Coffee Break: Bella Flat
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Any advice on dealing with a parent who drinks too much?
I’m finding my (mid 60s) mom is getting agitated and aggressive during and after group dinners. She often picks fights with family members and doesn’t seem to acknowledge or fully remember the next day.
I’m on the other side of the country, so I’m hearing bits and pieces of these arguments through friends and family. I’m growing increasingly worried about her wellbeing.
Has anyone been here before? I’m at a bit of a loss on if I can help, or if I should just accept her behavior and set my own boundaries.
This sounds like a time when an al-anon family group would be really useful.
As to whether you can help, that would depend on your relationship with your mother, what you know about her drinking and how long it’s been going on, what she’s tried in the past, what you’ve tried to do/say in the past, how open she is to change, etc.
I’m so sorry; if you’re posting about it here and hearing from various friends and family, then this is a complex situation with no easy answer.
i would be hesitant about involving myself if i hadn’t observed first hand.
A lot of people who are bad at emotional regulation pick fights for dopamine because they find it fun.
See also: many of the comments here.
also, with significant overlap, litigators
Nothing you can do from across the country, but I would visit soonish because that can be a symptom of other issues.
I’m not dealing with this, but a friend’s parent started off this way and the problem got much, much worse over time. I think you’re right to be worried. I also think drinking too much isn’t the kind of thing people just freely choose. If it were, people wouldn’t lose their inclination to drink when taking relevant medications. So to me it doesn’t fall squarely into the “respect and accept people’s choices” category either.
Advice from someone whose dealt with other issues from a far – few things. First, you need to visit her for a good week, preferably staying with her. A lot can be covered up for a day or two, but by a week you start to see the cracks. Second, you won’t see everything in a week and you really need to rely on those closer (especially if they are also your siblings) for their assessment. You will see the cracks, but not everything that they are seeing from day to day. Third, if she’s receptive, make sure that all her annual appointments and bloodwork. She’s at the age where other stuff can explain the agitated and aggressive.
Yes, if drinks are affecting her differently, there could be a medical reason. There are also medical treatments even if the entire problem is drinking too much.
What are those treatments?
Does she live alone? Has she always been a drinker / alcoholic?
I agree with the others that it sounds like it is time to go see her, and stay with her, and to if she is exhibiting signs of other changes in her thinking, behavior or mood. And the best would be accompanying her to a doctor’s appointment.
It is common to have more difficulty with alcohol with aging, as your brain ages and collects injuries from a lifelong of exposures/genetic changes. And all of these issues are worse later in the day / evening. And if she is developing any mood changes or early dementia, this will be worsened by alcohol and in the evenings too.
I had a relative with very similar behavior. I warned her kids/husband that she really needed to cut down on her alcohol use, but they didn’t understand the concern. She eventually fell, standing up from a “social” dinner with a friends after her usual heavy alcohol use. She didn’t even realize that being on a mild blood thinner for a medical issue meant hat that her minor stumble, without even hitting her head, lead to a bleed in her brain and a rapid decline into dementia.
Thanks all. My parents have both been social drinkers for as long as I’ve been aware.
I’ve seen my mom’s behavior a handful of times over the last 2-3 years. Often times she’ll feel left out or left behind in a conversation, start monologuing on a favorite topic, before picking a fight over a (perceived) slight.
I thought this was more of a personality quirk (rampant and untreated ADHD runs in the family), but I’m hearing that she’s been drunk when this has happened in the last year. And that the fights are occurring much earlier in the day than it has been in the past.
Given this background, I’d be inclined to believe the people who are saying this is a problem. I have seen late middle-age and elderly family members deal with alcohol abuse, and I know it’s not pretty. It’s also not something you have to accept and take a “live and let live” approach about. It may take speaking up multiple times, or drawing boundaries if the behaviors affect you directly. You obviously can’t force someone to get help but you can speak up. I hate to say it, but often a terrible situation (accident, injury) is the only thing that leads to someone getting the help they need.
Has she had her hearing checked? Your comment that she feels left out or left behind in a conversation plus monologuing makes me wonder about whether she has hearing loss and could benefit from hearing aids and people knowing that she needs them to speak more clearly to her. The people who I know with hearing loss talk about feeling left out of conversations and I have seen others start to do all the talking so that they feel like they’re part of the conversation because they’re talking and don’t miss out on what they don’t hear.
Hearing loss does not appear to be the largest problem here, but it could be contributing.
Oh yes this x1000. My MIL loves to tell long stories from her kids’ childhoods but cannot keep up with a group convo at dinner. She’s suppose to wear aids… but doesn’t.
Is no one interested in treating the ADHD? (Alcohol had no appeal for me the last time I was on bupropion for ADHD; it was really striking!)
My mom (with untreated ADHD) sounds exactly the same except that she quit drinking a while back, and the fights are more passive aggressive.
The ADHD makes me think starting fights is inappropriate dopamine seeking
It really sounds that way.
It depends a lot on your relationship with your mom and whether she’d be receptive. My mom worships the medical profession, so suggesting she talk to her doctor and/or do bloodwork would probably be received in a positive way. It might be a medication interaction, hearing loss, or some other medical problem that is causing the aggression and agitation.
Do any of you come from families where one child is moderately successful and one just lives a very different life? When I was younger, I was the one who was told by the “pretty” sibling who went to a SLAC and married a doctor that “at least I have someone to live for,” when I was single and nearing 30. I borrowed to get a graduate degree and struggled to move forward in my career and wasn’t conventionally attractive. Ultimately, I have done OK, but it’s always felt like a struggle to move up in the world and that without that, I’d probably be at home living in my parents’ basement still. But my sister would up divorced and angry that her social circle is gone and her income is reduced. I think that on a day-to-day basis, things for me are fine, but encountering her and family around the holidays tell me how lucky I am and how bad my sister has it (“she needs a vacation! she has to get away from things! She shouldn’t have to work in the summer.”) just grates. I could use a vacation, too, but no one has ever felt sorry for me.
Good Lord! I would MUCH rather be the “lucky” one than the one everybody feels sorry for!! But… certainly I am happy to commiserate with you and tell you that yes, everybody including you certainly could use a vacation. And self-made people like you need it more than most!
Right? My mom spent a lot of time worry about my “broken stair” sibling, but not about the other two of us who really had our lives together. But it was sort of a compliment, in hindsight, that she didn’t feel she needed to worry about us. She knew we could do it, and we have.
OP that’s probably the case with your mom. Your sister doesn’t actually sound like she can handle her new life, and you’re handling your own admirably. You don’t really want your mom to pity you, right?
I mean, I live a moderately successful life as a mid-level back office professional who just cracked a six figure income in a MCOL area. My only sibling lives off the grid on a compound with her deadbeat spouse and their 7 or 8 & counting kids, and only surfaces when she tries to bum money off our elderly grandpa because both her and her husband refuse to get jobs and think welfare should enable them more than it does.
I really am envious of people who just yolo life. Being risk adverse I have self imposed golden handcuffs. Life seems a lot easier when you aren’t acutely aware of reality.
I’m from a family that never had enough money, and I definitely picked up on the constant stress about it, even from a very young age.
As a result, all of my adult choices have been very, very, very safe. It’s funny to now hear my Gen Z kids say “I don’t care about money.” Easy to say when you’ve always had it!
My two cousins grew up in a family that struggled to make end’s meet. One brother went into finance and makes $$$ because he was determined to never be poor again – he now lives in a 7k square ft house in Short Hills, NJ.
The other brother pursued his passion because he had lived his whole life without money so why start now? After about a decade of hustling, he has finally struck it big and actually now makes more than his brother. But, he didn’t go into the field for the money but rather for the love of the game.
It’s hard to feel that bad when someone who likes nice things doesn’t have them anymore when you have never had nice things.
Everyone in my extended family got married young and had matching sets of towels, crystal, China, etc. I had to sleep on the couch when I went to family events since married people got all the bedrooms.
I eventually stopped going to started staying at a hotel. I needed a vacation after those trips.
It’s not quite in the same vein, but we’re childfree and our siblings on both sides have kids. This means it’s always on us to be flexible with schedules, traveling, activities, etc.
On one hand, I get it. Kids have school, it’s more expensive to fly with a family of 5 than a family of 2, toddlers literally can’t physically do certain activities, etc.
But it’s the assumption that the limitations for those with kids are Very Important, Must Be Respected, and The Right Way. There’s zero sense of reciprocation or recognition of the milestones in our life, yet we’re expected to accommodate the smallest milestones for our nieces and nephews and their parents.
The reality is that everyone wants to be accommodated, do their thing for vacation, spend money on their own priorities, etc. Our tactic has been to set boundaries and just deal with any snide comments about why we didn’t fly across the country for nephew’s 3rd birthday party or niece’s preschool graduation ceremony. And sometimes we rant to each other about feeling slighted that our families never visit us, come to our events, etc. Focusing on the fact that we love the life we’ve chosen, we celebrate each other, and we’ve set decent boundaries helps keep the resentment at bay.
I don’t want to be That Commentor, but do you view your nieces/nephews as people who are important to you? This complaint reads a little like the kids are inconvenient pets or hobbies that your siblings decided to pick up.
That’s not how I read it at all! Being expected to fly across the country for a three-year old’s birthday party is insane, and I’d be frustrated about those expectations too.
I get the frustration over snide comments for an unreasonable expectation, but the expectation of reciprocation struck me as weird too (with kids it’s paying it forward, not reciprocating, right?).
By all means, skip the preschool graduation. But you need to grow up if you are resentful about having to accommodate the needs of children. Have some respect that families deal with complexities that you can’t fully appreciate.
There’s child-free, and then there’s competing with children but as a full grown adult in charge of one’s own life. I’m not sure that you sound like you get it. I’m glad you’ve kept the resentment at bay though!
Speaking as the childed person with a childfree sibling and childfree-siblings-in-law, I’m sorry you are the target of snide comments. I think children’s birthday parties are dull (ditto graduations) and I would never expect people to travel for that kind of thing!
I do try to invite people to stuff, but I understand that other adults have lives and things that are important to them!
This. I have kids. I find the responses that OP received baffling. OP, you sound fine. The responses sound like they may have some baggage.
Not OP but thank you for saying this. It may be t baggage showing up, but these comments sounded to me like the same old comments and attitude that the childless are accustomed to getting of “why don’t you understand that you’re just not that important since you’re not a mother.”
Thanks Seventh Sister and AIMS, I think people misread that I wanted the children to reciprocate and/or I think the children have unreasonable expectations.
I meant that our parents have unreasonable expectations, and there’s no sense of reciprocation in terms of effort, acknowledgement, or support for the big milestones in our life.
For example, my mother gets upset if all her children and grandchildren aren’t together on the holidays, but my brother doesn’t hear these rants because “he has kids, so it’s different”. I agree! He should be with his kids on Christmas morning! But that means that I shouldn’t be taking the blame for the family “not being together” when I’ve traveled to your house for the holidays, and he can’t be bothered to drive across town. That’s not an issue with my niece and nephew, that’s an issue with my mother.
My partner competes at an elite level in their sport, literally competing in the Olympic trials and World Championships. Their family has never attended any of their events, but gets upset that we don’t come to nephew’s t-ball game or niece’s dance recital, which are a flight away.
We make an effort to see our nieces and nephews, be there for big events when we can, travel for the holidays, etc., but it’s never enough for the adults, who are mostly quite frustrated that we didn’t give them more grandchildren.
Same! The only remotely fun kids birthday parties I’ve ever been to (and I have 4 kids in their teens) either coffee and/or champagne. There is no way I’d expect any family to attend unless they wanted to!
Wow!!! I am so sorry, your family dynamic sounds terrible. And your sister comment was mean and stupid, for sure. And the comments about you being lucky very short sighted. Sending you a hug (and yes, you need holidays as much as anyone)!
I’m confused—you’re moderately successful and she’s living a “different” life? You acknowledge the reverse could be true (you living the basement life). You want people to feel sorry for you?
Is the point that you feel you’ve had it harder than her and resent it?
Yeah I couldn’t make sense of her comment.
Same
If it helps, I would always rather be the one more in control of my own success. I was top of my class in grad school and went into a field that is really competitive and has radically shifted (journalism). I do ok but no stability and increasingly harder as the years go by. I’m married to an attorney who will make more than me it appears seemingly forever. It grates sometimes that I feel like I did everything right and yet so much of my financial “success” is due to him. He doesn’t make me feel this way. But always being second fiddle is hard and my life will be upended if he dies or leaves me. Sounds like people are feeling pity for her not respect. Big difference. (You deserve a vacation probably more—they likely just figure you have easier means and will continue to.)
You sound like my young kids, always making comparisons and thinking things are unfair.
I will say that things can change over time for the better. It can take decades to build the life you want. I’m not sure what you want for yourself, but don’t give up hope and don’t measure yourself according to your sister.
Your sister sounds a lot like my mother. I know how much it grates and I’m sorry for you.
Ultimately, some people think that a woman with a pretty face deserves an easy life, and I’m sorry for everyone involved that your family enables that in your sister.
I don’t know if it helps or not, but my mother always counted on someone else to make life happen for her. She always wanted a big life and never wanted to do what it takes to get it. She is unhappy because she can’t be happy.
This is it, pretty much. Day-to-day, I don’t even really think about my family. I moved to a big city and have to drive to visit them at holidays and for weddings and funerals. I just hate it when I am doing fine, I get to spend the holidays hearing how bad it is that my sister can’t go to the country club any more (when we aren’t from country club people even). And I know that no one ever heard a lot of pity that I was living on PB&J sandwiches or having to have roommates. None of my circumstances were worthy of pity and those are normal things that people do when they don’t have money for more. But because someone is now only having one lake trip a year, things are bad and she deserves so much more. Glad to be back at work this week!
I get it. Not the same family dynamics, which would make it infinitely worse, but once my MIL expressed pity for her multi-millionaire neighbor who was having trouble having the electronic gate to his house repaired. I snapped, “Well, Neighbor laid off your son’s best friend and left him without health insurance when he has a chronic condition, but let’s worry about his gate.” It’s just grating to hear about rich people problems when you and your friends are used to regular people problems.
My MIL was whining about having to take RMDs from one of her many retirement accounts at a recent family event and I just had to leave the room for a few minutes so my head didn’t explode.
So you’re not a country club family, she doesn’t have a job that can pay for a country club, and her friends aren’t country club people. Nothing wrong with that!
The ex’s friends don’t seem to like her enough to want to invite her around for a round of golf or for cocktails after the divorce. No invites to their lake houses, either.
It’s not like she married him and his friends saw her as one of them. Interesting. (Probably related to why the marriage failed.)
Your family doing the “poor little dear” routine is just weird. Her not being part of a country club is… normal and expected. Again, your family is feeding into her delusions.
It sounds like you and your sister were always pitted against each other (or pitted yourselves against each other), and now there’s a lot of resentment and you don’t like each other that much. I’m sorry that’s the dynamic, but you’ll be happier if you move past it (regardless of what your sister does).
Many now that many families are just two kids (vs our parents having more kids per family), this is always a thing? IDK. It isn’t very fun when you are adulting just fine and you can’t go to a holiday dinner without being 13 again in all of the bad ways. “Remember how bad your teeth and skin were and you gave yourself bangs!” Really???
I only have one sibling and we’ve never had this dynamic. We get along great as adults and got along more often than not as kids.
It sounds like there is a lot of pent-up resentment here that is coloring your interactions with family members. It happens! I’d caution you that making these sorts of comparisons is rarely good for one’s emotional health. Keep living life on your own terms; it sounds like you’re doing well, and that’s a gift in itself.
I’m not saying it’s you, but there is a frequent commenter here who talks about her sister in this very “me vs her” way, often with barely any question associated with it, and this reads like that.
I know from experience where you are coming from. Enjoy a little schadenfreude and distance yourself from your family of origin.
I’m a big believer in holiday travel. It’s often cheaper, less crowded, and creates happier memories in some families. You have this internet stranger’s permission to treat yourself next year OP.
News to me about holiday travel being cheaper and less crowded! Do you maybe mean international travel? Even then….
Yes, I’ve flown many places internationally at the holidays, it’s great
:) :)
Yes, I’m successful (fancy college, good career/husband/kids/dog/retiring early). My brother is on cruise control as a 35 year old bartender and happy about it. My sister is a bipolar alcoholic and 42 and in and out of rehab. She has had 2 DUIs and lost her license. She had a solid career but due to all of the above has moved in with my mom who is essentially her caregiver.
Does anyone have a good real estate agent in northern Virginia (Vienna)? For a house that is probably a tear down, if that matters. Currently boarded up and we are trying to empty it out.
Mitchell Schneider (who is in Arlington, but handles property purchases and sales regionally).
Good luck!
Chrissy O’Donnell of the Chrissy and Lisa team. She is in Vienna and is awesome (used her as an agent to purchase in Vienna this summer).
David Cabo is great. Also in Arlington.
Can the news please for the love of all not pick up the phrase “the Donroe Doctrine.” Ugh, even reading it makes me cringe… only a true Olypmic narcissist needs to name an illegal invasion after themselves.
Yeah, and of all phrases to mimic, the original does not exactly reference a policy that was itself on the up & up.
Exactly.
That kind of makes me dislike the phrase less, though. The Monroe doctrine led to untold crimes against humanity. Are they suggesting that the so called Donroe doctrine is doing the same?
Random thing to share but something good, I think.
My son (my youngest child) graduated in December, and not only is it great to be done paying tuition, but he also started his first corporate job this week. They gave him a window cubicle. He met some people in the office and found they know people in common.
My son is a complete introvert, so I’m really happy to hear that he’s settling in well. He even sent me a pic of his cube.
All of his internships were WFH so he was grumpy about the 5 days in the office per week job, but I think it’s going to be great for him.
That’s wonderful!
that is so nice to hear. I am wrapping up work this week, and most of my tasks are handed off, and I feel like my beloved projects are in good hands, which is helping with the saying goodbye. Also some colleagues adopted my plants.
Aw, that’s great! Congrats!
Wow, that’s great! Congratulations on a successful launch!