convinced me to move to Florida to be closer to her, that we could reconnect, that we could rebuild a relationship.
But after 8 weeks here, I don't think that I can do this. I can't watch my mother surround herself with people who don't care about her, who use her, who take advantage of her especially when she drinks. I can't stick around here when I watch her drink herself to death. I have diabetes, and after doing a score of tests, everything would come back great except my A1C. Blood work, stress tests, MRI's, Heart scans... all of it would come back great. But being cavalier with my diabetes has come with some serious consequences. I have neuropathy all over my body from my feet to my stomach. My vision is going. My teeth are rotting, my chest is tight. And I see the same with my mother and her drinking. She can't continue to drink like she is without serious consequences. I am lost right now because I cant watch this but I also cant leave and allow her to die. She won't accept help,. she thinks she doesn't need help, nor will she even go to therapy with me to see what is wrong.
I am seriously lost