What can I do with my alcoholic mother who is living in her home alone with CHF and on a blood-thinner?

Unless she is deemed mentally incompetent by a doctor, you can not invoke your POA. You need to allow her to experience the consequences of her decisions. Please make sure none of your money or your brother's money goes to supporting her habit.

It is a choice that your mother has made and there is nothing you can do. Sad but true. Maybe this is what she wants, and if so, then you have to cut off any of your own money that is helping her do it. At 63, you and your husband need to be planning and saving for yourselves. If she can't afford care, then she would possibly qualify for Medicaid but if you are paying all the bills, she might be turned down.

Margaret, if a client chooses to drink there is nothing we workers can do to challenge them, let alone prevent them. I narrowly avoided the dilemma of whether or not to facilitate drinking by opening a bottle of cider which the client requested by applying the reablement principle of asking the client if he was able to do that himself. He was able. Despite all appearances to the contrary. Further confirmation of how powerful an incentive alcohol is.

Terry56: You and your brother should not be using your financials on your mother's caregiver. Your mother's life is in peril if she continues to consume alcohol.

I wonder where the caregiver fits into the drinking. Unless mother restricts the booze until the evening, it’s quite possible that the companion/ caregiver is joining her. Perhaps providing her own drinks, perhaps getting free drinks as well as being paid for ‘care’. Changing the caregiver to a non-drinker might make quite a difference to the ‘companionship’. Worth considering?

I got sober by going to AA, at age 24, and will be sober 38 years, in two weeks. I’ll be 63 soon. The 12 steps, and helping others keep their sobriety, has helped me keep mine. I know thru good friends, that Al-Anon works, as well as AA, if you work it. I would suggest trying it out.

The advice about enabling your mom is true. Stop spending money YOU need for your old age, and mom will need to spend her money on her needs, not her booze. My family has been on notice, my entire sober life, not to enable me, should I go off the deep end, and forget. Very very doubtful at this point, but I have never taken my sobriety for granted, cause it saved my life, that moment of clarity.

Tell mom she needs to get back to whatever worked first her, during her sober years. Sorry for going on and on, wishing you the courage to be a realist, and honest, with your mom. No one likes it, I know from experience.

A bit of support for CTTN55’s post. OP and her brother are paying for the care that enables mother to live at home. Whether it’s done by a paid carer or by them, this is what we often see described as ‘disabling’ rather than ‘enabling’. It masks mother’s real position, which is not true independence. In this case, it also provides other funds to afford the alcohol.

Yes, it’s mother’s right to stay at home and keep drinking if it seems to be her best option. The issue is providing the money to allow it to happen. Perhaps the best advice is to keep this going if OP and her brother are willing, but to stop worrying about the impact of alcoholism on mother’s health.

Nothing! It's her life and she can make all the poor choices she wants. That doesn't mean you and your brother should be paying for her. Why are you enabling her?

Live your life. Enjoy your marriage. Don't let your alcoholic mother ruin things for you. She's ruining her own life and there's nothing you can do about it.

Along with numerous other suggestions is for you to start attending AlAnon meetings. It's important for you to define and maintain boundaries in this situation, and AlAnon is helpful for that. You need to take care of yourself, whatever else happens.

Just a suggestion: (Copy and paste)


https://hope.hazeldenbettyford.org/ga-wa/?utm_source=googleppc&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Google_PPC_%7C_Washington_%7C_Treatment_%7C_Branded&utm_content=Hazelden_Betty_Ford&utm_term=betty%20ford%20clinic&gclid=Cj0KCQjw4PKTBhD8ARIsAHChzRK8xBL-z0L48WnLLxWQcLSIB0f-fwslwhhHY2q47UfHEwQqeKkHh5MaAm8BEALw_wcB

I have a few questions for you.
1. why are you paying for her caregiver?
2. why are you her POA? Unless she is not competent your POA is not in effect. (and the times when she is not competent is when she is drinking but other than that does she know what she is doing?)
She has chosen alcohol.
She is not your responsibility, nor your brothers. Live your lives. Let her live hers. I am sorry if this sounds harsh but as with most (if not all ) addicts SHE is the one that has to WANT to change.
If she will not go to AA meetings you should go for yourself.

Sadly, she's one drunken fall from finishing off her life with a brain bleed.

Unless she's not competent, your POA isn't even active unless she wrote it to take effect immediately. If it is active, cancel her credit cards, and the liquor deliveries will stop.

Her behavior is probably bringing back some bad memories for you. Sounds like you have done what you can, but she still has the power to make her own decisions. I have an alcoholic sister who NEVER gave it up & NEVER will. It's so hard to let go, but she might just want to hasten the inevitable. Don't let her suck the joy out of your new found happiness, but I would look into getting her placed in a facility, even if you have to wait for the next hospital event and then tell the social worker she cannot go home and needs to be placed.

Before even commenting I apologize in advance for sounding harsh, uneducated, or unempathic. But perhaps to your mother life has become intolerable. Perhaps she has chosen alocohol as a means to dull the drab existence of her old age. While she may not be actively suicidal (ie, chosing a sudden, swift death), maybe she is choosing drinking to hasten her exit or at least "soften" the circumstances of the time she has left.

You and your brother paying out of pocket, unless you are very wealthy, will rob you both of money needed for your OWN care when you need it. It's a really bad decision to make.
It is so terribly sad to hear that, after all those years, your Mom returned to alcohol. Please attend Al-Anon, so you will be able to be in contact with those "in the know" about your options, and to learn what roles might help for family of the alcoholic.
You should continue with your life. If you don't clearly know that to the level of feeling it seek therapy to get it clear for yourself. Your Mom has had her life and made her choices; it is time for you at the ripe young age of 62 to make your own for your own good life.
What your Mother is doing will limit her life ongoing now and will be self limiting in and of itself for her care, for her life. There will be a disaster likely at least in part to drinking. The medical community will deal with this in the same way that they do for those without children. I have a dear friend, ex of my brother now deceased, dying of alcoholism. It is difficult to witness.
Your Mother in placement would be safer, but if she is of sound mind that isn';t your choice. I would relinquish legally my power of attorney were I you. No one can help an alcoholic except themself.
I am so sorry for this pain for you. Please seek out the nearest al-anon for support.
I may sound without sympathy but I am not. I know alcoholism and every single nurse in the world is very familiar with what it does to people and their families. I wish you the very best.

When Mom was in the hospital you should have told them it was not safe to return her to her home. That you are not willing to care for her and that she needs to be in LTC. If you have to, walk away and let the State take over her care. It will mean, though, you have no say it where she is placed. You may not be able to see her. You can file for Medicaid to pay for her care.

I'm so sorry for your heartbreak.

I am not claiming special in-depth experience or anything of the kind, but I have seen husbands, wives, adult children, loving friends and seasoned professionals fighting alcoholism and I haven't seen anyone win. It's horrible.

Take professional advice if you have access to it. For everyday purposes, give your mother only what time and thought and resources you can that do NOT breach your personal boundaries.

I am becoming more and more deeply imbued with the principle that we value all people and that no person is less deserving of esteem than anyone else - this is essential to the provision of ethical care services. But with alcoholism, it isn't a question of writing people off or judging them to have brought their troubles on themselves. It's a question of the sheer futility of attempting to intervene.

43 years, all that hard work. My heart is in my boots for you. It's just so sad.

In your profile you state that you want your mother in a facility, but are worried about the cost. And above you write:

" She has a companion/caregiver 3 days per week to keep her company, go shopping, prepare meals, clean house and do laundry. My brother and I pay out of pocket for this. I have POA, but that doesn't help when mom has started drinking again and is getting liquor delivered to her door thanks to COVID."

You are accelerating her decline by enabling her to binge drink. No, you are not buying her the alcohol, but you are enabling her to live in her home when she belongs in a facility.

Can you see this?

Your alcoholic mother is killing herself by drinking alcohol. Congestive heart failure and taking blood thinners are invitations to die at any time soon. Alcohol enlarges and weakens the heart. Blood thinners could cause a lethal massive hemorrhage in the gastro-intestinal track. There is nothing you can do. She is beyond any possible help. She is committing suicide slowly, she knows that she will die, she drinks to numb her feelings and accelerate her death, both at the same time. I'm sorry, there is nothing you can do to stop her slow death.

My mother is a 97 year old alcoholic, she is now in AL. She pays for this between her SS and the sale of her house.

My brother & I contribute nothing, my brother does take her out to lunch a couple of times a month. I have not seen her for 10 years, I did find her the AL she is in and helped my brother clean out and sell her house, never seeing or talking to her.

She has been very abusive to me...my entire life, I am done with her.

Have you given consideration to not supporting her habit, by not paying for her special care and looking into placing her somewhere where she can't drink all day and will be safe?

Who has her POA? Is she on Medicaid?

Take care of you, she can live a long time...look at my mother!

I wouldn't give up my life for my mother as she cannot be fixed, for every bad action, there is a bad reaction. I had to make a choice, it was either her or me, I chose me!