My beautiful Mum, she is 55 years old and she has alcohol related dementia and kidney disease. I touched on this area of my life briefly in my first post, and now I feel like I am a bit more ready to let you in.

My Mum, Maggie, was taken into hospital with stage 5 kidney failure almost a month ago. We knew things were bad but my god; not that bad! She was dying in front of us and there seemed to be nothing we could do. We were told to prepare ourselves for the worst and I was scared. I had been here before with my Dad only a few years ago and I just couldn’t do it again… Then we got told what we had all feared but suspected for a while, that Mum’s odd behaviours and her forgetting things was down to one thing, dementia; alcohol related dementia.

With some miracle, my Mum starting to respond to the treatment to her kidneys and the doctors said she was stable. This is her current state, stable. But, she will never recover from this. Putting it bluntly to you – she is going to die. From what or when I do not know and everyday I lose another small part of her due to her dementia. My beautiful 55 year old Mum, in so many ways she is gone. And my heart, once again has broken into a thousand pieces..

I miss my Mum. For all her faults, I would give anything to have her back.

When growing up, I knew from a young age that my Mum was different to other Mum’s. The memory of going to the shop to get some sweets after school, and my mum picking up something to drink for that evening. As I got older coming home and the slight slurring to her voice was there. But don’t get me wrong, she managed her life amazingly. I never once went without a warm cooked dinner or anything like that and my god the love this women had to give me was so apparent. My Mum loved me, and my siblings and her husband. It worked. We functioned as a family with a Mum who was a functioning alcoholic.

Many people, some of who might even read this will have wonderful memories of my Mum. She was fun, loving, kind and completely selfless.

I realise I’m talking about my Mum in the past tense, and what I want you to take from this is to me that Mum has gone.

I remember growing up, my Mum was my biggest fan. Taking me to dance and drama class, cheering me on from the side lines – even buying me flowers for my first big performance for the dressing room, like a proper star. Always welcoming my friends round and adopting them all as her own! Mags was a wonderful women, but she was an alcoholic.

Sometimes she would drink all day, this was at weekends when she didn’t have work and all routine was lost. I mean she had my Dad’s incredibly regimented weekend routine but there was no responsibility for her and she crumbled and would drink. Still we would have our warm dinner ready and a hug and kiss goodnight. But it would be a struggle to wake her up the next morning sometimes, and the slurring incomprehensible conversations would often prove too testing for my teenage self to deal with.

This was hard, I didn’t understand why I couldn’t and didn’t have a “normal” Mum. A mum that didn’t need to drink every day. A Mum that knew when to stop. I would scream and shout and call her an alcoholic, begging her to stop hiding bottles in bags that were in boxes and pretending she had only had 2 drinks instead of 4,5,6,7,8… Begging her to stop drinking before she killed herself, and now it is too late…

My beautiful, loving Mum had an awful addiction that completely took over her world. Now as I have experienced life a bit as I have got older, I can understand that this addiction started as a choice, that became a habit that took over her life. I completely understand how things can become too much and it is all too easy to turn to alcohol or substances for a release. The difficult part is knowing when enough is enough. Something my Mum never learnt. I just wish I knew what she was trying to escape for so long and how I could have helped her more. 

But I should be grateful, shouldn’t I? That she is still here. I can still have that cuddle and a conversation. Well yes, I can. If I am happy to be Kayleigh (my sister) sometimes. If I am happy to assure Mum that her late father of 25 years is coming to see her next week or that her husband, my Dad, is coming back to pick her up. Along with the battle of helping bath my Mum, she refuses to let the nurses wash her as she is convinced she has already showered. Don’t get me wrong when I say, if I am happy to do this, of course I am, But can I honestly say “happy”? When the alternative is to tell the truth, distressing my Mum so much it reduces her to tears, confusing her into a state where she does not know what is going on anymore. So yeah, actually I guess I am happy. But actually – all I want to do is cry. Cry for the women she was, the women she could have been. For my life she can’t remember now and for my future she will not be a part of anymore. Because while my mum is still alive, she is just existing.

This is dementia, but it is alcohol that has brought on this evil illness; that has taken my Mum. 

I truly believe we live in a society that shames people with Mental Health issues and addictions, in a way that means those who suffer, often do in silence. You may not agree with me, but coming from a place of experience, I can tell you as much as my Mum’s addiction started with choice, she ended suffering an addiction.

This is an area we all need educating in. We need to remember there is a difference between liking a drink and your body being dependent on having a drink. But aware that one is choice and one an addiction; the line between is thin.

How about we help each other be more supportive and remove the stigma, it is okay not to be okay…

Always remember… 

“Things we lose have a way of coming back to us in the end. If not always in the way we expect.” Luna Lovegood, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Being Becka x 

Music is a massive part of my life, the song that will forever remind me of my Mum and her addiction is Meatloaf – Heaven Can Wait