Choosing to Love my Alcoholic Mother

Michelle:  Well, Hey everybody and welcome back to Qualified - the place where incredible people share their stories of overcoming great adversity and loss to inspire you and give you hope. I'm Michelle Heaton. My guest today was born in England and she lived in Spain and in Ireland. And now here in Southern California, she comes from a large family and it has a diverse ethnic background.

And like many of us, she has experienced her fair share of adversity in life. Today. We'll talk about her relationship with her mother and why her passing in 2010 was one of the greatest losses that she has had to overcome. Welcome to Qualified Christina! 

Christina:  Hi, thank you for having me. Of course. 

Michelle:  So, your mother was Irish and your father Spanish, and you lived in Spain with your other siblings for a few years. And then because of circumstances outside of your control, you ended up in Ireland for a period and then landed back here in California, where you live today, what triggered all those moves. And how would you describe the environment you grew up in? 

 Christina:  A lot of moving, never ever felt settled anywhere because we didn't know where things were going to go.  After my parents divorced in Spain, my two older brothers and I lived there, my mom had to work. So, she worked in a bar so we were kind of left to fend for ourselves. So, after she met my stepfather, we then moved to Ireland. Now I'm one of six, my two older brothers and I lived in, Spain with my mom and then we moved to Ireland and where my twin sisters lived and they were raised with my grandparents.

Okay. So, my mom left us there and went back to Spain. It was supposed to be temporary and they were going to move to England and, set up house for us.  So. That's how we landed in Ireland. And then from Ireland, almost two years later, we ended up in England where I was there until I was 14 until we came here to the states.

So, we moved around a lot because of the instability and the inability for my mom to be able to, to get it together, basically. Yeah. You know, it was rough.  

Michelle: What was your relationship like with your mom then?

Christina: My relationship with her was not, healthy. And there was a lot of fear, a lot of never knowing what person I was going to get. So, yeah.  She wasn't around much. And when she was, she was strict and mean, So, I didn't have much of a relationship when I moved to Ireland. I had a little bit more stability because of my grandmother. My grandmother took care of all five of us.

She fed us, cleaned, did our laundry. she did everything. She had structure for us. She got us involved in, community activities. So, I was happy to be there because I was with my sisters and I had always been around my brothers, but she was probably more of a role model for me than my mom was.

 My mom was an alcoholic.  So, I was in that environment of somebody who was never stable emotionally.  She went through a really tough marriage and there were some things in there that were pretty hard for her to deal with. So, I think when she got out of that marriage, she felt the freedom and worked in a bar. So started drinking, had friends and, kind of lived it up a little bit, you know, 

Michelle:  That environment wasn't good for the children.

 Christina:  No, no., we were in Spain, we were either cared for ourselves or we had friends watching us and unfortunately some, things happened to us as kids that shouldn't have happened because our parents were supposed to protect us from that. Right., moving to Ireland, my grandfather was the alcoholic and he was mean, and we walked on eggshells with him.

So being in that constant, always waiting and not knowing what was going to happen. Yeah., you know, growing up, when you look back at, as, as an adult looking back at, as a kid, that was a tough, tough thing. You don't, you don't know as a kid, what your emotions are you just, you just know what you know.

When we lived in England, she would drink and her and my stepdad would fight. And then we'd be all caught up in the turmoil of everything and the next day they're all snuggled up next to each other asleep. And, you're like, what is going on? just the ups and downs of, their relationship, the lack of relationship I should say. 

Michelle: What changed in your relationship with her? Because at some point, I think you bonded with her. 

Christina: Yes. Yes. We did bond earlier on going through teenage life and becoming a rebellious teenager. I was at a point were. I really didn't like my mother; I would say that I hated my mother and she just got worse with her drinking. She was very abusive. I was embarrassed to bring friends over because she would, be drinking and, and so I didn't want to have anything to do with my mom and I became, disrespectful. 

So, as I got older, it just got worse and I just couldn't wait to get out of the house. I was very young when I got pregnant. I had a teen pregnancy and as much as my mom tried to be supportive, I did appreciate that. I don't know that it necessarily started the relationship.

But when I did come to her, because I was terrified, I was four months pregnant before I could even tell her. She actually went to Ireland to get my sisters, to bring them back here because my grandparents had died and, I got pregnant when she was gone. And I was terrified to tell her because, she was an angry person and abusive.  But when I did tell her, she actually sat down with me, her and my stepdad and said, well, you have options. We can do this, this and this.    One of the options was they could adopt my child. And I was thinking to myself that there's no way I would have you guys raised my child.

It made me grow up. It made me. I realize that I'm going to have a baby and I need to be responsible. So how do I do this and not make the same mistakes my parents made. I was drinking and partying and ditching school. And, that was the result of no structure, right?

So, I had my baby moved out, was in my own relationship. that was not a good relationship because my ex-husband was a drug addict. So now I have two kids I'm dealing with more of the stress of, of him being an addict and an angry, violent person. 

 I reached my breaking point where I needed to get help. I knew there was something wrong with me that I was in this. So, I decided to go to counseling and a counselor had referred me to go to Al-Anon. 

 Michelle:  So, kind of explain, I know a little bit, but Al-Anon is to help people who are not addicts, but who live with, or involved with people who are addicts to understand them better.  

Christina:  Al-Anon is a 12-step program for, family and friends of alcoholics. So why I went was because my ex-husband, not realizing that I needed to go for me, what I did learn when I was there, which I never knew was that my mom was an alcoholic.  

So, I go to a meeting. I'm sitting there and I'm listening to all these people that have these experiences talking about, their family members and alcoholism and everything.

And I'm there because of my ex-husband being a drug addict. and this lady says something about her mother being an alcoholic. And I just sat there and just bawled because I was like, oh my gosh, my mom's an alcoholic. And, I never looked at it like that, but that was the turning point because I understood, that alcoholism was a disease and that I could, actually have a relationship with my mom because I could separate that. And by that point I was in my mid-twenties. So, in the process of learning about addiction, alcoholism, what my role was, my part that I played in the dysfunctional relationship, I learned to work on myself.  And at that point I felt like I had the courage to get out of that marriage because it, it wasn't going to go anywhere.  He was unable to get recovery and really want to change. And so, I realized that's not what I wanted for my life and for my kids. 

So, during that time, my mom's drinking got worse. So, because I was in Al-Anon, I was better able to handle her even when she was drunk, because before that, I couldn't be around her.  She showed up to the hospital one time when I was, giving birth to, my youngest daughter. And I told her, I told her, please do not show up drunk. Well, you can't tell an alcoholic that, she showed up drunk and I told her to leave. And my mom was never affectionate. She was trying to rub my head and trying to be, you know, and I was still angry. Then that was before I got help. And I just told her to get out. And I felt terrible about that. 

Michelle: Why?

Christina: Because I wanted my mom to be there. I wanted her to be a real mom, and she just didn't know how.  So, it took a lot of work. For me to work through my issues, to be able to share with my mom, my experiences. And I think, that was the beginning of our change in our relationship, because I remember it was Thanksgiving and we were hosting it at our house. My mom came over, she had been drinking and I had decided that, I'm going to love my mom.

And I'm not going to be angry with her because I had to work that out. Sure. So, we're sitting there and I have the book it's called one day at a time and I was, and I just kind of read a few things out of it. And I was sharing that with her and. I was like, yeah, I'm really learning a lot, mom.

And, I just felt that I needed to do that in hopes that at some point she would get sober and go to AA.  So shortly thereafter, I had been communicating more with my mom. She had called me one time and told me she wanted to go to an AA meeting.  And I said, okay. I said, I'll go with you if you want. And she said, yeah, I'd like that.  She was ready to make changes in her life. So, we, we went to a meeting. I sat there. I didn't, I didn't talk., my mom said very little and, it was, it was definitely emotional because it's like, it's an answered prayer.

 So, while we were in the meeting, I didn't say anything. I just sat and just observed. And after the meeting, all these people came up to my mom, welcomed her and I kind of stepped back because.

That's what I needed to do. This was her journey. So, there was a woman, that ended up becoming my mom's sponsor. I remember her because she walked my mom through a lot of stuff. my mom did have a relapse, but it was a short relapse and went back.

And when she relapsed, that was devastating because I was like, oh God, you know, are we going to go through this all again? You know, because, I'm still working on my own trust issues and, trusting my mom. So, fast forward, few years later, we just shared more and more.

And, going to Al-Anon, I felt like I needed more and I wanted to find a church not just for myself, but for my kids as well. At this point, my kids are already, teenagers. So now I'm dealing with the difficulty of teenagers. So, I started going to this church, because in Al-Anon it's 12 steps and it talks about a spiritual awakening and that's what I think God used for me to surrender to him, because I was desperate, to be able to function and be happy.

I wanted to be happy and peaceful. Al-Anon did that for me., but I wanted more, so when I started to go to church, it's like, oh, okay. So, they came together. So, a lot of what I learned from Al-Anon crossed over into my walk with the Lord. And, I was able to share that with my mom. So, I started talking to her about my church and she wasn't interested in going my mom being an Irish stubborn woman,

“I have my own God”, she was very self-righteous at times, but I look back now and I, I love that. Because she knew who she was. But she did go back to her Catholic faith. So, we were able to share a lot of things because it wasn't about religion. It was about spirituality.

Our relationship got better.  We had to deal with some hard stuff. part of recovery is confronting and making demands. And I remember having to confront my mom and it wasn't easy for her because she had made her amends to me and she had made her amends to my other siblings.

Michelle: What kind of things did you confront her with? 

Christina:  about some of the stuff that happened to me as a child that shouldn't have happened to me, because she was unavailable. She was emotionally unavailable and one of the moments when I was sharing with her, I had gotten molested when I was in Spain, as she's talking to me, she got up and walked into the kitchen. She goes, oh yeah, I'm listening.  I was in shock. 

Michelle:  Why did she do that? 

Christina: Because she couldn't handle the reality of what happened. Um, you know, just when you think you're making headway, she does that. And I said, mom, I am pouring out something that is so hard for me to came out with. And you walked away. 

Michelle: How did she react to that? 

Christina: She apologized. She goes, it's really hard for me to, to know that that's what I did. 

Michelle:  You gave her grace and you had the strength to do that I had to be so painful for you.

Christina: It was, yeah, it was more, it was more hurtful her getting up and walking into the kitchen, then what actually happened to me as a child. Yeah. 

Michelle: You know, that might be hard for some people to understand, but I, that makes sense.

Christina:  Yeah. Because a lot of my memory as a child was, I don't have full memory of it, but I knew it wasn't. Right. Yeah. I knew what happened to me was wrong. So that was one of the things. And, there were many things. but that was one of the hard things to kind of bring out and confront with her.

Some of the other things were a lot easier. Our relationship, it just got it. It just, it just took time to get to, where it was., we spend a lot of time together., we talked a lot.  I talked to my mom every single day. We would talk sometimes two hours in the morning, her, drinking, her team, having my coffee and just, talking about spiritual stuff.

Talking about how God is working in our lives and, just sharing, you know, she became my friend. 

Michelle:  You looked forward to those times…

Christina: Yeah.

Michelle: That sounds so nice though. Those conversations did it, did she get to a point eventually where she would, for example, if you were to say something where she walked out before, do you think she finally got to a point where she could listen and accept those hard realities?

Christina:  oh yeah.  Absolutely. You know, my mom was a strong person, strong personality. So, we butted heads a lot, but one of the things that I learned through counseling and Al-Anon and, yeah, it was, I had gone through a lot of abuse, whether it was verbal, physical, emotional, and one of the things for my health, of growth was when somebody did do something to me, I needed to confront it, because that was me loving myself.

Michelle: That's excellent. 

Christina: Yeah, because I didn't grow up loving myself. I wasn't loved, I wasn't loved, but I wasn't shown love.,as time went on, my mom tried to protect me from a lot of things. And when I would ask her, why did you do that?  She would say, I know I went about it the wrong way, but everything I did was to protect you. That was love. I didn't see that as low; I just thought my mom never cared about me.

Michelle: You didn't have all the pieces of the puzzle. It was like a sacrificial love in a way. But you didn't know what the actual sacrifices were back then.

Your mother ultimately died of lung cancer 12 years ago. And we talked before about the different ways that people process grief. How would you classify your particular type of grieving after your mom died? And how are you coping with that today?

Christina:  My mom was diagnosed with cancer on her 73rd birthday., she complained about her side hurting. So., we took her to the hospital. And my mom was funny. I have to say she wanted her hair done first. So, she got her hair done. And, I said, mommy really need to go to the hospital. And she goes, oh, I'm ready to go.

I got my knickers in my purse. because I was my mom, her hair had to be done and she had to have clean underwear. So, her response to getting that diagnosis was unbelievable because of her spiritual walk with God, she was like, you know, I'm going to fight this. This is what I have. it's lung cancer, but it was also in her liver.  So, she went through chemo.

And she wanted to do another one because, the cancer had moved to other areas, but it had shrunk and her lungs and she was just ready to fight. But what she did say was, I have abused my body with smoking, with alcohol and the two places that I abused my body with my lungs and my liver.

And my mom had TB as a teenager and they told her that she should never smoke, but she did. So, she accepted, these are the consequences of my actions. And if this is the way I'm going to go, then this is the way I'm going to go, but I'm going to fight. And I have faith that God's going to heal me.

Michelle:  It sounds like her faith really got stronger over the years.

Christina:   Yes, definitely. So, we're, we're all in the hospital room with her crying and she's like, I'm going to fight this. It's like, okay, mom, I'm looking to argue with you. So as time went on, she did well through her first round of chemo.

And, you asked me the question.  How did you grieve? I started grieving when I got that diagnosis, So, of course I researched and, I had to stay really positive around my mom because, I used to go with her to her oncologist. And if I asked any questions, my mom would get mad at me and she gave me a look and I'm like, I got this. Yeah. Yeah. And she didn't like me asking the hard questions. And so, I had to back off because something that I realized, was when something. Facing death. I think, there's a denial period because it's hard to, I can't even imagine having to, face it. Right. So, I think that she didn't want to hear anything, that she was going to die. Of course. Yeah., so, who am I to say, mom? I don't think you should get that other round of chemo because it's going to wear you out.

And it did, I had to just back off and just be there when she needed me, let her do it her way. Yeah. So, with that said, when we got the news that her cancer had spread throughout her body, and now she's on hospice., again, she had a good attitude, and she was, ready to face her maker.

And, my mom used to have, AA meetings, at her house every Sunday, she never stopped., she didn't have her friends

Michelle: she became a sponsor for other people?

Christina:   Oh yes. Oh, that's incredible. Yeah. Oh yeah. so, she, she would have her friends around her.  The day before she died, they all came and were with her and everything. And, my sister happened to be there and she just said, you could feel the spiritual energy in that room. And, my mom did sponsor a lot of people and, after she died.  I was angry at God. There's only two times I was angry at God. And that was one of them. And I, I was why you know, but you know, when you hurt, you're like why she helped so many people, she impacted so many people's lives. God used her. My mom was sober for 17 years. So, I mean, she worked her program, and it was a priority for her and nothing got in the way of that., her social life was her friends that are in AA and, God was using her. When she initially died was obviously, how do I move forward from this not having my mom to talk to every day?

you know, it's, it's kind of one of those things it's like, you know, doing this podcast with you, it got me kind of reliving everything. And I don't think you really think about it at the time, but looking back on it, it's like I had asked myself, the question, how did I grieve? And.  My grieving was, crying out to God.

It's like asking God to help me through this because I've never lost anybody that close to me.   

 The thing that kept coming back to mind after I lost my mom was, her, peace and acceptance, of her dying. That actually helped me because, I'm one of those people that I will suffer in silence because I don't like to show emotion. Cause I'm always the strong, hard one. And, I have to say though, after, the initial death, I was surrounded by my siblings and we did grieve together with my sisters.

And, that was good., sorting through her things. I mean, that's tough because, we had to get her out of her house. They had to pack up everything because she was renting. Yeah. So, we had to do that., so no time it was, there was no time, but you know, going through her things and, you know, just having laughing at somethings and then crying and then laughing cause you're laughing and crying.

Right. And then you're with your sibling. So, you're like being goofy and I, this is a good memory, but it's part of the loss, but it, uh, part of the grieving is my mom loved Christmas as I do. And she had this angel. That was, it looked like one of those scary dolls, but it was this angel that she put on her tree every year.

Nobody wanted it. And I used to give her a hard time. I was like, mom, you need to really get rid of that. And she wouldn't, uh, I wanted it. That was the one thing that I wanted. So, every year I don't put it on my tree, but it's, it's it's somewhere. And do you know that thing's over 40 years old and the lights have never burnt out on that. That's still part of my grieving with my mom too. You know, it was like, I want that.

Michelle: because you knew it meant something to her. I think that's a beautiful thing, even though it was an ugly doll. 

Christina: I'm going to take a picture and send it to you.

Michelle: Please. Don’t. I'm scared of dolls,  

So, Christina, over the last year, your family had to endure more, less. When both your nephew and your brother passed away within what? A few months of each other a month. Okay. I know that had to be incredibly difficult for your sister and for you and the other members of your family. So how are you coping with those recent losses 

Christina:  for my nephew? when I got the news, my, my other nephew, his younger brother called me and gave me the news. I mean, my heart just sunk. And the first thing I thought about was my poor sister. Oh my gosh. Cause my sister loves hard and she loves her kids., I mean, as we all do, but my sister just, I knew she would be devastated. And so, I tried reaching out to her. She didn't answer. And, because she couldn't, she couldn’t,

 my nephew is two months older than my daughter, and they were very close. And even though we hadn't been in touch a lot, recently before he passed, he kind of would say, hey auntie, how are you? And, you know, we'd kind of you and you know, our family, again, we, we used humor for everything, you know, for every emotion it's humor, it's just what we do and how we've learned to cope.

And it's just part of who our family is, especially being an Irish. But so it was, it was hard because again, you go back to that regret of not spending more time and not reaching out more, you know, life kind of gets busy. So that was really, really hard, but I kept, kept going back to my poor sister and what she was going through, for the longest time she couldn't talk on the phone. She was okay with text messaging. And so, I try to help her, communicate, I wanted to communicate with her because, it was very difficult, for her to even cope. Yeah. So, yeah, I just, and then my brother a month later.

Yeah. So, my brother was, 61. he struggled from addiction and, his health started to decline because of, abusing his body and. He ended up dying. he didn't, he didn't recover from surgery. He had to have the heart surgery and he never recovered from it. And, that was really hard because, it was a similar situation I was taking care of him and helping him, the last 1, 7, 8 months of his life.

What was hard about that was, on many occasions my mom and I would try and go and help him, and get them into recovery. And he did go into recovery, several times. And, my brother, he was a Mr. Personality, you as Mr. Charmer, good looking guy., but he just, he was a sensitive soul and, he struggled. and again, when he died, I felt the guilt and I felt like I wish I had done more for him., and I wish I had done more as far as trying to intervene, with his health, but it was out of my hands, you have to kind of let that go.

Michelle: because your kind of going there now that leads me into my next question, and that's what lessons did you learn through all of this?

Christina: I would have to say that when I lost my mom, I turned to worship music for me., in fact, I was just remembering back when, she was close to dying. It was around Easter time. And at the time I actually did worship on the worship team at my church, we were in rehearsal and we were singing  I will rise by Chris Tomlin and I remember singing that and, just balling during rehearsal, so everybody kind of gathered around and prayed for me, but it was that it was the worship music. It was prayer. It was those people around me that, that helped me with, with the grieving part of it. 

 I guess the lessons I would say is, forgive yourself, forgive the person., give yourself time, give yourself time to grieve those things. There's no, there's no time limit because you great forever.  Spend time with the people that matter to you, reach out, reach out for help, whether it's counseling, whether it's prayer., I did a lot of journaling. That was my go-to, because there's healing in that, support groups, you know, grief, support groups, Worship actually helped me a lot because listening to worship music gave me the peace, to know that my mom was in a better place. And, being reminded through that worship music that, God is always in control and God will help me through and still does today.

Yeah. Even as we speak, I didn't realize that I was going to go through the emotions that I went through and I thought I got this. And until I didn't and then, you know, but it's okay. It's all good. It's all for a purpose, And I hope, me sharing my story helps, other people.

Michelle: I love the fact that your mom not only turned back to her faith and was strengthened. But she seemed to take it to a new level. And then she also became sober and helped other people, which may not have happened if you hadn't taken her to that meeting and, and shown an interest by going to Al-Anon yourself.  

Christina:  So, this is interesting. Where I lived, I had a neighbor that knew my mom and I kind of knew that they cause when, you know, when she'd come to my house, she'd say hi to him.

I didn't know how they knew each other. And when he found out my mom had passed, he came to me and he said, your mom was an incredible woman. She helped me so much. And he wasn't the only person I've heard this from so many people. 

Michelle:  And can you imagine, not ever being said about her way back?

Christina:  oh, not at all. Not at all. Who would have thought? 

Michelle: Well, my friend, I thank you so much for sharing this incredible story on the show notes. You've endured a lot of hard times, but she persevered in a way that is so amazing. And that also contributed to your mother's sobriety and the reconciliation of the relationship between you two. And to those of you listening, it is our hope that Christina's story served as an inspiration to you.

And that if you're in a similar relationship that you'll reach out to get the help needed as well. 

And as always, I appreciate you. So, drop by my website callmequalified.com where you can listen to all the episodes. Check out my blog, leave me a voicemail, or even rate the show and give me a review.

 I'd love to hear from you. Thanks for listening.