Growing Up With a Mom Who Was a Hidden Alcoholic

Friends, the teen years are hard enough already. But what if hidden alcoholism shapes everyday life at home? What if a parent is a steady, all-day drinker and the people around you barely notice what's going on behind closed doors? That's what life was like for one of our readers and her mom. Here she tells her story.

You've said that as a teenager you fought with your mom constantly, knew everything better than she did, and probably called her a "dumb cow" more than once. How did that start? Do you remember about how old you were, and how long it lasted?

Probably from the very start of my teen years. It lasted until she stopped drinking, when I was about 28. I'm 46 now.

What did you fight about most?

I have to say, she was a steady drinker, but she still had her life (job and so on) under control. But I hated it when she was tipsy or even drunk. And that happened so often. When we were on vacation at the beach, or when friends of mine were over. I was so ashamed of her.

Could you talk to her openly about it?

She denied it. She didn't care what I had to say about it. 

How did that shape your own relationship with alcohol?

As a teenager and a young adult, I partied a lot too, and I often had wine in the evenings. It was just part of life.

So your mother's drinking and hidden alcoholism didn't scare you off. If anything, it made drinking seem normal?

Drinking was normal. But that had little to do with my mom. It was more about everyone around me. In my high school graduating class, too, a lot of people drank and partied often. It was always part of it. Still, things rarely got out of hand for me. I always knew my limits.

How did your mom react to your own wild nights out?

It was never an issue.

When did things between you and your mother start to get better? What's your relationship like now?

My mother got seriously ill. She had acute pancreatitis. She was in the hospital for a long time, in the ICU. That was also her detox. For a long time afterward she was afraid of having to go back to the hospital, but it changed her relationship with alcohol.

She knows now that it's the main trigger for her health problems. Every now and then she goes through phases where she drinks more. But, "luckily," it has immediate consequences for her health, so she quickly stops again. I often get angry then and yell at her, and I threaten to keep her grandkids away from her. That sounds harsh, I know.

But since all this, she's been a patient, loving grandma. That probably never would have been possible without the illness. Today we have a wonderful relationship.

Now you're a mom yourself. What do you want to model for your own kids?

I think it's troubling that in so many families, kids are raised as if alcohol has to be part of life. That's how I grew up, sadly, and I see it with a lot of my friends. It surprises me, because these days we should know so much better. For us, alcohol is a legal drug with big risks, and we talk about that with our kids. I think my daughter, who is an adult now, drinks little and rarely. 

So you don't drink at all anymore?

Once in a while I still have a glass of wine, on vacation, for example. But overall, my behavior has changed. I have two daughters (19 and 8), and it's always been important to me that alcohol isn't normalized. For me, for example, it wasn't part of the Jugendweihe (a secular coming-of-age ceremony common in parts of Germany), with the "Now you're allowed to drink, with a parent along" attitude, or when our daughter turned 18.

Alcohol is and remains an addictive substance that does nothing good for you but can make you sick, trigger cancer, and destroy your liver. Even in moderation it's not good. I never wanted my kids to feel uncomfortable because their mom was tipsy and talking strangely or whatever. For me it was always awful when that was the case in my childhood and teens, and friends were over.