Don’t know what to do
I’m 20f about to leave for college this weekend and my mom had an ongoing addiction problem with alcohol. She’s been to the hospital twice on a 5-day detoxes and is offered resources for iop programs, appointments with doctors, medicine, and I also remember them offering options for 30-day long rehabs. But she refuses them. It’s most likely the addiction in her brain telling her that this isn’t a problem. But there is this repeated cycle of her leaving the house by walking or taking a car to get alcohol at the nearest store, downing the drink, and either walking back to the house or allegedly drunk driving back. There have been multiple instances of us receiving a call from the police or hospital about her whereabouts. Often if she’s in the hospital, she gives fake names or doesn’t give her name so i don’t know if there’s a record of her constant visits due to alcoholism. Yesterday she walked out of the house and we didn’t know her whereabouts for 2 days. She has meds for sleep, anxiety, depression, and alcohol craving suppression but also refuses to take them.
Whats worse is that I don’t know what else to do with her. I don’t know if kicking her out is the right thing. My dad wants to press charges because she’s taken his car out to buy alcohol by stealing his keys, saying that jail might be the only way for her to stop consuming. He also wants her out of the house. My parents aren’t married so he has no legal obligation to house her technically (that’s what he says at least…).
When she’s not drinking, my dad says that people love her. “Everyone at the hospital loves her, the doctors love her, the therapists love her” he says things like that about the times she’s been in the 5-day detox program. I don’t deny that because I know she’s great when she isn’t inebriated. But her behavior when under the influence is disruptive and destructive to both her and those around her.
I feel like i don’t know what to do, and I feel like i’ve given up. My dad was yelling at me for the fact that me giving up makes me not human because it’s my mother, but I don’t know how to help someone who refuses help. He said that me taking her to the hospital when I came back from college and finding her resources to get help before I left for 2 months out of country was the “bare minimum” but that’s all I could think of doing at the time. I honestly don’t know what else I could have done. He’s blaming me for running away to school when I was very vocal about my plans on leaving this weekend ever since I signed my lease back in April and my move in was start of august. Maybe I am? Maybe I don’t want to deal with this anymore? Does that make me a bad person for giving up on them? I don’t know.
I’ve looked into alanon meetings near my area. I might attend an in-person one on Wednesday since that’s the only available one that’s as soon as possible. I guess i’m just venting but any advice would also be great …
Posted Aug 3, 2026, 2:05 PM UTC