The holidays are coming up and I'm on pins and needles. I know that she expects to be invited out to dinner with us, but I don't enjoy her company.....slurred speech, boring, repetitive, doesn't listen.........and, in addition, tends to be rather passive aggressive in her snarky comments. She lives two blocks from us. Anyone have any idea how to deal with this? It seems like when there is any big event, holiday, birthday celebration, etc., she goes out of her way to focus attention on herself and wreck the occasion. I'm so very tired of this. I want to do the right thing, but don't want to be held hostage every holiday. A few times, usually my husbands birthday, she's too "sick" to go out and we bring her a nice dinner she can enjoy at home, but when it comes to her birthday, she's always ready to go. Now she's looking forward to going out on Christmas Eve with us and we really don't want her to come because of her drunken, drugged up behavior...
Alcohol abuse among the elderly, I believe, is a growing problem and I can tell you that the doctors do not care. I have approached my parents doctors and the emergency room doctors with my concerns and, even when the doctors know the problem is alcohol related, they just do the minimum and send the patient on their way. The only doctor that cared was an awesome neurologist who really helped my dad, but then when dad started drinking again, the neurologist declined to care for him anymore. It's so frustrating because you see the falls, the lack of proper nutrition, and yes drinking and driving, but there is nothing you can do.
I told people that having my parents live down the street from me, and behaving the way they were (drinking heavily all day), was like having two 10-year olds living in their own house with the keys to the liquor cabinet and two cars. Everyday was the day I expected to receive a phone call that their car was in a ditch, or that they had hit a tree head-on, or, worse, killed someone else.
I really wish the medical community paid a little more attention to this. It seems as if the doctors pretty much wrote-off my parents drinking as irrepairable but yet kept prescribing Benzo's which interact very badly with alcohol. Both of my parents have ended up in the emergency room during the past decade due to the effects of the alcohol on their bodies but they are just given some fluids, electrolytes, potassium, etc., and then sent out the door to do it all over again.