How do i help her help her self?

so my boyfriend of 3yr's mom is an alcoholic.. she is an amazing person, nice, giving, friendly(honestly will talk to anyone), Curtious, truthful (even when it hurts), etc. but has had a troubleling past with abuse physical and mentally which lead her to drinking... last labor day.. she said that she that was the last day of her drinking... she was gonna cut cold turkey, she already talked to her dr. and was going to group/one on one meetings to help her.. well after a month we found out she was sneaking beer when no one was home... or when she thought we weren't looking.. she hid them in her bathroom, and drank from a Styrofoam cup w/ lid (we couldn't see threw).. then on her birthday.. yestureday... she said that she wanted to have a few drinks b/c it was her b-day (she doesnt know that we know she drank before this day) so she bought the beer... not 1 six pack but 2 wich means she planed on drinking 12... wich up set me b/c i hate to see her put her self threw this.. she did so well and now it is back to step one... i understand her relapsing is normal and i knew it would happen.. but after watching her take beer after beer yesterday... and then seeing her pass out while we were watching a movie... i heard her opening a can in her bedroom today :( it tear's me up inside and i know it is hurting her kids.. they dont know she drank to day tho.. by bf was at work and i took the brothers out to the store and stuff... i wrote her a letter... just telling her that were here for her. and that it hurts me that she is sneaking around and lieing to us.../ not trusting us so she can confide in us... and let her know how much it is hurting the boys... she is not a bad drunk as in violent.. she is annoying but not bad... our main concern is that it is killing her.. u can see it...taking a toll on her... so i just need some suggestions/ advise...

have u ever had to deal with an alcoholic or were you one...

how'd u get over it?/ deal with it?How do i help her help her self?
Ok, so you already know that she is in a relapse, and that relapsing for an alcoholic is not unusual. The thing that she needs to realize is that ANY relapse is unacceptable.

Once an alcoholic makes the decision to go down the path to recovery, there are no acceptable excuses for relapsing like ';it's my birthday'; If she is truly working on her recovery then she knows that there are alternative ways to celebrate her birthday. Ones that don't ruin her special day for everyone else.



The lies, and all of the secrecy about her current bout with drinking is caused by her feelings of shame. The only reason I can see why she thought it was OK to drink openly on her birthday was because she must have fooled herself into thinking you and the others around her would buy in to her story about only drinking on her birthday.

Everyone keeping quiet about it is enabling her to kid herself into believing that her covert tactics are working.



I too have lived through your situation watching someone who I really cared about (my wife)destroy herself with her drinking.

When I caught her in her lies, and confronted her with it, she only got angry and simply changed her tactics. I called it ';driving her deeper underground'; .

The thing is I knew when she was drinking, so I didn't need to catch her at anything like hiding her bottles, or her lies because I knew the one and only truth that mattered at the time was that she was drunk.



I tried all of the usual stuff that we all try. Like having heart-to-heart talks with her, writing letters, begging, crying and pleading.

This went on over a period of about a decade until I decided I had enough, and told her that if she didn't agree to go into serious treatment that I was finished with our marriage, if all I had to look forward to was more of the same as we had in the last 10 years.



She went into a treatment centre for almost a month. She came through it almost 5 years ago and she hasn't touched a drop since.



As for me, I realized that living, and trying to manage an alcoholic for more than a decade had taken it's toll. Suddenly I had no reason to keep checking on her to see what part of the house she had passed out in, how much she had drank that night, or see if she had left the stove on, or lit a candle or something else dangerous that might kill us both in our sleep.



I too was lost, :-(



I am telling you my story because I want to try to save you the trouble I found myself in when I tried to ';help her help herself';.

I eventually learned that there really is only one person who can help my wife with her addiction, and that is herself.

SHE had to make the decision to go into treatment. Yes I gave her an incentive, but if she didn't go willingly then the treatment wouldn't have had much of an effect.



If your bf's mom is actually going to a group, then she needs to let them know that she has been relapsing so that she can get the level of support that she needs from them. It's called ';working her recovery programme';. If all she's doing is putting up a smoke screen in front of her drinking, by lying to her family, and to her support group then she is working a programme alright, but it isn't for recovery.



She's behaving this way because she really isn't ready to stop drinking. This little game she is playing with you right now is simply to shut everyone up about it, so she can go back to doing what she wants in peace.

Try not to tear yourself up about this if you can help it, because then you end up with more than one victim from her disease.



There is a book that you NEED to read. It's called ';Co-Dependant No More'; by Melodie Beatty. It will give you all of the coping tools you will need, so that you are ready to deal with whatever your bf's mom has to throw at you with her illness.

I discovered that I had much to learn if I was going to survive living with an alcoholic, and this book turned out to be the best place to start.How do i help her help her self?
i tried to help a friend with the drinking thing, but she really gave me a hard time. The alcoholic has to WANT TO STOP or no one can help them.
A family and friend intervention.