[teejai]

Since being told that her liver has repaired it self a couple of months or so ago my mother has been back on the booze.
She says it's only cheap therefore weak sherry(15% proof) to justify it ie it's not as though she's drinking whisky.
Yesterday it really hit home how much she has got back into boozing. Soon after i got there two delivery men delivered the new cooker,washing machine and hoover she had ordered. She got quite stroppy when they told her it wasn't their job to unpack the items. Nick(my brother) and i were getting more and more embarrassed by how outspoken and rude she was being . She had that bossy/dictatorial/haughty/in your face/belligerent/provocative/ attitude that i've seen many times before in the past. How they kept their cool with her i do not know.
Then when we unpacked the cooker(Nick and i) she found a tiny scratch on the cooker.Nick said that some white enamel would cover it. She didn't think much of that idea.Cue phone call to the place she got it from and 20 minutes or so of mouthing off at the bloke she dealt with in the shop.
She of course had to let Nick and i i that you had to be firm with people/let them know what's what and how good she was at handling such situations .
They agreed to bring a different cooker .Probably because they could not face another rant from her on the phone if they didn't.

By the evening she had gone into maudlin reminiscing mode . A mode i dread from past experience as often she would then become belligerent and dictatorial and latch on to harmless enough comment as an excuse to rant about how she knows how much we like our father and how no good we are etc ie it can all turn very dark and nasty very quickly.

Nick stayed out of the way a lot pottering in the garden. I think though he won't admit it things are getting on top of him not just because of my mum but like me because of the forthcoming benefit changes.

If she carries on then at best she will alienate the carers who come in and at worst she'll get into the awful state she was in that lead to her going several months later into hospital for just over 6 months.
Let's just say the place was absolutely disgusting. Nick,Jane(my sister) and i all worked together to clear it up. I could only stay 90 minutes or so because of my wife(who was still alive then and suffering from vascular dementia) but in that time i had filled 5 black rubbish bags with all kinds of crap.
In her bedroom alone there were literally hundreds upon hundreds of cigarette butts spilling over on to the floor from the small ashtray on her bedside cabinet.
It took a major effort after i went for my brother and sister to get it reasonably presentable.

It of course doesn't help that Nick is well and truly back on the cannabis(one of the carer's who comes into mum gets it for him) so if he says too much to her about her drinking there will be a replay of the tit for tat that went on before. Her slamming him for doing drugs and him in turn slamming her for drinking.

A strong part of me wants to get in contact with her social worker and make her aware of the situation but Nick is to say the least quite erratic himself not only when it comes to his own moods inc quite a lot of paranoia but also when it comes to how he is over my mum.
IE he gets really uptight and browned off with her because admittedly he is the one there with her most of the time but if i chipped in he could very easily get cross with me for, in his eyes, ,getting it wrong/doing more harm than good.
He has a bit of a control freak attitude towards how we should play things when it comes to my mother.

I can see her going into hospital again(though i hope i'm wrong)from a fall or such like. As she so fond of letting Nick and i/the carers and anyone else she can know her balance leaves a lot to be desired.
It is of course a product of the years of drinking but trying to tell her that falls on deaf ears.
Now she's back on the drink the balance problem will if anything get worse.

[TaintedGoth1]

I'm sorry to hear that your mother is back to drinking. As a granddaughter of an alcoholic and having many relatives that are alcoholics as well, I do know about the harsh realities of dealing with someone who drinks to this extreme.

I don't have any wise words but I just wanted to let you know that I'm here if you needed to talk. Living with alcoholism is so hard and at times unbearable.

[wisewoman]

I believe, after 20 ish ears working w/elderly and disabled that you must push the alcohol issue and that she can, if she wants, get clean. I have seen it. And then I have seen the other side so only you know for sure. I am sorry you are in such pain. I hope that things improve for you. Peace.

[Doh2007]

I'm so sorry that you have this in your life. Do whatever you need to take care of yourself and protect yourself from the craziness.