My Mom Was an Alcoholic. Here’s What I Finally Realized.
My mom once gave six hundred dollars to a woman crying outside of a United Way so she could pay her rent and avoid becoming homeless. My mom didn’t have six hundred dollars to spare. She rarely had any money at all. For my big events — graduations, my 21st birthday — she’d write me IOUs that I’d save forever, never cash in.
She could entertain a crowd all night with her legendary stories. The time she was trying to enchant a date at a party without realizing her fake front tooth was glowing green in the blacklight. The time she forgot the word for “log” and called it “rolled wood.” The time she was running late to an important dinner and put her makeup on in the car, accidentally using black eyeliner to line her lips. “Everyone screamed with laughter,” she’d say, beaming.
My mom was generous, full of love, and hysterically funny.
I felt like the only person in the world who didn’t worship her. When I was a kid, I noticed my friends’ moms seemed to have control over life in ways mine didn’t. Those kids weren’t late to school every day, they brought packed lunches, they always had their homework signed. Their moms picked them up from school on time. I didn’t have the tools to explain why, but my house felt different. Wine was part of our life, but I didn’t yet connect alcohol with its ripple effects. At that age, all I wanted was to be like other kids.
It wasn’t until high school that I sensed what was happening was more than forgetfulness. My mom called me once when I was out with my friends, sobbing and upset because I hadn’t fed the dog. She’s crazy, I remember thinking at 16. If I got home late, I’d find her asleep on the couch and not be able to wake her up. In the mornings, it was me who woke her to drive me to school. Something was happening with her job that I could tell she wasn’t honest with me about. I began to pull away from her, lonely in my observations, and angry that she hadn’t met my expectations of what a mother should be. Into my twenties and thirties, my frustration grew at the same rate of her decline. The more she drank, the less she slept and ate and functioned, and the angrier I got, until there was no coming back from it.
But I never discussed my anger, or her drinking, directly with her. My mom always wanted us to be like the Gilmore Girls — best friends, soulmates, more like sisters than mother and daughter. She used to join me when I’d watch the show and comment, “I always thought we’d be like this,” and I’d say nothing. I convinced myself I was doing her a favor by letting her believe we were close. If I protected her happiness as best I could, maybe she’d want to be healthy.
Instead, I would talk to her about going to West Elm to look at a rug. I’d text her suggestions for 90-minute romantic comedies on Netflix. I pretended that wine wasn’t the wedge between us until the day a doctor with blue eyes above his mask told me my mom needed surgery to live, but she wouldn’t survive surgery because of the condition of her liver.
“What do you mean, the condition of her liver?” I asked.
“Advanced cirrhosis,” he said. “She would need a liver transplant, which she wouldn’t qualify for.”
The reason I’d resented my mom for 20 years was valid, it turned out. She’d been drinking herself to death. But being right had never felt worse.
Because now it was too late. I’d wasted a lifetime not saying what this doctor had said in 30 seconds. My mom was going to die that day and I’d never done a thing to stop it. In convincing myself I was protecting her, I was protecting myself from facing what was too hard to say out loud.
Only once did my mom and I approach the unspeakable subject of alcohol. I’d been trying to get pregnant for nearly five years. After every disappointing treatment cycle, she’d push me to try again, wanting me to have a baby so badly. Hardened by my anger, I’d wonder: why did she care? She couldn’t be a grandmother in the way I imagined a grandmother, like mine had been, someone who marched with me in the Fourth of July parade and hugged me so tightly it hurt. By that point, my mom slept most of the day. She didn’t have the strength to hold a baby.
She must have seen it on my face that time. “You know I’d never drink wine around your baby,” she said, out of nowhere.
“Okay,” I said. “That’s good.”
That was the most honest conversation we’d ever had and all I could come up with was, “Okay. That’s good.”
In her hospital room, I studied the line in her earlobes from decades of heavy earrings. I studied the lingering red polish on her toenails. Though I hated to be confronted with physical evidence of her illness, I memorized her body, knowing it was the last time I’d see her. I wanted to say something that would help her die happy, but at that moment, even with a lifetime between us, a lifetime of green breakfasts on St. Patrick’s Day and tomato soup when I was sick, all I could think was: how could you let it get this bad? How could you leave me here? How is that love? I was 34. I still had so much of my life ahead of me, and she wouldn’t be here to see it. It felt like given the choice between me and wine, she’d chosen wine.
I wanted to believe I wouldn’t inflict that pain on my child, if I ever had one.
“You were a good mom,” I said, and kissed her hand. “Thank you for everything.”
Six weeks later, I learned I was pregnant.
Before she died, I’d begun the lengthy process of a frozen embryo transfer. During the dark weeks that followed, I kept up with the shots, the doctor’s visits, crying into my mask as the doctor measured the thickness of my lining. My grief was so physical I doubted the transfer would work. When my doctor gave me the surprising and beautiful news, I called everyone in my life — my aunts, my dad, my friends. But I couldn’t call the one person who deserved to know she’d been right. I did need to keep trying. The loss of her felt like a hole I could not fill with anyone else.
All my life, at hello and goodbye and often in between, my mom would kiss me all over my face. Dozens of kisses in a row, smothering my cheeks, my hair, my neck, leaving smudges of red lipstick on my skin. She’d hug me and hum in my ear, mmmph, like I was something delicious. I can still hear it. Mmmph.
My daughter is now two. At good morning and good night, and all day in between, I kiss her all over her face. Dozens of kisses, smothering her. Her puffy cheeks, her warm neck, her soft curls. Sometimes I leave behind lipstick. Mmmph, I hum as I squeeze her. I feel my mom as I say it.
My mom and I will never know each other both as mothers, but now that I am one, I understand her better. She wanted me to have a baby so badly not because she wanted a grandchild, but because she didn’t want me to miss out on the joy she’d experienced having me. She kissed me all over my face because she could not believe I existed. She kissed me because she could not help herself. She kissed me because there is no better feeling in the world than telling your child you love her. If my mom could not tell me the truth about some things, I am thankful she told me that.
I can’t change the fact that my mom and I never had an honest conversation about alcohol. For the rest of my life, I will feel angry with both of us for lying to ourselves and to each other. I will wonder whether honesty could have saved her. All I can do now is appreciate that her drinking was separate from her love for me. One could not erase the other. If my mom made any choice at all, it was withholding her truth to protect me from what she could not change.
“I’m in heaven,” she used to say, sitting with a glass of wine in her blue chair, with an Arizona monsoon outside, kitchen door open, gas fireplace burning. Beaming. “I’m in heaven.”
I have never felt closer to my mom than I do now. I’m in heaven, too, only I’m alive. Every night, I put my daughter to sleep in her nursery. She hugs me in the dark as I kiss her marshmallow cheek.
“I love you,” I tell her with a kiss. “I love you.” Kiss. “I love you.”
With every kiss, I am at the side of my mom’s hospital bed. I am telling her: we cannot go back, but I am casting your love forward, mother to mother to daughter.
Taylor Hahn is a writer and lawyer based in Los Angeles. She is the author of A Home for the Holidays and The Lifestyle.
P.S. Three women describe their complicated mother/daughter relationships, and “I kept wondering: do I drink too much?”
(Photo by Victor Torres/Stocksy.)
Tags: alcohol
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125 commentsMy Mom died October 13 2024. The cause of death was the heart and respiratory system failure due to alcohol intoxication. She had started drinking very young and at some point at the age of 12, a couple of months after her treatment, I knew she lost the battle and this would end up tragically. 2 or 3 days before I had two very similar dreams the same night. The next morning I said to myself ‘Oh my God, someone would die…’ but didn’t think it would be her. It could be around the time she died when I was going for a walk I saw the sky kind of ‘open’ as if it was welcoming someone I don’t know to describe it. At 22.32 on Sunday night, just a second before I wanted to turn my phone off and go to bed my Dad rang. I was expecting that maybe she was in a hospital or had an accident but no, that late afternoon/early evening my Dad had a call, went to pick her up, she seemed to be sleeping, with the help of a friend they brought her home and when he went check up on her some time later, he found out she was dead in her bed. I just hope she didn’t feel anything. I’m always asking why did she leave so early, why did she leave me here alone ? I wanted her to be at my wedding one day, to see her grandchild even though I’d never leave my baby with her alone because of her drinking but still… I didn’ t know my grandparents, her parents so I wanted my child to know theirs. But it is what it is… It seems like the more time will pass, I’ll miss her even more… The truth is I had alredy grieved her loss before she really died cause it wasn’t the mom anymore I used to know in her good moments. It is so hard because all these moms left too early because of this poison called alcohol and not due to natural cause… I miss You and I love You, Mom❤️ if only You loved Yourself the way I loved You…. 💔
This essay is absolutely beautiful. I know I have a similar (but of course, different) relationship with my mother, and I’ve been able to have very honest conversations with her about her drinking. Sometimes she’s gotten very angry, but at other times she’s been open, apologetic, telling me that I am right and she will get help (and she often seems to try to). However, these conversations have not helped her get anywhere close to long term sobriety. I loved your essay, and wanted to share in case you still feel grief that you could have said or done something more.
Beatifull way of healing something so hard.
Thank you for this absolutely beautiful essay. My mom is also an alcoholic. I’m now a mom of two and I live across the country from her. I often think about our relationship and alcohol’s part in that. You did such an honest and heartfelt thing in writing this essay – thank you.
This essay is the most beautiful thing I have read in ages. (Maybe ever?). I am silently crying beside my toddler, who is sleeping, as I mentally prepare myself for the inevitable ways I will mess up as a parent to my tween and two teens today. Knowing that you felt your mom’s love, in the end—that you could see and feel it—gives me hope that my children won’t only remember the times I was impatient or hot-headed. And it makes me want to be softer with my own mother, who has often not been who I have needed her to be. I’m going to incorporate way more kisses into our routine, thanks to you and to your mom.💛
“It felt like given the choice between me and wine, she’d chosen wine.” This line really struck me. I gave my mom that choice three years ago after a series of escalating fights and family disasters, and she chose wine. I use to cry myself to sleep, repeating the phrase aloud and in my mind like echolalia: “mom doesn’t love me”. Three years on, things have and haven’t changed. I slowly started speaking to my mother again, on my own terms. After my father died a few months ago, I made the decision to step up and help take care of her. She’s elderly and living in poverty. She hasn’t stopped drinking, but she’s been cautious and kind to me- maybe because she knows I’m willing to cut her off. I know she still drinks when I’m around, but she hides it because she knows where I stand on it. Addiction really is a disease. This isn’t a cute little social construction either- there is decades of hard science to back it up. I realize now that it had nothing to do with her loving alcohol more than me- she is sick. I will care for my mother the way I would care for her if she had cancer. She’s always loved me and tried her best to take care of me, so I will repay the favour. Thank you for sharing this. It’s very difficult to convey the great love, guilt, and anger that children of addicts carry. I’m very sorry for your loss.
My mother was also an alcoholic. My question is always “ Why do some people find the strength to quiet and others don’t? Our author here never confronted her mother, it’s so difficult as a child, so elusive. She also had no witnesses ( as a single child) even more difficult. I was also in my thirties when my mother passed away. I had to cut her out of my life, she was angry, toxic and disrupting my marriage. I had confronted her, let her know I would always leave the door open, but she had to acknowledge her illness and get some help. Her answer was anger and complaining to my sisters what a horrible daughter I was. When my older sister called to say she was sick in the hospital. Her reaction was anger “ why do you care”. She was in complete denial until her death a few days later. I am childless by choice, but love being an auntie and part of the village. I understand mom better now. I know she was tortured unhappy and unrealized in her life. Her death saved my older sister ( her drinking buddy) at least for a while. I hold no lasting anger towards my mother, but is does make me sad when I think about how much better her life could have been. If she had just taken that lifeline, if she had made the choice to get help. I , like the author revere the good things my mom gave me when she could; the love of reading, history, art and travel.
I am convinced that the only people who can stand Gilmore Girls did not grow up the children of emotionally immature-unavailable,-in desperate need of therapy to address their own trauma- mothers. Because if you did, you see that in Lorelai immediately and it makes the show unwatchable (instead of just unbelievably cringe dialogue).
Preach Tessa, this is so insightful
Thank you for sharing this. I have been estranged from my alcoholic mother for the last few months, but you inspired me to reach out and be honest with her, to be clear about why I cut off contact and what I need to open that door again. I don’t expect her to respond kindly or to even consider changing, but it felt good to put it all out there with her, at least.
Good for you! It’s so hard, but at least you tried. Maybe some day it will make a difference.
“I am casting your love forward.” My mother died recently and that was exactly what I needed to hear tonight. Thank you.
Oof this is so tender and beautiful.
Thanks for this, Taylor. While reading it I wanted to hug you, because it is so hard to watch your mum slidding into alcoholism and its harder to know what to do. After years of suspicion, I realised that my mum is alcoholic last year. I asked her how many beers she takes every day and she said: not much, 3 or 4. Which, of course, means 7 or 8. Once she offered to take care of my child (6yo) and when we arrive at her place she was drunk. It was one of the most difficult times of my life because she didnt realised her state. She thought she was capable of taking care of a child. So maybe you talking with your mum would have not changed a thing. I am coming to terms with that.
My mother was also an alcoholic. I was her 4th daughter, born when she was 43. She quit drinking when my son was born and lived almost long enough to see him turn 7. Our relationship did not change when she got sober, which told me she had loved me the same beautiful ways my whole life! I did join Al-anon the month she passed in hopes of fixing my sister who also drank. Turns out it fixed me. Prayers for you and your daughter, Motherhood is such a gift!
My mother died when she was 67, and I was 32. She died from her drinking. I love my mother so, so much, and I also so, so angry at her. It’s something I will have to live with for the rest of my life. As someone who did argue with their mother about her drinking, I want to assure you, you could not have changed her mind. No amount of other people wanting them to stop will get them to stop. They have to want it first. Thank you for sharing, this gave me a good cry tonight. I’m so sorry.
You could not have stopped your mom’s drinking. I am 100% sure of that. Talking about it over the years probably wouldn’t have helped either. It would have just driven you apart.
Some people do choose sobriety. It’s worth a try.
Phew, this one had me crying halfway through. Thank you so much, Taylor! My situation is different (no alcohol problems, thank goodness), but I still realised an important thing about my own mother-mother-child relationship. Thank you <3
My mom was / is an alcoholic and a mean drunk. She always needed to be the center of attention and demanded that we tell her constantly how much we loved her, how wonderful she was, that she was the best mother in the world. She would win over my friends, even my ex-boyfriends with whom she still keeps in touch. She loves entertaining and used to throw huge dinner parties where she would get wasted. She would then proceed to make me the butt of jokes and loved having her and her friends laugh at me, claiming it was all in good fun. Through all this, I loved and love her fiercely, and hated her fiercely. I hated her mood swings, her angry outbursts and her cruelty. Yet she is the most generous and loyal person I know. She is a walking contradiction, full of love and hate, harmony and discord, chaos and adoration. I know realize she has many personality disorders and trauma. I can now see she did the best she could. It wasn’t enough but it was her best. I’m working on forgiveness. And loving her in spite of it all.
My college roommate and best friend/soulmate has an alcoholic mother. I met her our first week of school, and she was so charismatic, beautiful, lively, adventurous…she asked me so many questions about myself and donated hundreds to the NGO I was involved with. I was totally charmed. But over the weeks and months that I roomed with her daughter, I got to know the real woman behind the perfect clothes and infectious laugh. She’d call my roommate at all hours of the day, drunk, to scream at her for ruining her (the mother’s) life. My roommate would go home for holidays and have to patch her household back together, with a sick dad and a younger sibling who was being neglected. She’d find her mom’s stashes of empty bottles in cabinets around the house. It was so painful to watch and it was my very first experience with the duality of addicts.
Im sending you an enormous hug.
Thank you for sharing this piece and everyone that has left how they related to it. My dad has not had a sober day, my brother died due to alcoholism and no one in my family talks about any of it. I’ve had to create strong boundaries. Everyone in my family struggles with addiction, violence and denial. I don’t have anyone around me that has similar or relatable family dynamics which has been very isolating. Reading this piece and everyones comments has been very eye opening for me and healing. For the first time I have not felt alone in this disorienting, self blaming circumstance. Thank you
Al-Anon family groups are for people like you and I. We are not alone. Hope, strength,to heal from the chaos of being raised with the disease of alcoholism
I have similar and relatable, family dynamics. You can email me. Al-anon is hard to find in my area.
Al Anon has many hybrid meetings. Go to AlAnon website and find a day/time that works for you. Al Anon helps in so many ways and you definitely don’t feel alone.
Alanon changed my life.
Taylor, what beautiful heartbreaking writing. Wishing you every joy with your daughter.
Oh my God. This made me cry at my desk. I am 6 years sober and at one point could not imagine my life without alcohol. My daughter is 9 and I cannot imagine a life with her and alcohol together. I chose her. My father has not done the same and my daughters father is also an alcoholic. It tears me apart. I cannot protect her from everything. I wish I could. This was beautiful, thanks for sharing your story.
Just wanted to send a virtual hug, and say this post really resonated with me. Different, but my mom was a smoker for decades, and ultimately died of oral/lung cancer at the age of 62. I was 36 and pregnant with my daughter when she passed. It’s hard not to be angry sometimes about how her choice to keep smoking robbed us of many years with her, and how she was in complete denial about the health consequences (no matter how hard we tried to convince her otherwise) until her cancer diagnosis – by then it was much too late. There are so many things I wish I’d said and done, but it’s too late for that as well. It’s hard when a parent chooses an addiction over family.
My mother is an alcoholic. My first memory was coming home from school when I was 5 and seeing her pass out. She wouldn’t wake up so I thought she had died in front of me. She spent days in the hospital and was warned that she would lose her kids if she didn’t stop drinking. She blamed us for making her drink in the first place, due to the stress we kids caused her or something. I spent my childhood trying not to add stress to her life. She stayed sober, but was still cruel, until I was out of the house. Then she started drinking again excessively. At family get togethers, she gets drunk, slurs her words, and passes out. So much for raising young kids being the reason she drank. I know I’m not responsible for her nor do I expect anything from her. I believe her drinking is a symptom of a larger personality disorder, and it’s important to keep in mind that there are many different types of alcoholic mothers.
Thank you for writing about addiction. It’s something that I feel so many families deal with but isn’t discussed enough due to shame (hopefully, that’s changing some). I lost my brother to fentanyl overdose almost two years ago. I tried to have the conversation with him but there is so much denial deeply rooted in addiction that it was fruitless and I eventually had to stop trying and put up boundaries. The ripples of addiction alter families. I miss him. I can tell your mom loved you, just as I know deep down my brother loved me. Drugs buried a lot of it but I know in his heart love still persisted. Hugs and thank you for sharing your beautiful story.
I’m so sorry for your loss, Jules
Beautiful.
Reading this on the 5 year anniversary of my dad’s death due to alcoholism. Oof. I relate so deeply to this beautifully written piece. Especially “the life of the party”, everyone else worshipping your parent except you. My dad was the most reliable person to everyone but my mom, my brother and I. His memorial service was filled with stories of him dropping everything to change help change a relative’s tire, or the ways he showed up for my stepmom’s family. Still grappling with it all 5 years later.
I had one of those – everyone who worked for my dad or had a non-family relationship with him LOVED him and he was a complete shit to my mom, my brother and me. We used Covid as an excuse not to have a funeral (it was July 2020 and we were in lockdown) but it was really because I could not stand the thought of all sorts of random people telling me how wonderful he was. He was not wonderful to the people he professed to love the most. He was abusive, controlling, and drunk. And it killed him, while also breaking his family. I still have moments when I’m terrified that he’s going to be home when I get there.
oof. this landed for sure. I grew up with an alcoholic mother. The inability to wake her up on the weekends… going hungry until my sister figured out how to make some food for us (we were very young, me 4 her 6 is my first memory of intense hunger b/c I was too little to figure out how to feed myself). the problem for me was… the whole nation are/were drunks (communist Eastern Europe) and so it was not the inability to speak. it was just so normalized that every event/celebration ended with adults passed out and the kids asleep under the table until your adult woke up. I’m a mom now and my own mother is alive and… still a drunk. She is 3000 miles away though and I resent her just as I did when I was a child. I have a lot of anger issues and attachment issues and though I have been to therapy I have never truly addressed those resentments inside of me. But this felt goof to type. Thanks for the article. Much love to everyone.
A beautiful reckoning if ever there was one. Thank you so much for so thoughfully sharing.
”there is no better feeling in the world than telling your child that you love her”. This resonates with me, not for the reasons in this article but because a stressful divorce. Beautiful.
I’m crying. What amazing mothers you, your mom, and your grandmother all were and are. You couldn’t have saved her and she couldn’t have saved herself. But it doesn’t make it any easier. I’m so sorry.
All too well, I understand this post. Thank you for sharing. Blessings.
Bawling…
This is such an important topic. My grandmother was an alcoholic, but sober the entire time I knew her. I often wonder what it was like for my mom to see her ‘be a grandma’ to her children. My mom knew to call the bar at 6 years old, but when I was 6, grandma took me to Disney. She was the BEST grandma. I know my mother was proud of my grandma and loved seeing us be loved, but I can’t help but wonder if she thought ‘why couldn’t I be cared for in that way’. My mother grew up way too fast and has experienced a lot of trauma that has not begun to be worked through. My grandma has been gone for a long while, but maybe I’ll finally ask my mom, mother to mother.
My grandmother was a pretty terrible mother to my mother, in lots of ways. (Not due to alcohol, but cruelty). When she was in our lives, between periods of estrangement, she was a good grandma to me and my brother. But the trauma my mother still struggles with is very real. Her childhood shaped my childhood. She tried so hard to give us a magical family life that she wished she had. But even the act of trying so hard has had its own repercussions. Sending you love – daughter to daughter!
Jo and team…this one really hit me. Thank you.
I am so grateful for this post. Would you believe I searched Cup of Jo for a post about alcoholism the day before this was published? And then this appeared the next day. Thank you for making me feel less alone about watching a loved one struggle with this disease. It is devastatingly sad and disorienting.
No matter how much we love and care for someone, we cannot change the arc of their choices…it’s a fact, not wishful thinking. Were there things you might have done differently? Of course. Would they have changed the course of your mother’s life based on her choices? Doubtful. So, please, do not keep beating yourself up over what you did or didn’t do. I have been through this with my own mother, albeit for different reasons. You did what you could, when you could. Sadly, there are reasons beyond your knowledge (her not sharing is only a part of it) and perhaps, even hers, as to why she needed to drink. Drinking to the point of killing yourself and, as you are literally killing yourself, telling yourself how great you feel? That is serious self deceit and nothing you can do. I am sad that your mom was in such pain that she felt the need to drink. It’s like drugs. People may start for one reason, but when you keep it up even as it kills you, there’s a whole different motivation. If you want to honor your mother, be the best mother you can. You still won’t be perfect but you’ll be trying. Pay attention to what your daughter needs over time and give her the freedom to think and choose. And then, be there to love and accept her no matter what as you did for your mom. Give yourself credit, many would simply cut their mother out of their lives.
Great answer and so true.
From the perspective of the other side, an addict is not actually telling themselves how great they feel. Usually, they are actually so full of self-loathing it is almost unbearable. No one would choose to continue based on rational thought, please believe me. It is inexplicable but you can both know you are killing yourself and hurting those around you and still be unable to stop. It is entirely separate from reason. Part of the reason addicts find comfort in recovery with other addicts is that they can mutually understand the insanity. From the outside, it beggars belief, but from the inside you can have all the knowledge in the world and still remain in active addiction. But I completely agree with you that Taylor should hold no regrets at at all. Lying to yourself is part of the disease. I can guarantee your mom knew you wanted her to stop and knew she needed to, but sometimes the grip of the disease is simply too strong. I hope you go forward knowing, as the author Laura McKowen put so aptly, it was not her fault, but it was always her responsibility. Not yours. Be at peace.
agreed, i did literally the opposite of the author and my mom still died. i did everything i could to keep her alive. begged and pleaded – she went into rehab a handful of times and had periods of sobriety. i finally couldnt handle it anymore and she died about a year after I moved out when I was 18. such a journey and burden, there’s no winning. xx
@the ashamed mom as a recovering addict and adoring mom, I completely agree with you.
There are so many amazing comments here, this is such an important thing to talk about. My mom was an alcoholic. Actually, both of my parents were, but my dad has remained sober since I was 2 (I’m now 43 and still congratulate him on his ‘sobriety day’ every year). My parents were divorced–largely due to my mom’s alcohol use–and this story mirrors so much of my life with my mom…at least until about high school. Thanks to my dad’s sobriety we talked a lot about addiction in our family, but it still took a huge amount of time for me to realize what the true issue was that made my mom “different.” She was incredibly high functioning, except when she wasn’t. She even went into recovery for several years, only to relapse and then pass away when I was a similar age to you when your mom died. I felt like I needed to tell you that I DID have those honest conversations with my mom, once I was a young adult. I set boundaries, I protected my mental health, I confronted her multiple times. I refused to act as an enabler, or to sweep it under the rug–especially once I became a mom. But addiction is a disease, and despite my knowing how much she loved me and my sister, and knowing how much she wanted to be there for us and for her grandkids, and regardless of all those boundaries and confrontations, ultimately the disease won. I am absolutely not saying that there isn’t hope for those who are still battling, and those who love people with this disease. Just that I would wish and hope that anyone beating themselves up about things they wish they’d done, or wondering if they could have changed the outcome, ultimately has peace in knowing how much that person loved (loves) you, and that it’s not your fault.
What a gracious and helpful comment, Sarah.
Thank you for writing this. my mom was and is an alcoholic. Wouldn’t wish this disease on anyone. Although, we need to look for the glimmers. I found my career in social work because of it. Sending love <3
My ex sister-in-law is an alcoholic, and she has flip flopped back and forth from sobriety and drinking a number of times in the last decade. Her situation is very much complicated by her own difficult upbringing and struggles for economic survival, and my heart goes out to her. I worry so much about the effects of her addiction on my niece and nephews. I also worry quite a bit about the narrative my brother has constructed around his ex’s behavior, a narrative I see echoed in your beautiful essay and in some of the comments. That narrative is one of choice, of choosing between drinking (or any addition) and love for your child. I want to gently push anyone reading this to please reconsider this framing. Addictions are the result of many overlapping conditions — social, historical, biological, emotional, physical — and they almost always represent an attempt to escape pain. We all carry pain with us, trauma and rejection and childhood wounds and expectations we failed to meet and fear about the future. Having that pain, and wanting – needing – to escape it, does not negate the love that my sister-in-law has for her children. It does not negate the love that your mother has for you, Taylor. As parents, we love our children, and we are also whole people, struggling, sometimes with immense challenges. Both things can be true. Please do a kindness to yourself and the people in your life struggling with addiction, and try to see addiction not as a failure of love, but as a sign of a person who is struggling enormously.
Thank you so much for this note. If it were simply a “choice” I would absolutely choose family joy, personal happiness, health, financial stability and many other things that are often stripped from those of us with addictions.
What a beautiful wise comment. BOTH CAN BE TRUE. Someone can have an addition and be just as full of love, and still struggle, because they are also a whole, complex person. Love this comment. Just to clarify my interpretation of the above (given Anon’s comment, which I don’t agree with): I agree that there’s no choice to be made between addiction + love for others; they aren’t mutually exclusive. I think this was the main point above. But I don’t think the commenter above is saying that her mom didn’t have a choice about drinking. I think there’s always a choice for someone struggling with addiction (and any of us struggling with anything) to get on the path to sobriety/healing: to get help, to choose in the moment, to seek out resources and support and treatment. Everyone has free will and responsibility for their choices in life. Of course, everyone faces different barriers (internal and external) some people’s barriers are bigger; and needs may vary for everyone; but there’s always a choice + possibility of a better life for the person themselves. The false internal narrative of being doomed/flawed/incapable of choice and change is actually one of the most crippling parts of the disease. Relatedly, there’s studies on addiction that show that people whose families use language that internalize flaws (e.g. you are lazy, you are inapable) rather than choice and action language (e.g. you are choosing a harmful action) has a huge impact on the probability that someone will recover from addition: because the belief that you have choice vs don’t have personal choice / and the idea that we’re intrinsically capable (vs. believing yourself incapable) has a huge impact on behavior.
At age 63, I have to face the reality that my Mom is an alcoholic, with that being stated, I need her like a small child would need their Mom. It doesn’t matter how old you are, you still want your Mom
Just want to say that I love your @ name. I also felt the need to discuss All Fours as soon as I finished.
Both my parents in law are alcoholics. fully functional and you’d never guess they are. But they are. Not because of the quantity (they are probably below what most alcoholics consume daily) but simply because they can’t stop. Their two children (my husband and his sister) will never confront them about it even though it is without a doubt shortening their lives. I wish I could say something because I love them both dearly but alas it is not my place.
It wouldn’t help, even if you confronted them. My mom was a high functioning alcoholic and daughter of an alcoholic. My mom resented her mother all her life and I remember asking her why I shouldn’t resent her as well. It didn’t change her behavior, it just made her feel worse than she already did. My mom held it together until she retired and then really hit the bottle. She’d call me drunk and I’d hang up on her because there had to be some line between her desire to drink and my unwillingness to tolerate it. Her liver finally gave up several years ago and there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t miss her and don’t wish she’d made different choices. I do have to thank her, however because she is the reason I do not drink.
I am a mother in my early 40s to a 3 year old girl. I am an alcoholic. I know I need to quit to give her the life and love she deserves. This is a secret of mine that I’ve kept for years and I see myself in your mother. Reading the comments has consumed me today. I needed this more than anything right now.
oh my gosh, lindsay, you are SO brave and honest to say this out loud and consider changing paths. I want to say that I see you and am sending you the biggest hug of friendship. your daughter is lucky to have a mother who loves her and knows herself, even when it’s really really hard.
Yes, so brave and so loving. I’m rooting for you and your little girl from the bottom of my heart.
Rooting for you, my friend.
Hi Lindsay, I’m an alcoholic too. Also a mom. I haven’t had a drink in a long time. Walking into my first meeting was the scariest and best thing I ever did. I met a woman there who was three months sober- at the time that seemed an impossibly long time and I couldn’t imagine going that long without a drink. But she taught me to focus on not drinking today, and worry about tomorrow when it comes. Saying out loud that you have this thing is incredibly difficult and shameful for women, mothers especially. That you’re able to admit it to yourself should give you hope that sobriety is yours if you reach for it. The beginning is not easy but you can do it. I promise it is worth it. Rooting for you <3
Adding to the chorus of people rooting for you, Lindsay! You are brave and strong.
So much love for you, Lindsay. You are brave, and you can do this. Two years ago, my life felt hopeless as my teenaged son fought drug addiction. I never would have guessed he would be where he is today. He is my miracle, and you can be a miracle too. One day at a time, one hour at a time, one minute at a time. I don’t know if prayer is your thing, but it is mine, so I will add you to my prayers.
I wish I could hug you, Lindsay! My parents are both high functioning alcoholics, and amazing, kind, intelligent people. Clearly, it’s not only them that fit the bill! This hurdle doesn’t define you. You sound like you’re ready to take the next step, and you will. No matter what, though? Your daughter will always know that you love her. We see you. We’re proud of you!
Lindsay, right now, write down on a piece of paper simple statements about what you don’t like about yourself when you are drinking. I still have my piece of paper and it’s been a powerful motivator. I’m two years sober (!!). Big hugs, you’ve got this.
Lindsey, you have done the hardest part! Publicly stating you have an addiction is a giant leap forward. I am sending you positive energy for your journey of healing.
I’m now the ex-wife of an alcoholic. He hid it from me, and when I found out, didn’t try to quit. I know he’s so far gone that he can’t, but I can tell you this; If he had even tried, we’d still be married. We’ll never be married again, but even now, I can say that the shame keeping him from quitting is his own. All any of us who love him want is for him to stop drinking and to live the life he deserves. This is something I see over and over again from the people that love alcoholics. You and your daughter are worth the work of getting sober.
I wish I could connect you with my sister. She is an alcoholic, in her early 50s with an 9 year old daughter, and she drank every day of her daughter’s first 5 years. My sister is now 3 years sober, and I’m sure she’d see so much of herself in you. I don’t think she could ever imagine sobriety. She rejected rehab and AA until she hit her bottom, but now she’s grateful every day for her sobriety. We had another sister who died from her alcoholism, leaving behind her 12 year old daughter. Even with the closeness and reality of that, my living sister still drank, still spiraled. A heartbreaking tale of two alcoholic mothers. I wish our middle sister could have found sobriety.
I am 4 years sober and the podcast episode where they interviewed Annie Grace, author of This Naked Mind, was the thing that pushed me over the edge to finally quit!
Lindsay, I dont know you, but I’m so proud and amazed by you writing this with such honesty. I admire your bravery. I don’t know much about the topic, but I imagine that even writing this publicly and admitting this to yourself is a huge step in the right direction. Maybe the next step is going to a meeting to hear from others? You’re capable of this journey to reclaim your sobriety. Sending you all my love and admiration!
Lindsay, you are not alone. Sober Mom Squad is a group of sober women living all over the U.S., Canada and beyond who are all moms. You can find us on instagram, and there’s a website and app. We have zoom meetings every day. Sobriety is the best thing I’ve ever done for myself and for my daughters. I also recommend a few books: This Naked Mind by Annie Grace, and We are the Luckiest and Push Off from Here by Laura McKowen.
Hi Lindsay, cheering for you! In case it’s helpful, I had a different addiction, an eating disorder. The way I finally overcame it – every time I wanted to throw up my food, I’d ask “would I want my daughter to do this?” That was the only thing that gave me the courage to make a different choice in the hard moment. (I know this is very different, but wanted to share in case there’s any chance it helps) Cheering for you. Dont buy into any of the shame. You obviously love your daughter very much. She is lucky that you are considering a change.
What a beautiful essay. Thank you for sharing, Taylor.
This is so beautiful. Thank you, Taylor. And it is heartbreaking reading all the comments of people struggling with this in their lives and loves. And sad to know that because AA’s approach got rooted so early in addiction treatment in this country that other useful treatments are barely known about. There are a few books out there or even an internet search should help – there are already medicationss that successfully reduce cravings and the new class of GLP drugs also shows promise. One book I know of is coming out this fall that addresses all this – https://www.amazon.com/Drink-Your-Way-Sober-Science-Based/dp/163774739X
You will never know how much I needed to read this. By far one of the best essays I’ve ever read on Cup of Jo. Thanks for this unexpected message of encouragement and peace. It will forever be imprinted on my heart. Absolutely beautiful reflection. Thank you for sharing.
Taylor, thank you for being brave enough to share your tender feelings. This was so moving. I cried as I read it while rocking my IVF baby to sleep. My mom is very mentally ill and has wanted nothing to do with me for a decade. It’s heartbreaking to not have the mom you deserve and know that even if she was around she wouldn’t be the grandma your child needs. I appreciate you being vulnerable because I know I won’t be the only one who relates to your story.
thank you for sharing. I’m 32 and in a very similar situation to the one you were in prior to your mom’s passing (I am so sorry for your loss as well). It was eerie reading this and finding so many similarities. My alcoholic mother has always been the favorite mom of my friend group and she too has regularly obsessed over us having a Loreli and Rory mother/daughter relationship (one that I use to go along with but slowly shifted out of with age). It’s always been a struggle wanting to make her happy (and in most cases keep her happy and distracted from relapsing), while also honoring the hurt and pain that comes from the episodes of drinking and the abandonment of a parent. And now too she has also become very eager to become a grandparent since I got married last year. Seeing her eagerness for a grandchild is harder to swallow than I previously expected, since it still stings that she frequently checked out during her first parenting run. Even harder to gently express the hesitancy me and my husband feel about having children because of the fact that we both came from rocky childhoods. Thank you again for sharing your story, I truly have never read something that has resonated so much.
One of the best pieces of writing on CofJ in a very long time. Heart wrenching, sad, hopeful, beautiful. Taylor Hahn is an amazing writer.
Thanks for sharing your story, Taylor. My heart is with you.
This is one of the most moving essays I’ve read on COJ in my decade plus of reading. It’s bringing up complicated emotions in me, mostly working through coming to terms with the fact that my husband is an alcoholic (which I didn’t realize until a year ago – the work from home thing has been a huge trigger in his drinking) and I’m so scared for his future, and my kids’ future with or without him, unless he finally admits he needs help and gets the help he needs. After a year of letting him know I think he has a problem, just last week he finally came to me and said he agrees and wants to change. I haven’t see the change yet and don’t expect it to happen over night and am doing my best not to control him, but I’m here to support him when he’s ready. Its excruciating waiting for someone to make the decision on their own, but i feel hopeful that he’s taken a small step in admitting he needs to change.
Sending you lots of love, Anon. I hope your husband will change. I grew up with an alcoholic father who tried many times to quit and eventually did. He now works as a drug and alcohol counselor at a therapeutic community in a prison. A complete swerve from his previous career in sales. I am grateful to him that he chose himself, his wife, and his children over alcohol after many many years of struggling. The first step is indeed admitting it and I hope your husband can find his way back to himself soon. He is lucky to have your support!
Thinking of you and wishing you all the speed for his choice. It’s so hard. It’s so necessary. I hope he can make it. Therapy and AA all the way. It’s a journey every day.
This was an absolutely beautiful, heart breaking read. Thank you for sharing!
This is a very generous and kindly corner of the internet. I am sure it helps, in a cruel and unsettling time, to find a refuge and warm souls.
Taylor, this is beautiful. Thank you.
Taylor, just wanted to say that I loved this essay and that A Home for the Holidays was one of the best books I read last year. It now makes sense that you wrote your heroine from personal experience. We lost my FIL to alcoholism and currently we are also trying to love and support my SIL who is an alcoholic. It is all just hard.
So touching and beautiful! Glad you chose to talk about such an important topic. Thank you!
My mother-in-law passed away 5 years ago, related to her alcoholism. As she died alone and it was during the early stages of the COVID pandemic, we never got a direct cause of death. I had cut off nearly all contact with her and took a lot of flack from some family members due to it, but felt strongly that I needed to protect myself from the situation and still don’t have any regrets. In a way, it was a relief to me when she passed away, because I was dreading how to navigate how much she would want to be involved with our child and how uncomfortable I was with that, seeing the situation with her and our nephew (babysitting him while drunk, etc.). I’m sad that the woman I knew before the alcohol hit is gone, but not the alcoholic.
I am your mom. I struggled with addiction, to some degree, for ten years of my children’s lives in my home (the oldest is in college now). I have been sober for two years now. What I can say is that I struggled, fought, pleaded, wrestled, begged, bargained, went to rehab, attended AA, turned to my pastor, told all my friends, got my family’s help, read every book, sobbed, wailed, and begged to die because I couldn’t stop. You are right that her love for you and her drinking were separate things. If the love I had for my children could have released me from the demon of addiction there would never have been an issue. What looks like a choice is actually full and hideous slavery to a master that will not let you go. I thank God that somehow, some miraculous way, two years ago I finally was able to stop. I always knew I had a problem and my addiction was very sporadic as I would regain my footing only to lose it again. The primary thing that kept me going back for what felt like temporary relief was not desire, it was the guilt that came from my love for my kids. In a bizarre and twisted way (I now look back and think the best way to describe addiction is being under a spell) it was my love for my kids and my guilt over having failed them in that way that would lead me back to a substance to take away that guilt. I have had to let the shame go so that it does not eat me alive. There is no person on earth more miserable than addict enslaved. We know better but somehow can’t do better and it is hell. I fully recognize the hell that spreads beyond us and my heart is broken for you and what you endured. I will spend the rest of my life trying to make amends. I have been in therapy with my kids and nothing is being swept under the rug. We have had the hard conversations where I take responsibility for the ways I have hurt them. My prayer is that their lives are long enough that I can show up for them so many times that my steady presence can become part of their healing. For other moms as a word of warning, I was just like you and could not dream of ever hurting my children. But post partum depression and all the big emotions of motherhood got mixed with alcohol and it set something in motion I never could have imagined. For the author, if it was a choice, she always would have chosen you.
Thank you for sharing this with us, this really touched me. Heartbreaking. I wish you all the peace and healing.
Thank you for sharing this. As the sibling of someone who struggled for many years with substance abuse disorder, it means a lot to hear your story. I am happy for you that you have found a reprieve from the addiction, and I wish you luck. Your words helped me a lot today.
My God, what a powerful description of addiction. Thank you for writing this. I hope that you and your children keep working through the repercussions of your addiction. In the end, when your children are all grown, I hope that their feelings have been fully explored, their own behaviors are healthy, and that they take responsibility for achieving their own happiness and well being.
This is profoundly moving, thank you for sharing yourself with us.
Thank you for your words and I am happy for your recovery. As you say, it is so important to remember that this is not a choice. Straight from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism: A Note About Stigma People with Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) can feel isolated and rejected due to stigma—the negative attitudes and false beliefs about AUD that they have heard from others or have picked up from society at large. As a result, people with AUD might be too embarrassed to discuss it, think they should be strong enough to handle it alone, or be concerned that others might have a negative opinion. However, AUD is not a choice or character flaw and is a common medical condition that can happen to anyone. Evidence-based AUD treatment is available, change is possible, and most people who have AUD recover or markedly improve. https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/brochures-and-fact-sheets/treatment-alcohol-problems-finding-and-getting-help
Thank you for this comment. My mom is in rehab right now and I know she is trying so hard to fight this addiction. I hope she can come out like you did. I have so many emotions and frustrations with her addiction and need to remember her love for me is separate from her alcoholism. Congrats on 2 years sober.
Thank you for writing this. It means a lot to read your side of things. My dad was an alcoholic and died of liver cancer. Your description of addiction is spot on I feel. The Dutch word for addiction is verslaving, which more or less means enslavement. The best of luck to you.
Your writing about addiction is astonishing—I hope you are writing, for yourself or for others. What a gift you have. I wish you strength, courage, compassion and healing as you do this brave thing of waking up every day and staying sober.
Thank you for your honesty–your story brought tears to my eyes. You are fighting the good fight every day, and your kids are so blessed for it. My own dad wasn’t so strong, and after decades of alcoholism and eventually addiction to meth, he died 14 years ago after total kidney failure and drunk driving. Your story is healing to even me, in a way. Rooting for you in your recovery.
Thank you for this. My father died of alcoholism. He went to treatment many times and always went to AA. Nothing worked. As children, we often blame ourselves that our parents cannot get sober. This is so common for children of alcoholics. I am grateful for your honesty and explanation about how feeling your children, given your love for them, would cause so much guilt that you couldn’t climb out of the hole. I really think this is what happened to my father. He was the love of my life. I wanted his presence so badly. I forgave him for everything. He was rarely sober, but when he was, he was my hero. I miss him when he would go away. By go away, I mean, leave his body while being physically present. I go away, I mean, be so drunk that my father would disappear into his disease. There are a few things worse than having your parent present in terms of physically there, but completely gone from their body. Two months before my dad died, he looked at me as if he were a little boy. He was 69 years old, a month away from turning 70. Yet he looked at me as if he was realizing it for the first time, after slowly, enduring his bodies deterioration for over 10 years, and asked me “am I going to die?” By this point, he had terminal cancer. I calmly answered him. “Yes.” The day before he died, he spoke to me as if he was partially in this world and partially in the other side. He said to me “I will love you for all of the days. I will love you for all of the nights.” It’s nearly impossible for me to say these words without crying. I know he loved me more than anything in the entire world. Every single day of my life, I cry because of all the time we lost to alcoholism. I dream of what we could have had. I cry for what could’ve been. I cry for the time that is lost forever. In many ways, he died of guilt. What a tragedy. I have chosen to live a sober life. I refuse to put myself in any situation that resembles the hell that I saw my father endure. I have broken the pattern, not only to heal myself, but to heal my father wherever he is throughout all space and time. I love my father so much. I can feel his presence very often. I know when I am crying because of my deep love for him is the very moment that he is with me.
“If it was a choice, she always would have chosen you”. Absolutely true and so beautifully said. Bringing large tears to my eyes.
Thank you, Taylor. You write of her fairly and generously. My mother and my best friend both lost their fathers the same way. I didn’t know/barely knew them, respectively, but watching the impact it left on their loved ones is heartbreaking, and it feels like it will never end. We all have our own coping mechanisms, and if we’re lucky, that’s something with minimal impact upon ourselves and others. I live in a city with a large amount of unhoused people. Going downtown, you can’t avoid the evidence of the cruel nature of this disease. Each individual could inspire great essays like this too, I’m sure. It also reminds me that we’re so lucky to have support in our lives, whatever our personal struggle. That being said, sometimes the demons will win, no matter who is in our corner. It sounds like you did, and continue to do right by her. I hope her enduring presence in your lives continues to feel more and more comfortable.
That’s really beautiful.
I appreciate Taylor Hahn’s story and all of the others who have shared their stories. It helps to not feel alone. My mom is in her late 70s and has been an alcoholic since her 40s. I think perimenopause was a trigger to explosives that had been building up all of my childhood. We, as a family, were adamant from the very beginning that there was a big problem. Maybe because there was so much hidden and so many secrets as I grew up, I refused to sweep anything under the carpet as an adult. I would come home from college on the weekend and sit through two days of her crying. By Sunday we would have a plan and by the following Friday, it was back to square one. As I got older, there were interventions, rehab, books, therapy, but nothing made a difference for any longer than a few weeks. If I had known about hormones and ADHD back then, perhaps we could have explored another direction. She was part of the era coming off of the WHI study and her OBGYN told her that MHT would give her cancer. I have a had time right now feeling compassion toward her. I feel worn out, used, abused. I gave so much of myself to this, and maybe it’s my own menopause, but I feel like “I’m done.” It’s like, I have fought the fight for 30 years, it’s my time now. I love you, I’ll call you, I’ll take care of the normal stuff, but I am done.
Ella, you have the right to feel the way you do. It’s not you responsibility to look after your mother and It shouldn’t have been your responsibility when you were a child and a young adult. I understand because I have been there with dysfunctioanal parents.You did what you did so your family wouldn’t fall apart but it’s very unfair to the children to impose that burden.It was your mother’s responsibility to seek help. I have great compassion for people who are facing addiction and I know the hard work it takes to be sober but the alternative is a life of misery. You have the right to feel used and abused. Now it’s time to think of yourself and toke care of yourself.Stay strong and know that you’re not alone. Try to find a support group or any other means of support. You deserve to be happy and to be unburden
Such a moving essay…
This is beautiful. Thank you
My mother was a pass-out alcoholic for many years, starting when I was 7. She got sober when I was in college. I was angry, too. It took many years for me to come to terms with the bad memories and realize that no one will ever love me the way Mom did. She died of Covid. Yes, it’s a hole in our lives — a mother is irreplaceable. But please know you didn’t cause the alcoholism, you couldn’t control it, you couldn’t cure it, and it ends only one of 2 ways: recovery or death. I’m sorry for your loss and so happy you are a mom! Thank you for sharing.
My father-in-law was a charming, welcoming man. He was also an alcoholic and chain smoker. He died of lung cancer a year before he would have gotten the chance to meet the first of his son’s (and only child’s) children, and I hurt for him for that, and for my husband. But one thing in this essay–my husb. as a child asked his dad to stop smoking over and over again. He didn’t. Even having “the conversation” doesn’t mean there will be a different outcome. Please don’t carry that weight.
Yes, I second this. My father was a chain smoker and he died two years ago from health issues related to smoking. I asked him to stop smoking many, many times. I would take all of his cigarettes out of the pack and break them in half and put them back in. He would smoke them anyways. Once I took all of them out and wrote little notes on each asking him to stop. He smoked them anyway. He only stopped about seven years before he died and only after surviving a ruptured aortic aneurysm. I felt very hurt as a child that he would not stop even when I asked. Especially because of how harmful the second hand smoke was for his children. So, yes, it is very possible that no conversation could have changed what happened.
This is one of the most beautiful things I have ever read.
While I’ve never experienced this, your writing drew me into your experience and life. Amazing piece. I am in awe of the empathy and compassion.
Beautiful – thank you for sharing.
I lost my sister to alcohol and drugs 3 weeks ago after 20 plus years of addiction. My heart is breaking for you and me and everyone who has been harmed by addiction.
Wog, so sorry for your loss. I highly recommend the book IN THE REALM OF HUNGRY GHOSTS by Gabor Maté and the book THE BODY KEEPS THE SCORE by Bessel Van Der Kolk. Take care!
I’m so sorry for your loss.
This is a heavy piece that sadly I can relate to. I do feel fortunate that things did come to a nasty head for my mother that required her to get help and as a result has now been sober for nearly 17 years now. I am so grateful that she is alive and well, but no number of years sober can repair the pain and trauma her substance abuse inflicted on me while I was growing up. She still hasn’t dealt with the demons that led to her substance abuse in the first place, I wish that she would…
This is a great point, Anne. Even if our loved ones fix the “outside” problem, there are still existing issues if they don’t work on the “inside”. My mother has mental health issues and refuses to go to therapy. We can’t make them, sadly.
Ahh, just sitting here letting the tears flow down my face, resonating with the complexity of this mother-daughter relationship—how it can be both devastatingly complicated (and painful) and deeply beautiful. I lost my mom suddenly two years ago. In the days following her death, I was consumed by a longing for closure, exploring in corners of my mind all that went unsaid in our relationship. Imagining what it would it have been like to process the joys and pains we experienced because of or alongside of each other, but ultimately just wanting to ensure that she knew that everything she gave me in this world was definitively enough. Somehow, in the bitterness of her absence, a deep intimacy with her has emerged, one we couldn’t quite have access to when she was alive. I now experience a more profound connection to her full humanity: her hurts, struggles, fears, and heartaches, alongside her dreams, joys, strengths, and beauty. As I imperfectly parent my children the best I can, I can imagine she was doing the same with me, and my grandma with her. Somehow that image allows me to feel a little more grateful and present in this wild, wondrous life of mine.
Thank you for sharing your experience and raising awareness about the disease of alcoholism. Al Anon (https://al-anon.org/) is a lifeline for families and friends of alcoholics. Online meetings are available 24/7. https://meetings.al-anon.org/electronic-meeting-page/ So grateful for Al Anon and how it has helped me improve my relationships with the sober and non-sober alcoholics in my life.
Taylor, thank you for sharing your story and thanks for all the readers comments as well- very relatable and touching- thinking of you all. I’m also excited to check out both of your books A home for the Holidays and The Lifestyle