Does my mom need help?

Question

I think my mom is an alcoholic and needs help... she drinks every single day and usually in the mornings when i wake up she has a glass of wine and probably around an average of 8-10 beers a day. tonight she had a little too much and got mad at me for no reason and threw ice at me and cut my head... is she an alcoholic and does she need help?

Answer 1

Yes your mother is an alcoholic.  She is drinking in the morning and continuing through out the day,  also she cannot control her emotions and takes it out on you.  Yes she needs help, but know that you  cannot do it for her.  She has to CHOOSE to change.

Answer 2

Most definitely Nick...

And you need help too.

Please look up Al-anon.

Answer 3

yes she is and yes she needs help. my mom is an alcoholic too but she hasn't gotten help yet. my siblings and i have just recently told some family members and we are working to get her help.. my mom often gets mad like that too and always takes her anger out by yelling at me personally.. do get her help. not only are you helping her but you are helping yourself and your family relationships. good luck and know you are not alone in your situation.

Answer 4

Certainly sounds like she drinks too much, to say the least.  But without having any other details we can't say if she's an alcoholic or not.  Did she just start drinking this much?  Has there been a big change in her life?  

If there is someone you can talk to, like maybe her mom or sister or your Dad, or maybe you can catch her when she's not drinking and tell her you're worried.

Good Luck and I'm really sorry you're going through this.  Stay strong.

  You should Google Al-anon, by the way.  They'll have more information that we could ever even hope to give you

Answer 5

http://www.al-anon.alateen.org/   . Even if she isn't an alcoholic this organization will help you deal with not liking how much she is drinking. Good luck

Answer 6

It sounds like your mother might need some help, but before that she is going to have to realize that she has a problem.  Maybe you and your siblings could do some sort of intervention.

Answer 7

Certainly is.  

I generally define alcoholism not in terms of how much, how frequently, or when a person drinks, though.  I prefer to define it as a person who drinks despite loved ones disapproval, or despite direct harm to others.  She is obviously hurting your relationship with her, and that's not fair.  Whether she drank once a week to get drunk or every day, if you kept telling her you don't like when she does, she would still be an alcoholic.  

The other definition I prefer is when someone is unable to control or stop drinking at the drop of a hat.  If you said to her tomorrow before she had her first glass of wine, "Mom, I'll give you $100 if you can go 1 week without a drink," I'm almost certain she would be unable to do it.  Usually when you can do something like that, there's no need for AA or rehab, but the person has to want to stop.  They need to have something that they don't like about their drinking, whether it is a strained relationship, lack of money, general health, waking up with a hangover, whatever, and only then will they have a reason to stop.  Hey, if you could get shitfaced every night, wake up feeling fine, and have tons of money and lots of friends and family who love you the way you are, what incentive is there to stop?

The real question is how do you help her?  I don't have any advice here, I'm sort of going through something similar with a friend of mine.  He won't stop drinking until he passes out, but he can stop for a couple days at a time.  A week is hard, he made it 5 days.  But he has no job, no car, lives with his parents, ran up about $1500 on a credit card buying booze, gas, and food.  Obviously hurting himself physically from it, and all his friends know there's a problem.  When you bring it up, he generally agrees that he needs to cut back, but never does.  I mean, what do you do?  You can't cut them off, they can always go buy more or go to a friend's house and have some.  They are an adult, so you can't make them do anything they don't want to.  

Oh, BTW, this may or may not apply, but if your mom shakes when she doesn't get her alcohol, she's in really serious trouble.  Basically, the alcohol replaced the role of naturally produced GABA in her brain, which regulates how messages get sent.  With the alcohol taken over the GABA production, she doesn't produce enough GABA.  She basically needs alcohol to function.  The way you fix this is with a medical detox, where they give her pills to either increase GABA production or it just has synthetic GABA, and they cut the alcohol off cold turkey.  This way there's no shaking.  Without a medical detox, stopping alcohol could potentially kill her directly.  It's an unusual addiction in that respect.  Even heroin withdrawl won't kill you; it may want to make you kill yourself, but it won't kill you.

Answer 8

You know the answer.  Do what you have to do.  I am sorry you have to be faced with this but get help.  It is hard but even if your Mom gets mad at you, you have to do what is necessary to try to save her and yourself.  Try not to take her actions and words to heart.  She is no longer able to think or react rationally.  The alcohol has her and you must get help to free her.  Call al-anon.  Do it now, do not wait. They know how to proceed.

*