Can I do anything to save my alcoholic daughter?

DEAR BEL,

WIDOWED and retired, I live near my elder daughter Lyn and grandchildren. My younger daughter Jade moved to London four years ago, after a violent, long-term relationship ended. She’s had a few Tinder experiences — nothing lasting. She found a good job. I helped her buy a flat. Her last relationship ended badly after he cheated on her and said things that made her feel a failure. For the past year, Jade has been drinking heavily, spending most of her free time and money in the pub. She’s started having problems at work (blamed on others) and taken many days off as holiday. I fear she’ll lose her job and flat — and I can’t afford to subsidise her. She came to mine for Christmas, saying she was really looking forward to it. But she downed a bottle of wine before 12 and was getting loud by teatime. I didn’t like the grandchildren witnessing it and Lyn told her to calm down. Jade took offence and went upstairs, abusive when I tried to console her. After the others had left, she told me Lyn was selfish and she wouldn’t see her again. I kept quiet, we watched TV and on Boxing Day she didn’t drink at all. Next morning she was OK, but said I would be glad to see her go. I took her to the station, tried to suggest making up with Lyn and asked her to realise what damage alcohol was doing. I said I loved her and would always support her, but that I didn’t like her when she’s drunk. She became abusive and said I was taking Lyn’s side, as well as being unsupportive and patronising. Jade has deleted us all from Facebook. I thought about sending her a book about getting through alcoholism, but I despair. She never got over her Dad dying of cancer 12 years ago, and probably never will. I could suggest counselling, but she won’t go. What should I do?

WENDY

There is another (longer) letter on my desk from a desperate mother of an alcoholic daughter — and it was hard to know which to choose to print here.

The situation S describes is actually more complex than yours, Wendy. her ex-husband ruined his life through alcoholism and died young; her elder daughter began drinking, left her partner, almost lost custody of their child — and died (from medical complications to do with alcohol) at 44.

Now S’s other daughter drinks two bottles of wine a night and is transforming herself from a successful woman with a partner and friends (all drifting away) to a bloated alcoholic.

You, Wendy, will understand S’s final thoughts: ‘ She’s extremely selfish . . . It’s depressing me and I want to run away. She calls me every day; I got her into counselling but she stopped after one session.

‘I feel like turning my back on her, but then she’d have no one . . . I’ve written her a long letter, but she destroyed it. I’ve bought her self-help books. I feel I want to move away and let her carry on killing herself. What can I do?’

There is no easy, obvious answer to either desperate letter. Both of you know your daughters need urgent help and have suggested counselling — to no avail.

S has told her son (very angry with his sister) that her alcoholism is an illness, inherited from the father and passed on to two daughters.

Grief for a father may also have played a part in her daughter’s decline, as you, Wendy, believe it has done in Jade’s life. her tendency to choose men who hurt her, physically or mentally, is very worrying and symptomatic of low self-esteem, to a destructive level.

Obviously, any addict has to want to get better, to find treatment, to

change their life. Even then we all know how very hard it is to stay straight. Anguished parents can’t frogmarch adult relatives to a rehab clinic, much as they would like to.

Sometimes the alternative of stepping back (or even running away, as S says) is the only option — to protect your own mental health. Yet that is usually the last thing most suffering parents want to do — hence the terrible anguish within both these letters.

I hope you know about the service provided by Al-Anon ( al-anonuk.org.uk). The more the alcoholic refuses support and persists in self- destruction, the more the family need support themselves — and that’s what Al-Anon offers. Its aim is to ‘help you find a different way of coping with your relationship with an alcoholic . . . either as a first port of call or when you feel you have run out of ideas and have nowhere else to turn.’

The meetings are attended by others united by the common bond of having to cope with a drinker.

But it’s not about persuading the person to give up alcohol, it’s all about you.

Talking to others who understand might help your frustration, disappointment and pain. Try the free helpline — call 0800 0086 811 — and see where it leads.