Help me 28F set boundaries with my alcoholic sister 24f?
This situation may need a bit of context, so bear with me. I am not asking for advice on what we should/not have done in the past. Simply how to protect myself and my family moving forward. Apologies if I miss info, I'm getting this out while I can as I have been tossing up whether to do this for a week now and need to get it out while I'm feeling brave.
I(28f) have a younger sister Ellie(24F) who has been with her boyfriend Blain for about 2 years. We also have an older brother Phillip(34M)
Our mother died when we were 20, 14 and 10 respectively. Our brother had already moved out. Both of our parents were alcoholics which ended up contributing to her death. After Mum passed Dad was coping for a while and swore of alcohol forever. This didn't last and over the decade between Mum dying and Dad also dying he would promise regularly, sometimes daily, that he would never drink again and we all know how that went. We learnt quickly not to ask him anything or trust a word he said after 9pm as he wouldn't remember the next day. Through the years it got earlier and earlier until you learnt to take every promise with an entire shaker of salt.
During this period of our lives I became defacto Mother to my sister. Dad was wonderful, loving and we never went without but he wasn't a parent, more like a friend. So the parenting fell to me. Any hard conversation, discipline or emotional support was directed to me. I never minded and believed it was my job.
Ellie was a beautiful but selfish kid who never really had a chance. She became both our parents golden child and never heard no. After we lost Mum this became worse. One of the key parts of this was anything I had She wanted and I was expected to be accommodating. This led to her always wanting what I had- laptops, phones and as we aged, boys.
My husband(32M) and I have been married for nearly 2 years and together for 8. He has taken on the responsibility that is Ellie from the beginning. Through the years she has tried her usual antics to steal him away to no avail.
In 2020 we lost Dad and Ellie found his body and had to perform CPR. She had been living back at home so we brought her to live with us again(she had lived with us for about 6 months a few years prior. Prior to losing Dad we had tried to bring up her binge drinking but also tried to keep in mind we were all young and dumb once and she too needs to make her own mistakes.
While she was living with us her drinking escalated. She would sneak to her room to chug vodka and generally drink to the point of oblivion a lot of nights. It even got to the point that when we were having a party and lots of people were drinking she would still sneak to her room to chug vodka so no one thought she had drank too much as she could show us how many empties she had. When Ellie drinks she becomes a handful to say the least. One of her biggest issues is she becomes hyper sexual with almost any male nearby, even if her boyfriend is right there.
We made sure she got therapy from the beginning. I helped her to trial counselors until she found someone she liked. Each time she would obliterate herself we would try to talk to her and see if she is ready for help. If I learnt one thing from Dad and Mum it was that you CANNOT help somebody who isn't ready to be helped. We tried separately, a combined approach, through friends anything and everything we could.
I will admit I was not coping well either and did put some unfair rules in place that in hindsight weren't helpful such as asking her not to speak about when she found him if we had been drinking. I knew that I could easily make a mistake when addressing this subject and thought I would avoid it all together. Looking back it kills me I ever asked it of her.
There is obviously a whole bunch more to this than I have written but I believe that's the context you'll need. Now on to my conundrum.
We all attended our brother's wedding recently. Ellie stayed sober enough to deliver her speech which we were all very proud of her for. However it quickly went downhill from there. Ellies boyfriend Blain had overindulged and lain down for a nap in the grass. A OK. We popped him down to sleep it off and aimed to let the night continue. Ellie however was distraught and for some reason highly embarrassed. After a lot of tears we sorted out and kept having fun. We had a few altercations throughout the evening as I had started to indulge myself and was a little sick and tired of the antics and general inability to control herself or have any sensibility. At the end of the evening it was time to head home, Ellie wanted to stay and started to carry on but between us and a few of my brothers friends we got her into the car. The 3 of us not driving were quite drunk. We got into an argument over the tone of voice I used which devolved into her screaming and crying in the middle of the street while Blain, who until that point I thought was a lovely potential future brother in law, took it upon himself to explain at top volume explicitly what an awful person I am etc. Fine. Whatever. We got back into the car and left for a while to give them time to settle down and go to bed.
Instead they decided to, while screaming at each other, pack their things and get into their car. The house we were staying in had our Aunt, her family and our grandfather inside I should add. My aunt said she asked them not to but they got into their car and drunk drove around a neighborhood. We assume she was trying to go home which was about 2 hours drive away.
They were still drunk driving around the place when my husband found them and told them to go home(when we got back and realised they were gone he went out looking for them, I stayed back given there may be less tension without me).
They came back and haven't said a word to either of us since.
My question is what do I do going forward? Everyone I have seen since the wedding says I need to get her help but I can't. I know all too well that she is a grown adult who makes her own choices and until she wants to change we may as well bang our heads on cement.
My issue is that I have a 1 year old son now who models off those he loves. I have lost all trust in her to the point I don't leave him alone with her unless my husband or aunt are there. I want to know how to set explicit boundaries with clear consequences moving forward. At this stage I will not be extending an invitation for Xmas and I don't know I'll ever feel comfortable having Blain in my house again.
I want to set up something so if and when she fails and and again I don't stupidly fall into the trap of forgiving her all over again like I already have twice this week. After all she's just a kid who's been messed up by life. But at some stage it stops happening to you and starts happening because of you.
I just want to protect myself, my son and my husband. Whilst my husband loves her he is at the point of wanting to cut her out of our lives completely if only so I don't get my heart broken again. I'm also hyper aware of her mental health and in no way ever want to impact that negatively.
Please help me as I am at a loss.
Posted Dec 11, 2023, 9:39 AM UTC