Today my mother is going home (to her house, which is very near mine) from the nursing home. She has always been one of my very biggest drinking triggers; she and my father drank very heavily throughout my childhood/adolescence. When I had left home, gone to college, I became fair game to my mother has a drinking buddy. I had begun heavy drinking by then, and when I visited my parents I always drank with my mother (and my father, but he always got drunk so early that it didn't really count!). She considers it very, very important to have her two cocktails in the evening (although in her older years, her tolerance has been way down, and so I have/had been drinking much more than she was).
My mother pretty much hounded my father to his death by alcoholism and suicide; she can be extremely harsh, belittling, demanding, narcissistic, and so on... And over the years I have OFTEN seen her behavior towards me (and my father) as (perversely!!) an excuse for ME to get horribly drunk.
Now, she will be at home with in-home caregivers, so I am HOPING that the situation will be much less stressful for me (other people will be there to take her to the store, to spend time with her during the cocktail hour, etc.). But I still have that lingering fear... thinking of her living nearby, and knowing I will be spending time with her in my house and in her house... it just scares me. Today I am at 7 days AF, and this is CRUCIALLY important to me... I was really going down the tubes, with mother-stress as well as several other big losses.
This elderly parent stuff, when it's mixed up with alcohol... kicks my butt.
wip
My mother pretty much hounded my father to his death by alcoholism and suicide; she can be extremely harsh, belittling, demanding, narcissistic, and so on... And over the years I have OFTEN seen her behavior towards me (and my father) as (perversely!!) an excuse for ME to get horribly drunk.
Now, she will be at home with in-home caregivers, so I am HOPING that the situation will be much less stressful for me (other people will be there to take her to the store, to spend time with her during the cocktail hour, etc.). But I still have that lingering fear... thinking of her living nearby, and knowing I will be spending time with her in my house and in her house... it just scares me. Today I am at 7 days AF, and this is CRUCIALLY important to me... I was really going down the tubes, with mother-stress as well as several other big losses.
This elderly parent stuff, when it's mixed up with alcohol... kicks my butt.
wip
ray:
Comment