'I loved and hated her in equal measure' – life with an alcoholic mother

It’s two-and-a-half years since I lost my mum to alcohol. At the time I was 21 and she was 49. It was a bitter yet inevitable end to a battle with a drug that had gradually increased its merciless grip on her over many years. Ashamed as I am to admit this, her death brought momentary relief. I had suddenly been liberated from an all-consuming anxiety; I wasn’t waiting to be called with yet more bad news. I wasn’t dreading talking to a mother whom I loved and hated in equal measure, whose wildly erratic state left me unsure of how to address her, what to say. Yet a harrowing period of depression quickly ensued, and I once again found myself doing what life as the child of an alcoholic had made me an expert of: concealing my true feelings and putting on a brave face.

My family had for years grieved for the woman and the life we knew before she became the puppet of a drug. A deafening silence haunted our house when Mum was drunk. Nobody spoke as she staggered around; as she sat at the dinner table barely able to spoon food into her mouth; as she attempted to engage you in fruitless, incomprehensible conversation. Instead we hoped to navigate the fragile situation just long enough for her to fall asleep or for the drunken monster that inhibited her to take its leave.

Chaos frequently reigned. Bitter words were hurled back and forth until both parties were so absorbed by regret and guilt that silence could once again rule, choking us all.

I resolved at the time of my mum’s death to speak openly about her alcoholism because I can’t bear to be complicit in the silence surrounding the issue. Between 2004-14, alcohol-related deaths in England rose by a staggering 13%. My loss is irretrievable, but others can be prevented, and starting a conversation around alcoholism is the first step in changing the national attitude towards this pandemic.

Though the plight of alcoholics is awful – the demonisation by society (medical professionals included), cuts to mental health services, the ready availability of the drug ... the list goes on – often overlooked are the struggles faced by their children. According to a report by the National Association for Children of Alcoholics (Nacoa), children of alcoholics are six times more likely to witness domestic violence, five times more likely to develop an eating disorder, three times more likely to consider suicide, two times more likely to commit criminal offences and two times more likely to have difficulties at school. Perhaps most frightening is the indomitable perpetuity of this ravaging plague; children of alcoholics are three times more likely to develop drug or alcohol problems themselves.

As of December 2016, a review by Public Health England suggests the financial burden could be as much as £52bn per year. This accounts for the cost to the NHS of dealing with alcohol-related illness, alcohol-related crime and the loss of productivity problem drinking engenders. This figure does not, then, account for the money required to combat the multitude of problems that blight the families of alcoholics. No such figure exists because these families remain hidden; the stigma around alcoholism is so great that those affected harbour guilt, embarrassment and shame.

Just as there is no single profile of an alcoholic, there is no single profile of their children. My mother was a successful professional in the NHS, working as an advanced practitioner until four years before her death. She had an infectious character that lit up a room: vivacious, bountiful in love and deeply compassionate. At the time of her death, I was two years into a languages degree. I have since completed this and am now training to become a teacher, largely inspired by the bedrock of stability and normality that school provided me with as a child. I am an “overachiever”.

My record hides a desperate truth, however: the stories of resilience many of us COAs unknowingly share must not be championed as “inspiring”, because then we continue to whitewash a much darker reality and, crucially, fail to get to the crux of the problem.

There is hope for change, however. Following Labour MP Jonathan Ashworth’s frank admission to parliament about his experience as the child of an alcoholic and the urgent need to deal with the wider harm caused by the drug, this month there will be a new strategy to support children of alcoholics (COAs).

Furthermore, the first ever manifesto for children of alcoholics coincided with COA Week and Nacoa’s annual lecture; contains a 10-point plan to help the one in five children affected by alcohol.

Currently, not a single local authority in the UK has a strategy that targets COAs, and neither the social care nor the public health system has developed effective strategies to support them. This manifesto, written by policymakers, medical experts, charities and children of alcoholics, demands that the government appoint a minister responsible for coordinating policy. The third sector must no longer have to take the burden of supporting COAs; as the number of alcohol-related admissions continues to rise, already underfunded drug and alcohol services are seeing further cuts. Local authorities require proper funding to deliver crucial physical and emotional support to children in need.

It is only by reaching out to the children of alcoholics that we can hope to definitively break the cycle of addiction that has a stranglehold upon the nation. By failing to do so – by remaining silent on the matter – we fail them and condemn thousands of children to a miserable fate, while facilitating the very issue we claim as a nation to find so repulsive.

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