Case-worker encouraging mum to keep drinking

A long one, I’m sorry. Throwaway for anonymity. From the UK.

My mum has had a drinking problem for 20+ years. I’m 37 and for as long as I can remember she drank most evening and weekends to the point she couldn’t hold a conversation, and would eventually fall asleep. She went to work just fine, but poured wine and vodka as soon as she got home. She hid the vodka in coke, I know as myself and my sister would monitor the bottles and taste it if she ever left it around. She’d deny ever drinking vodka and say it was gross. She became a recluse, has no hobbies and refused to do anything other than stay home and drink.

It’s caused a lot of pain and chaos for the family, we’ve had too many arguments as a result of her behaviour when she drinks. Not every time, but she can become verbally aggressive, paranoid, break down into tears over things that she’s invented. There probably is some other mental health condition at play here and the drinking makes it worse. As a result of these arguments sometimes she’s promised to stop drinking but 6-12 months later she’s always back to her regular habits.

2.5 years ago I told her she was going to be a grandmother, but could only have contact if she stopped drinking.

I had my suspicions over that time that she had been secretly drinking. I can tell straight away when speaking to her as she gets very slurred speech, and like all drunk people the conversations aren’t cohesive. She says really left-field things and goes over the same points repeatedly.

Around 6-8 months ago i noticed the signs, so started monitoring a bottle of vodka in her cupboard. The levels and batch codes changed.

Myself, my sister and dad sat her down to discuss it. I read her a letter telling her I knew she was still drinking, it’s caused me much pain over the past 20+ years, I can’t have that chaos around my children, I love her and want to get help. She sheepishly denied it, but as I kept presenting new evidence she accepted what I had found. She was not forthcoming with anything I hadn’t brought up.

She agreed to get help, and started seeing a case-worker who did an assessment and has been talking to her every 1-2 weeks for the past 10 weeks or so.

I thought this might be a way forward for us all, until I asked a few days ago if I could come with her to a session.

We went, and the case-worker said to me my Mum doesn’t have an alcohol dependency. She told me I need to recognise “the world won’t end if she has a glass of wine”. She told my mum that if she’s drunk and I call her that she should not answer the phone because then I can’t find out. I pulled her up on this and her response was “oh, I’m just being flippant”.

She believes my mum is completely fine to drink, and was encouraging her to continue to drink because she believes the “choice” of having one or not is important.

She’s told me I need to accept it’s fine for my mum to continue drinking as long as she doesn’t do it around my kids, and she (the case worker) assured me she doesn’t believe my mum would do it around them. I have no evidence, but what led me to suspect she was drinking again 8 months ago was when I got a phone call from her while my son was staying overnight. I’ve not brought this up so far and she will never admit to this so I didn’t mention this. I know my mum would have gone full offence.

There were more red-flags thought our 90 minute conversation, but I want to stick to the things that were directly said rather than my interpretations.

She explained this is because of her initial assessment; because my mum doesn’t wake up and drink straight away; she doesn’t have physical withdrawals; and she has had short periods (6 months or so) without a drink. All this I do believe, but I don’t think that means she doesn’t have an addiction, given my lived experience.

I’m at a bit of a loss here, I think my mum is in denial and that the case-worker has not noticed this. I do believe she wants to help her. I got the impression they spend a lot of time talking about the idea of “control”, and my mum has said that the only control in her life she has is over drinking. Maybe true to her, but it’s certainly not the reality.

To add to this, my dad is a bit of an enabler, he doesn’t want to deal with it unless it affects him directly (i.e. he doesn’t care if she’s drunk around him as long as she doesn’t pick a fight). He also genuinely believes that she doesn’t drink as much as she does, and that she instead has some sleep condition that makes her appear drunk. He will not listen to reason. He/they both still cook with wine and don’t see it as a problem.