An environment that reinforces drinking?

Your mother is an alcoholic and her “friends” are enablers. You need to find out about AlAnon, which is an organization for families of alcoholics.

Good luck to you, and to your mom, and your entire family.

The people can go to hell for all I care, it’s not good. Definitely not good, and dangerous. You need to talk her out of it.

How old are you? Alcoholism is a disease that cam easily lead to death.

Your mother certainly fits the description of an alcoholic.

Do you siblings or other relatives who had help you deal with her (not an easy thing to do. Alcoholics live in denial until forced by their family and friends or circumstances to face up to it.

There are organizations for the children of heavy drinkers.

Alanon.

Your mother is an alcoholic. She needs help. You can go to Al-anon for help and support. She must be difficult to live with.

This sounds extremely familiar. Then again, my mom is an alcoholic, too.

Your mother’s friends are the reason most addiction rehab programs recommend the recovering addict must find new friends and avoid the old places associated with their addiction.

As others have stated: you need to contact Alanon. The chances that you’ll be able to change your mother’s behaviour are quite slim especially because she has so many enablers around. But you need support and they’ll be able to help you.

First… remain strong. You are on the right track. Stay that way. I’m proud of you!
AA, AlAnon, etc… All of the above good answers….

Now a couple of questions for you. . Are your parents working? How are they supporting this habit? Am I (a taxpayer) paying for it?
Is there any chance you can secretly video your mom in action. Sometimes they need proof to see what is happening. You might also need it if/when social services might be required.
I have never been an enabler and have always been willing to sink the ship before letting it crash against the shore and potentially hurt others.
You have been dealt a lousy hand but you can still win, if you play it right. I wish you well.

As an aside, I had a friend who was an alcoholic. However, she successfully completed AA and, as far as I know, has been sober for many years now. She said that when she was still drinking her husband would go around looking for her stashes. The one place he would never check, though, was in her tampon box…...

If you live in the United States basically you are in an environment that reinforces drinking. Almost everyone thinks it is normal and expected. Just know there are plenty of people who don’t drink, and I recommend you hang out with those people, because I also recommend you never ever touch a drop with that type of family history. I never drink, and I don’t have alcoholism in family, we just don’t drink much. My husband and I never expect alcohol with a meal or at a party, it is a no issue. I actually don’t care if my friends are drinking around me, so it is not like you have to completely rid yourself of anyone in your life who drinks, but since you are young I am guessing many friends of your drink, and want you to drink. Don’t.

I’m twenty and I come from the Netherlands from a reasonable small town. I emigrated a while ago but my sister mentioned something that I found interesting. At the celebration of Sinterklaas (Bit like Christmas) my family writes a lot of mocking poems. I couldn’t attend but apparently the boyfriend of the middle sister made this book with the title: “How to get rid of your Jagermeister addiction” filled with flyers of where to enroll and to kick off.

Whenever people need to mock my parents or mention a certain trait of my mother, they mention Jagermeister. Always. It happened at their 25th wedding anniversary and during birthdays and she always ends up getting more booze. My dad used to hide alcohol from her but she would make us, her kids look for it or go on a quest to find it herself. Strange thing is that my dad used to buy all her alcohol because he does the groceries. They are both middle class with high paying jobs so it doesn’t affect their budget.

What I just wondered is why people actually encourage her to do so. I mean it isn’t praise worthy if the main quality people pick up on is the fact you can down a bottle of Jagermeister and are a heavy drinker. But it seems to be in the town I come from for everyone gets drunk, especially during parties.

I don’t drink much myself. My wife drinks the most (which in this household is a very occasional glass of mulled wine or a snowball) and my inlaws don’t drink at all.

Functioning alcoholics are very hard to intervene with. It sounds as if your mother and fathers friends often drink too much as well.
Americans tend to drink very little and once we hit the world average we are viewed as alcoholics. I do not know much about the standard consumption in your country but I know in some countries it is not uncommon to consume a bottle of wine daily and sip up to four cocktails daily. It is not healthy at all. My point is that your mother may have just slipped from the daily average in to a bit more. Certainly a bottle of Jager daily is terrible for your health and it will be very hard to overcome that level of addiction.
Talk with your mother, tell her you are worried and that she is scaring you and you really want her to accept help. Gather her close friends together and see if they will help.
There are many kinds of treatment out there and with the right support she will be able to defeat her addiction.
VERY IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER
Alcoholism is a disease not a sickness. You will want to out lash at her thinking it is a choice for her to drink but really it is not. Once out of control for the addict, the body becomes physically addicted to it and it is needed to avoid getting sick. The road to being sober is very hard and it will be fueled with angry bouts, crying fits, the shakes, vomiting and sweating.
Buy a bunch of green tea a book to help yourself through it.
Best wishes to you and your families health. I wish your mother all the best in getting healthy. She will need her family close to her side.

“Americans tend to drink very little and once we hit the world average we are viewed as alcoholics”. -@judochop

I have to disagree with that. The fact that you’re not in the top 10% of something doesn’t mean you’re below average. Used this as a quick reference: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a9/Alcohol_consumption_per_capita_world_map.PNG

@judochop Why does it matter thay so much of the word are alcoholics?

@JLeslie I love you to death, but that sentence made absolutely no sense! I’m turning my head sideways and stuff trying to figure it out!

@Dutchess_III Should be world, not word. People try to say fpr instance the French and Italians drink wine all the time, no big deal, but a lot of them are alcoholics in my opinion. They really cannot be without their drink every night. They might be highly functioning alcoholics, but I think it still affects mood to some degree.

@Zyx it’s sorta what I do for a living. I used to compile national averages for marketing strategies used in the liquor industry. Americans don’t really drink that much. Really.
Our national average is bumped drastically by the age group of 19–25.
I do like that chart. The average since 2008 has been bumped do to the world market being down and less folks working but not that much. The world health organization has a lot of good information on their site.
Thanks for sharing.

@JLeslie it doesn’t really matter. My point is that most folks are quick to assume someone has a drinking problem when really they don’t. In this case, a bottle Jagermeister a day….It’s an issue. I am just saying it can get out of hand quickly if it is common ground to drink 8 drinks a day.

@judochop That’s interesting, the stats you used to work on. I think too many people think drinking every day is normal and has no effect.

@JLeslie drinking everyday is normal and has no side effect as long as you keep your consumption down.

@judochop I don’t agree. But, it isn’t that I would necessarily say everyone who does it is an alcoholic, but I would say they are addicted. I also would say caffeine drinkers are addicted, but it isn’t like I think they need to quit. Again, I think it does alter mood, people who drink daily aren’t very happy campers when they don’t get their drink. Sure if it is minimal they aren’t going to go through major withdrawal symptoms or DT’s, but they really miss it. At least most daily drinkers do.

You are only responsible for your own behavior. I suggest you join a group such as Al-Anon or other support group for children/family members of heavy drinkers/alcoholics.

@JLeslie actually it’s been shown that a pale lager (might be wrong on the type) a day has the same benefits as a glass a wine a day.

@King_Pariah So? I don’t care what it is the person is drinking.

Just saying that it has been shown that daily drinking of a glass of red wine or a pale lager have been seen to be beneficial to your health.

@King_Pariah Yeah, I know, that is my dad’s excuse for taking up wine. Actually, I have never heard about health benefits regarding lager, just wine, and I question the studies, because those who drink wine, typically have more mney, and better health in general. I am not sure the correlation is really a causation. I would have to see the studies. I also have no idea if they have ever really looked/studied behavior of daily drinkers who supposedly are not alcoholics when the alcohol is withheld. Heart disease and addictions are two different things and can be going on, or not, independent of each other.

@JLeslie The pale lager one is actually fairly new, I heard about that one on both NPR and PBS.