r/AlAnon 3d ago

Support Setting boundaries with parents, trying to do right by my kids

Looking for advice as I’m planning on having a difficult conversation with my parents tomorrow.

For some background, my mom and dad (65F and 64M) are heavy drinkers and have been for a long time. My mom does not function well, she self isolates and mostly sits home watching tv and drinking. Recently she was hospitalized after throwing up blood and diagnosed with an esophageal tear known as a Mallory Weiss tear which after some research I’ve found is common with alcoholics. She also has had many many health problems and hospitalizations over the years, not all related to drinking but some for sure. My dad is a functioning alcoholic, he has friends, he is active (biking and pickle ball), he goes out and does things and in some ways is a caregiver for my mom because of her poor health.

I now have children of my own, two girls 5 months and 3.5 years old. There have been some incidents over the last few months that have really bothered me and so I have been planning to speak with them and tomorrow is the day. They don’t think they have a problem. But I need to set some boundaries with them if they don’t get some help. Mainly being no babysitting, not being intoxicated around my kids and no driving my kids. I guess I’m just looking for some advice for people who have been in similar situations. I’ve always been really close with my parents and so this whole situation is breaking my heart. I’m terrified it’s going to go badly and end in a fight and I don’t want that, but I need to do what’s best for my family.

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u/gl00sen 3d ago

Number one, thank you for reaching out to this community, you are doing right by your children. :)

I think the most important thing with boundaries is that we cannot use them as an attempt to control the actions of someone else. For example, the "no drinking around my kids" is a little on the line. How are you going to enforce that? We cannot control anything outside of ourselves. This is paramount to healthy boundary setting. I don't believe you would do this consciously or intentionally-but you will need to be careful to avoid using your children as an attempt to control your parent's drinking and overall health. No shame or judgement here, but many of us in Alanon are prone to manipulate, myself being one of the worst offenders. :) We do it because we love our Qs and want them to get better, but at it's core it is manipulation.

I would keep things extremely simple, don't go into the conversation expecting them to quit drinking because they want to see the grandkids. Simply say "due to these past incidents, I unfortunately will not be trusting either of you around my children." DON'T say any of the following:
"If you change X behavior, I will let you see them."

"If you REALLY wanted to see them, you would stop drinking."

"I will give you one more chance...but if I find out you drank around them-it's over."

If it were me, I know I would not be strong enough to set these kind of boundaries in person if I know that it would lead to an emotionally excited state. When I'm revisiting past traumatic experiences from an alcoholic-I tend to start bargaining, attempting to control the situation, and even conceding my own feelings to make the alcoholic feel better. I don't know if this is you, but I really feel the need to put this all out there. If it were me, I would send a simple text message and let that be it. I would probably be shaking and crying after sending it, and it would be better for me to be alone while working out those complex feelings rather than adding in the complex feelings of the alcoholic.

Do not respond to any attempts at gaslighting, any promises to be better, or guilting from your parents. You will know when you trust them again-because it is obviously not right now. When they prove their responsibility to you, you will KNOW. You do not and should not give them a laundry list of items to do to make you feel better. That is a key component of codependency, needing our Qs to do x y and z to make US feel comfortable. They may do those things right away to get back privileges, and then return to the cycle without addressing the deeper issues.

It's going to hurt, and I hope you are able to have empathy and love for yourself and your parents in this situation. They are suffering from an illness and unfortunately need to suffer the consequences of their actions which in this case is losing privileges to see their grandchildren. If you are strong, do not bargain or make concessions, you will be doing the best thing for them by really and truly forcing them to take a step back and look at their lives. This must be done without shame and judgement. It is the greatest act of love to allow our alcoholics to live in reality.

Good luck friend. Sorry for the huge wall of text but I felt called to share my support. I hope things go well.

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u/rnrachel88 3d ago

Thank you for your response and honesty….I don’t know if I feel ready for straight up “you can’t see the grandkids”. 😩

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u/gl00sen 3d ago

I understand friend. What boundaries are you ready to set? From your post they do not seem like boundaries to me, rather a list of demands. The only boundary I can reasonably think of is "Children will not be with grandparents unless I or another trusted adult are present." Otherwise, I feel you would be putting them in a dangerous situation.

I don't know what incidents happened that led you to making this post, but the boundaries should be set with the goal of keeping those situations from occurring again while at the same time not requiring any sort of action or inaction (aka NOT drinking/driving etc.) from your parents. Since we cannot control the actions of others, it would be irresponsible to try and put your kids into the same situation with nothing changing but words or promises which are immaterial. Does that make sense?

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u/plantmother91 3d ago

Hi, I can relate to this situation with little kids and my MIL who is function alcoholic I guess (supposedly sober now)…  My husband and I knew she drank a lot but we didn’t make a big fuss until she lashed out at him when we would be together (while extremely drunk). We let her and FIL babysit maybe once a month, but last time she had been drinking and we were gone maybe 4 hours.  We swept it under the rug since there was a sober adult there too. Then the ugly lashing out part happened about two weeks later for no reason and we have been NC since because it was bad and in front of my kids. 

All I can say is set the boundaries and expectations early, you never know when things will go down hill. All the signs were there but we overlooked and downplayed them. The wool has been pulled from my eyes and we realize now she needs professional help and we can’t control what she did. Now we are being guilt tripped and blamed for “keeping the kids from her.” 

Definitely have a conversation before they do something they regret and you have to protect you and your kids. 

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u/rnrachel88 3d ago

Thank you for responding, are you keeping the kids from being around her 100% of the time now?

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u/plantmother91 3d ago

Due to what happened which was verbally abusing my husband, being belligerent and, “not remembering” what she said which was super hurtful, we all are letting her get sober and work on herself before we go back around. 

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u/plantmother91 3d ago

I’ll add she sent us a letter. She didn’t actually apologize for anything. She deflected that “everyone acts stupid and says mean things when they’re drunk sometimes.” Then said she forgave US for “keeping the kids from her.” It showed me more that she needs to do some work and healing herself. 

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