Loving Mom For Life

My mom has been an alcoholic for most of my life. As a kid, I didn't recognize the signs. My family lived in the rich neighborhood, my father was a well respected businessman, and we just didn't fit the profile of a dysfunctional family.

I knew my mom was weird, I just didn't know why. It wasn't the kind of thing that anyone talked about.

Her drinking became worse and worse as I got older. The normal fights between a teenage girl and her mother, bad in the best of situations, escalated to such heights that I began to hate coming home. Instead of facing the real issue of my moms alcoholism, my parents decided to solve the problem by sending me away to boarding school.

By the time I had come home, I wanted nothing to do with my family. I was covered in shame, believing that I was the problem, that there was just something wrong with me, I was just a bad kid. I couldn't wait to graduate, so I could move out be on my own.

So thats what I did. At 16 I found myself working as a waitress, living on my own. For the next 15 years, I barely spoke with my mom. We went years at a stretch without talking. I saw my dad often, but their marriage was falling apart.

It's hard to live with an alcoholic, and so when I was in my late twenties my dad filed for divorce.

I was taken off guard by her phone call. My mom never called me, I didn't even recognize her phone number. She wanted to ask me if I would be okay with her moving to the city where I lived. I remember feeling emotional, it felt good to have both attention and respect from the cold woman who I called mom.

Of course I told her that I wouldn't mind. I was happy, and curious about what kind of relationship we could have now that I was an adult. I knew the divorce had been hard on her, and I wanted to be there for her. As for her drinking, I did what many family members of alcoholics do, I wished the problem away, shoving it back into the dark corners of my memory.

In many ways, this was the beginning of my relationship with my mom. I feel like we didn't even have a relationship growing up. I don't have any fun memories of being with my mom as a kid. I didn't feel loved, I didn't even feel liked. I thought that maybe she felt regret for being so cold to me during my childhood, and this was her way of making it up to me.

She did make an effort, though she was drinking more than ever. I was going through some hard-times financially, and I am extremely grateful for her help. Still, it didn't take long before I understood what my mother understood my role in her life to be.

She needed someone to take care of her. Her husband had left, she was too ashamed to ask my brother, so she chose a sort of exile living close to me. Before I knew it, my life revolved around hers. I was her maid, her cook, and her dog attendant. I bought groceries, washed her car, and cleaned up the dog poop in the yard. I did all of this happily, as a way of showing her appreciation for the money she had helped me with, when I so badly needed it.

However, the situation began to get worse. I had to quit my job because I needed more time to take care of her. She began to ridicule me because I never had enough money. I found myself at her mercy, asking for money on a weekly basis. She would give me $40 and expect that to be enough for gas and groceries for two weeks. The degradation of having to beg for money to get by was awful. I began to fall apart.

Something had to change, so I found another job, and started working again. I cut back the time I sent at my moms down to bringing her dinner every night, and cleaning up on the weekends. I loved my job, and after just two months I had been promoted. I was busy, but I had begun to feel good again.

Now it was my moms turn to fall apart. Her drinking was worse than ever. Every weekend I was cleaning up pet stains from the carpet. She was loosing weight, and her health was deteriorating fast.

I didn't know what to do. I felt like I had to choose between my life, or hers. How much did I owe to this woman who had been so awful to me for my whole life?

She was my mother, and I couldn't just watch her die. I was afraid that was the direction she was headed. I ended up leaving my job, which broke my heart. I cried for two days. I was miserable, something had to give.

When it finally did, it wasn't what I expected. I wasn't surprised to hear that she had fallen down and hit her head, it was a rare day when she could manage to walk a straight line. I wasn't prepared for how bad it was.

When I got to her house to take her to the hospital, the sight of the blood made my heart drop. I could see the size of the gash on her head, and I knew that it would be more than an overnight stay in the hospital.

Secretly relieved, knowing that she would be somewhere safe, and I would have a break, I brought her to the hospital. My brother came drove down, and we took turns sitting with her and talking to the doctors.

Things didn't start getting weird until the second day.

My brother called to tell me that they were moving my mom to another room, and that I needed to come by. I didn't think anything was unusual until I got to the room. My moms hands were pinched together like a lobster, and her speech was slurred. She couldn't move her fingers, and her face was drooping as if she had had a stroke. I looked at my brother alarmed, and he took me into the hall.

"They think she is going through DT's" he tells me quietly, and I struggle to understand what that even means.

"Frankie, are you sure? She looks like she has had a stroke!"

"I know, that's what I thought too, but they have run all the tests, and it's not a stroke. She is acting goofy too, seeing things that aren't there. They are getting a room ready in the ICU for her. She wants to leave, but she isn't thinking straight. The doctor says he can't release her, she needs to be monitored.'

My mind was reeling. I was relieved that there was an explanation that made sense, something other than a stroke. Except it made sense, and it didn't. Some part of me had been aware that withdrawals from alcohol was a thing, but I really didn't know anything about it. The ICU? How could it be that serious?

I stayed with her for the three hours that it took for them to ready the bed in ICU. Nothing could have prepared me for what I watched her go through.

The speed of her deterioration was dramatic. At first, her delusions were mild, and they seemed to amuse her.

She asked me "what in the world possessed you to dye your hair blue?" laughing at me for doing such a silly thing.

My hair was not blue.

As they got worse, her hallucinations began to have a menacing feel to them. She started seeing bugs everywhere, and no longer believed we were in a hospital. Her agitation grew, and she became paranoid and panicked.

Finally a nurse arrived to take her upstairs. I stayed by her side, as by now she was trying to scream for help. She was losing control of her arms and legs, they began to flail in short jerky movements. It took three nurses to get her onto the bed, she was fighting, as her limbs continued to spasm. I watched as they fitted her with restraints, and she looked at me with eyes full of pure panic.

I wasn't prepared for this. My mother was a very reserved person. Hearing her cuss and spit and scream for help had shaken me to my very core.

This is what alcohol withdrawal looked like? How could that even be possible? She was an alcoholic, not a heroin addict! I was reeling, and lost.

Once they were able to get her fully sedated, the nurse told me that I might as well go home. She was in a medically induced coma, and it would be at least seven days before she woke up. Maybe longer. Weeks longer.

Stunned, I left the hospital to call my brother and tell him what happened.

I spent the next few weeks learning everything that I could about alcohol withdrawal and addiction. I learned that it is rare for someone to survive such a severe dependency withdrawal. I learned about something they called "pickle brain," which is a name to describe the kinds of brain damage that can occur during the process of detoxifying the body from alcohol.

Mostly I learned that there was very little to learn on this subject. It seems that modern medicine has little love for what is perceived as an avoidable condition. Few doctors have much compassion for the suffering addict, and even less respect.

I began to wonder how often this is overlooked. I thought of my mom's neighbor, who had died the year before. He lived alone, but walked his dog twice a day, and everyone in the neighborhood knew him. He was known to be a drinker, but he was friendly, and seemed fine. Until he was found in his apartment, unresponsive. He had left a few strange messages on his daughters machine a few days prior.

Suddenly I went cold. What if his death was due to an alcohol withdrawal? How many seniors who live alone, die this way? My mom was extremely lucky to have been in a hospital when this came on.

Seven days turned into two weeks, which turned to four. At one point she developed pneumonia and had to be put on a respirator. After 6 long weeks, she was finally awake. Weak, and disoriented, she spent the next three weeks re-learning how to walk. She has suffered some memory loss, and maybe even lost a few IQ points, but she survived. She made it to the other side, alive.

Alive and sober.

Sober for the first time in 45 years.

Miracle on top of miracle.

I can't convey how grateful I am for such a blessing. To be given the chance to get to know my mom all over again is such an unexpected gift. After she recovered, we all decided that it was too risky for her to live alone, and wonder of all wonders. My mom and I peacefully live under the same roof again. As it turns out, my mom is a cheerful, and funny person, and for the first time in my life, I am enjoying her company.

It's more than her sobriety that has changed. Watching what my mother went through changed the way that I see her. I almost feel like what she went through could be compared to an exorcism. It certainly appeared that she was in the clutches of something cruel and otherworldly. Something that her in its grip so tight, that it nearly killed her to get her free.

I began to have compassion for her, to forgive, and to let go of the built up resentment. It takes at least to people to be dysfunctional, and I began to take ownership of the parts that I played in our dynamic. I realized that it was time to stop indulging in the ugly self righteousness of justified anger over things that had happened long ago.

I have been give the chance to heal.

It won't be very many years before my mom will need full time care. The time we have until then have become precious to me, in a way that I never knew possible. When treated as a gift, sometimes a second chance can be sweeter than the first.