Late onset alcoholism - parents live in Florida and visits are a disaster. Advice?

Yes, you are seeing things as a person from within the family system while they do not.

I endured my abusive MIL mother in law for years, even taking her on vacations because my wife wanted me to. However, I reached a point where enough was enough and I put my foot down about her mother. She's not been on a vacation with us in years and we are much happier for it. She's still her narcissistic, abusive self, but we don't have to have the sickness of hers worshipfulness with us.

You are not going to like reading this , but your husband might reach such a point to and not do what you want. He is his own person and can make his own decisions as an adult.

Like any husband would be, he's tired of seeing you getting hurt and upset. Not his battle for they are your parents. How long has this been going on?

If you want to see them that badly and feel that guilty, then go visit them yourself by yourself and go with your husband and daughter on ya'lls vacation and enjoy! Why ruin a good vacation with them?

Their alcoholism is their problem, not yours. Your didn't make them that way, You can't fix them. You can't control them. And you can't rescue them. They're adults although they are not acting very mature, but that's their right to do so, if they so chose.

You are not their little girl anymore. You are an adult woman with your own marriage and family which I suggest you honor before honoring them. If this is totally stressing you out, then this may mean it's time for some marriage or personal counseling to help with some healthy boundaries.

Sorry this post sounds so blunt, but I'm tired of people getting beat up because one person can't see how unhealthy things are because their possibly enmeshed with their parent(s).

I think I'd tell them if they want to see the grandchildren, then they will need to stop the drunkenness during visits. You need a boundary not to change them but to protect yourself and your family.

Ms1231,

I'm glad you were open to what I had to share. I realized that I was writing more straightforwardly than I normally do and thus my warning that you might not like this plus sorry about sounding so blunt.

I just got back from a visit with my wife to see her identical twin sister and their narcissistic mom who is in an assisted living but whose mobility has declined severely. My wife has fought for and gotten her freedom from her mother, but her sister has stopped going to therapy and is not doing what she needs to which is continuing to create a lot of anger in her husband. We tried our best to remain emotionally detached for we have no more to say because it has already been said either by her therapist or by us. We stayed in a hotel and on our way home on Monday found some fun things to do which included going to this one restaurant in a chain that we discovered when visiting my dad in June. It has both nice food and it's one of those places that you feel like you've escaped a bit of reality which is nice also. I was so glad to see my therapist on Wednesday and I vented a lot there.

I've learned from experience that spouses like friends can only bear to hear so much of our stuff to a point without feeling frustrated or helpless.

So from that, I may be still a bit on edge and thus more blunt than usual.

Allow me then to share with you a very likely husband and child perspective which I'll state positively and I'm sure you will pick up on the negative being true.

Husband will rejoice to have his wife back emotionally and will feel the intimacy improve between the two of you. Frankly, the marriage bed will feel less crowded.

Daughter will be glad to have her mom more emotionally available to her which she needs at 19.

Making the needed changes will model a good lesson to your daughter and others about the importance of healthy boundaries for a marriage and in life in general.

Frankly, what you have been modeling for 8 years has not been healthy for anyone nor a good lesson for her. Our children learn more about marriage and parenting from what they see us to than they do from what we say or they read. It's like an emotional script written into them which can be unlearned where it needs to be if we become aware of it.

Thanks for your honest statement of self-awareness, "enough emphasis on what is is doing to my family -- they love me and have been going along but I have been putting my daughter in harms way emotionally probably not to mention my husbands frustration"

Unfortunately, like I did for several years, your husband has been enabling your behavior by going along with it and carries some responsibility as a parent for your daughter being subjected to that abusive mess. He probably needs some help with his codependency in his relationships with you.

Daughter may need some help to heal from all of the stuff that has been thrown at her over the years.

Try to remember. You are married to your husband whom you promised to love and to cherish as well as to forsake all others which meant this marriage relationship was now primary in your life. Might be a good idea to revisit those marriage vows.

Try also to remember that has a wife and parent, you have a child that needs both of her parents to be parenting her. It is possible, for I've been there, to feel like a single parent even when you are married.

BTW, my step-dad was an alcoholic and my mother became one despite all of the promises she told my dad that she would never become one because her dad was an alcoholic. Her alcoholism, narcissism, poor boundaries, over attachment to me as her only child all caused manifold problems.

You have much more going on here than just alcoholic parents. Get your own marriage and family in order before anything else.

Take care and I wish you the very best. Love the one you're with and love the one you two co-created with God that is your precious daughter!

You can't stop the drinking, you can only change the way you deal with it. Make the focus of your visits a holiday for the family with small doses of your parents mixed in.... It sounds as though you are staying in a hotel when you are there and not with your parents, so you can try limiting visits to earlier in the day before the alcohol consumption adds up, or try to arrange outings together where it is not available. As upsetting as their behavior is for your kids, sounds like they are old enough to deal with it... if nothing else it is a good life lesson on the problems of excessive drinking!
BTW, if you are in the northwest why don't you all take turns driving down to Florida like all the Snowbirds do, it would be a lot cheaper than air fare and car rentals.

Have you considered an Al-Anon meeting? That would be a network of support for you, a way to get past the feelings of guilt. Put the visits aside for now, realize you are being punished by them for the crime of growing up and having your own life.

Ms. 1231, bless you for being willing to see this for what it is. I feel a need to add one more thing that I hope does not add to your burden, but is just honest.

Don't expose their grandkids to this. They need to understand that this behavior though it is being done by adults, is unacceptable. We had some negative consequences just from letting our kids see how bad my MIL and FILs house had gotten when it was necessary to clean it out after FIL died of an aneurysm and MILs placement in geropsych then skilled nursing was clearly going to be permanent. The idea that people would let themselves go that badly and be allowed to refuse help for it was too much and too incomprehensible; I think instead they internalized a message that screwing up your life was not so bad because we all stepped in to fix things. We had to do a lot of talking about the whole thing and help my daughter get back on track academically afterwards, because she started to not do her work at school for a while.

You commented that the distance makes things difficult but while I was reading what you wrote I was thinking, "Good thing the parents are so far away."

But I know what you meant. How can you help them when they are so far away? I don't think you can. I'm not sure you could help them if you lived right down the street.

You're right about the ultimatum. It won't work. Your parents are alcoholics and you can't reason with alcoholism. If you were to tell your folks, "Either you stop drinking or we stop visiting" you'd just give them one more reason to drink.

You may just have to wait until there's a situation to try to get them the help they need and I think even that's a long shot. Alcoholism is a disease. An alcoholic can't just stop drinking and that's the end of it. The disease needs to be tended to on a daily basis. It requires an entire life and personality overhaul and that would be very, very difficult for people in their 70's. Elderly people fight change as it is and recovery from alcoholism is all about change. Constant, daily change.

I don't know how often you visit them but if the visits are so unpleasant don't visit as often. I know they're your parents and you're worried about them but unfortunately there's nothing you can really do for them. With their age and their drinking habits eventually one of them is going to take a nasty fall or become ill and end up in the hospital. That would be your only opportunity to try to change the way they live and it's a slim chance at that.

A more drastic way to go would be to call APS (or whatever it's called in FL). Adult Protective Services would come out to their house and do an assessment.

There are many people here who try to do long distance caregiving so I'm sure you'll hear from some of them. I wish you the best of luck.

Ms1231, it sounds like they may have started drinking out of boredom. I don't know if there is anything you can do from a distance. The thing you can do is let them know you won't be able to visit if they are going to be drinking. You can encourage them to do something else to occupy their evenings instead of drinking. If they were involved in something, they wouldn't have as much time for drinking. I hope someone else will have some ideas on how to deal with alcohol from a long distance.

Cmagnum-- I appreciate blunt -- am that way myself, which is why mom is angry right now

Everything you say has merit-- this has been going on about 8 years. I have travelled to see them alone -- due to death or sickness of other family members there and alone cause it was only financially feasible for one -- and both times were disasters.

No point in going in to details -- but all due to their drinking. The next day they act like nothing happens and I did the same to keep the peace to get thru he reasons I was there.
Tried to talk to her and as everyone is saying the behavior never change.
This is my first experience dealing with alcoholism as well as aging parents and all of those issues

You are absolutely correct that I should probably seek some counseling to sort out my own feelings -- I don't put enough emphasis on what is is doing to my family -- they love me and have been going along but I have been putting my daughter in harms way emotionally probably not to mention my husbands frustration

Thank you for your perspective and it's great to hear you were able to put things to right in your home. I am sure it was emotional but worth it in the long run-- it's what I need to hear

Amen! vstefans!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I remember reading one story here where the narcissistic grandmother who was already emotionally enmeshed with her husband somehow manage to dupe the lady's daughter over to her side. I think one thing that helped grandmother do this was living with her son when she really had no health reasons for being there.