My Mother a Violent Alcoholic

by Bethany
(England)

Nearly four years ago my family started having financial problems, at this point we lived in France. My father worked from home, and he started working till 2 or 3 in the morning to try and finish his work. My mother didn't speak the language so she just stayed in the house all the time. She felt bad for my dad, he was working all these long hours for our family.

She became lonely and started to drink. Going to the local shops was the only thing she could do. One night my mother went across to my father's office. She managed to catch a glimpse of him at his computer looking at pornographic images. She had been thinking he was doing this for some time. With this clarification she lost it.

I heard screams, shouts and loud thumps. That was the first time they fought. My father was curled up on the gravel with my mother kicking him really hard and screaming at him and swearing. I had to scream repeatedly before it got through to her. Then she managed to stop. I got them bad in the house.

The fighting continued till my father eventually left to go to our neighbour's house. I eventually managed to calm my mother down and she went to bed. The next day things were still awful but at least she was sober. Eventually she forgave him but until then there was more fights and she went back to England. She said she forgave him and I think she has but even now when she is drunk she drags all of this out.

Also we have discovered 2 years ago that my father is autistic, he has asperger's syndrome, this make him very uncomfortable in social situations, he can't read people the way most of us do. He doesn't really know what's socially acceptable and in arguments he has a tendency to react like a child and go in a strop and go off by himself.

My mum finds it really hard living with him even just day to day but she loves him so she tries. The drinking at first after the pornography was frequent but now it isn't as frequent, like once every 2 months maybe but this is the problem, she will go to the supermarket and buy 2 bottles of white wine.

Now if it was just 2 bottles over a large period of time or even with friends it wouldn't bother me so much but what my mother does is she will buy 2 bottles and drink them both in 3 hours or so by herself. Even then she is sneaky about it. She will go into the kitchen and quietly open the fridge, fill a small glass, drink it quickly, rinse her glass and come back to the living room as if nothing had happened.

We used to think she was pottering about maybe cleaning or something. Another example is while still in France for my dads birthday he was given a lot of alcohol. Very strong stuff, we put them in my father's office. Which had become my mother's writing room, she is an unpublished author. She was supposedly writing but the bottles of drink disappeared and my dad hadn't touched them. There had to be easily 7 bottles.

I had a bottle of raspberry liqueur, my mother hates it, I came home and it had gone from the cupboard, I asked my mum where it had gone and she said that she and my father had drank it. I later asked my dad and he said he hadn't had any. Now that we are back in England, it's slightly better because now we can get help but my father won't do anything and I'm quite hesitant because she is my mother and it's only on occasion that she does this, she did it not to long ago maybe 2 months ago.

My father was on the floor, screaming for me to help, to do something. I froze. This situation is very difficult for me, we have no money, my dad won't do anything against her. He's tried talking to her as have me and my sisters but she won't listen, she used to say that we were taking our father's side. Making her the monster. As much as I know what my father did was wrong and that he hurt her, I don't think it warrants what he has suffered.

I'm now 18 but I haven't a job and I can't support myself yet, I am still in full time education. I can't get away from them despite when she is drunk I just want out. My father is helpless. Recently me and my mother went to the supermarket and as soon as she went towards the wine section, I started having a small panic attack. I felt like my brain was in a cage, I couldn't get enough air into my body, I was really hot and couldn't stand.

Every time there is alcohol in our house I can't relax, I feel physically ill. Since a young teenager I've seen this. She won't admit what she has and I was shouted at the other day for telling my fiancées mother about it. I was just wondering what you think, thanks.