‘I pay for my mother’s alcohol addiction’

Franca (40), married to Jurre (41), mother of Félice (11), Françoise (9) and Louise (7).

“’We have to stop it, Franc’, my brother Michael says once in a while. “All we do with our help is perpetuate her addiction.” But that’s not how I see the $800 we give our mother every month—Michael half, I half. She won’t stop drinking, never again. Our allowance makes the difference between living on the street and living comfortably. And the latter is the least I wish the grandmother of my children.

addiction

My parents have always been heavy drinkers. As a six-year-old girl, my biggest tribute was when I got a beer from the fridge for my father at the end of the afternoon. And another one. And a few more times in the evening. My mother was a quiet drinker. Two glasses of sherry when cooking, from the eight o’clock news always a glass of red wine in front of him on the coffee table. I think they each got rid of about a dozen units—almost a bottle and a half of wine—a day.

Alcohol is an underestimated problem. My brother and I lacked nothing in our youth, just some emotional attention. Fresh cooking was done, we had clean clothes in the closet, the mortgage was paid and there was no arguing. Our parents showed up well at school conversations and at the front of sports competitions. Nobody noticed anything. Our parents’ drinking was a habit that had gradually crept in, and we didn’t know any better.

On pause

When my father died of cardiac arrest at 33, my mother’s world also came to a standstill. Since they were eighteen they had lived as symbiotic twins; always together. Shopping together, drinking together, they even worked in the same office – he as a department manager, she as an administrative assistant.

From the day of his death, my mother started drinking much more heavily, now also during the day. Understandable, my brother and I thought, we also liked a drink to ease the pain. But where we picked up our lives again a week after the funeral, our mother slipped further and further and ended up in the sick law. We took turns visiting her every day to keep an eye on her. “Stop it, Mom,” we’d say. “It just makes the pain worse.” But she didn’t know how. And I think most of all she didn’t want to.

“The further time went on, the more the alcohol took hold of her.”

Because of her drinking, my mother was unable to get out of the sickness benefit and after two years of sitting at home she lost her job. In the years that followed, job applications turned out to be nothing. I kept my children away from her more and more. When we went, it was in the morning, because from about three o’clock in the afternoon she was usually no longer really approachable and I didn’t want to do that to my children. I thought sleepovers at grandma’s were completely irresponsible. And the further time went on, the more the alcohol took hold of her and the less my mother asked for it.

More than four years after my father’s death, my mother had only my father’s term life insurance policy—now replaced by her pension—to get by, a fraction of what was once their combined income. Our parental home, where she lived all along, became unaffordable. My brother and I helped her with the sale, found a nice apartment, which gave her some surplus value and four hundred euros a month extra and we thought we were reassured.

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Little by little

Until the notices poured in. My mother often failed to pay the mortgage. Injunctions fell on the tax mat. Memberships to the tennis club and magazines appeared to have been discontinued; canceled after default. A few times I took care of such a backlog. My brother did the same. Until it started to become a regular pattern and my brother decided to take over her entire administration. It soon became apparent that my mother had made one big mess financially. Even what little savings she had left turned out to be gone.

“When I helped with her housework, I found empty bottles everywhere. In the laundry basket. The paper bin.”

This couldn’t go on any longer. We called in the GP, but he couldn’t do much if my mother didn’t want to be helped. We registered her at an addiction clinic, where she walked out after a week. When I helped with her housework, I found empty bottles everywhere. In the laundry basket. The paper click. ‘Ah, how absent-minded I am,’ my mother waved that away when I confronted her. I only dared to call her in the morning, because in the evening she was invariably unintelligible or out of tune. Her impotence grew bigger and bigger, her world smaller bit by bit.

impulse buying

After my brother took over the administration, bills no longer rose unnecessarily. But my mother’s debit card behavior got out of hand. She spent at least 350 euros a month on wine, beer and bottles of vodka. She made weird impulse buys like a hulking bed that barely fit in her bedroom and branded pumps while she never walks in heels. Money she didn’t have. And since she had no intention of giving up her addiction, there was only one thing to do: help financially.

Financial assistance

Most of my contributions to her maintenance are not made to herself in cash. I do, for example, pay her telephone bill and internet, and fill her fridge with healthy groceries as much as possible. Not that I’m under the illusion that she’s cooking when she’s not eating with my brother or me.

My brother is of course right: in fact we are financing her addiction. But it is this or seeing her end up on the street. She has already lost my father, we also see her last friendships dwindling. There is more than enough help available. From us, social work, the general practitioner and addiction authorities. But as long as my mother doesn’t want to be helped, we can’t help but make sure that she doesn’t get into any further trouble.

“In fact, we fund her addiction. But it’s this or seeing her end up on the street.”

As a family, we can bear the extra burden just fine. We have plenty and go on holiday at least twice a year, my children are not short of anything because of their grandmother’s addiction. Except their grandmother herself, then; the most painful of all. Fortunately they don’t know any better. Grandma is sick, they think that’s sad, but it’s fine for them to eat.

Jurre doesn’t mind at all that I partly support my mother. No one chose this situation, not even my mother. Life happens to you, he always says. It is up to us to choose how we want to deal with it. He fully respects that I choose this way. As long as my mother continues to drink, she won’t live forever. So I assume this is temporary. Although I would gladly pay double if I knew that I could get my happy mother back.”

This article appears in Kek Mama 13-2021.

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