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I think my sister in law might be an alcoholic. Not sure what to do. Her and my brother have three kids together.
Last weekend was my grandfather's funeral. At the service she started drinking wine, and getting through a few glasses pretty quickly. She then got in an argument with my brother about how she wanted to stay and go to the smaller party we were having with just close family. My brother was saying no, because he had been worried about this exact scenario, they'd only originally planned to stay for the service. She then suggested that he take the kids home and she could stay and get a ride home from our parents. Keep in mind, this is not her grandfather. She didn't know him particularly well either.
That was the latest incident. There are many more that start with some variation of "[sister in law] drank too much and then she ..."
Does her drinking go past being a nuisance like the one scenario you outlined in detail, or does it become genuinely dangerous/debilitating at times? It's one thing to be lush, another to be a menace to yourself and others.
Drinking and driving has happened a few times ... while picking up her kids.
Her level of alcohol consumption doesn't seem to get to the level of being personally dangerous. Like I don't think she is getting sick from how much alcohol she's consumes. It just interacts with her existing mental issues in a horrible way.
That is concerning, to say the least. I'd suggest you talk to your brother about trying to talk her into some kind of understanding of what she's doing, and then building off whether she shows insight into her condition. If yes, great, she can probably be talked into at least trying therapy or medical intervention. If not, then the hard questions start getting asked. I hope it doesn't come to that.
By existing mental issues, are you referring to a concrete diagnosis, or just being a bit of an asshole, which is sadly something I can't bill for?
My brother keeps a large emotional distance from ... everyone. Its one of his wife's main complaints. I am mostly just trying to get him to talk to me at all right now. Not cuz he is avoiding me. Its just very hard to get him to open up about stuff.
She is in therapy. No idea why it is so useless. The two older kids are in therapy, and she talked my brother into getting therapy too. Which hasn't been bad for him.
I don't know if there is any concrete mental diagnosis. I do know that back when we were all in highschool she got into a car accident her senior year (took a turn a little too fast). My brother has said once or twice before that her personality changed a bit afterwards, but he didn't know her that well beforehand. It was a weird night that highlighted some differences between me and my brother. It was the only time I've seen him kind of frozen. He is usually very calm and collected, and I thought that meant he could also do anything. But it wasn't the response of a man of action, rather than a kind of emotional deadness.
Night of the car accident:
I am going to drop off my sister, I just got my learners permit. I am 16. We run into a car accident on one of the common roads. I hear some feint screaming. Roll down the window, it becomes more clear. Blood curdling scream like someone is in serious pain. Its freaking my mom and sister out. I have a temptation to get out and go see what is happening, but EMS is already present. We turn around go a different way. Coming back home we assume the accident has maybe been cleared up. Its not. Call my brother, we find out my brother is in the traffic behind the accident. Maybe 6 or 7 cars back from where the accident happened. He mentions that he can't reach [his now wife] on cell. I get out of my car, switch with my mom to being in the driver seat. I hike along the road about 30 or 40 cars. (this is a country road where you see a car pass by once every minute or so. Many of the cars are just turning around in the middle of the road.). I get to my brothers jeep. Ask him whats going on. He is biting his lip. Says he doesn't know. Cell phone is in his hand. I don't think to ask how many missed outgoing calls he has. He was much closer to the site of the accident than we were on the other side, he definitely heard the screams.
Her parents get a call that their daughter is in the hospital. My brother and mom head there. I head back home. My parents and my [now sister in law's] parents meet for the first time in the hospital.
The story later is that they were cutting a jacket she loved in order to extract her from the vehicle, she was aware enough to know they were cutting the jacket, but not aware enough to not scream bloody murder at EMS personnel who are rescuing her from a destroyed vehicle. She suffered a concussion at the time.
It was not a case of drinking and driving. They were heading to a party where they would be drinking, but were planning to spend the night.
I think back on that night as pretty pivotal. I think she would have just been a highschool tryst for my brother if not for that night. The parents wouldn't have met. There wouldn't have been a seriousness to the relationship. I also wonder if it impacted her mental health permanently, there are plenty of cases of people being permanently mentally altered by traumatic brain events.
Also it shows she is a shitty driver even when sober, she definitely shouldn't be driving drunk.
Hah! Yeah talk therapy is pretty useless for deep emotional issues or traumas. I think it can be useful for 'normal' people who don't have deep-seated issues, but in my experience anyone with serious trauma needs something more. If she's open to it she could look into different modalities like breathwork or somatic experiencing, but... sounds like that's a hard ask.
That story is wild. She was screaming over a jacket? Woah.
For the driving drunk with kids thing... that is extremely serious. I know adults who are permanently messed up from getting into an accident with a drunk parent. Sounds like you can't do anything more than what you're doing without really burning some bridges, but I wish you luck. It's not an easy situation.
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I appreciate the context. It seems to me that your hands are rather tied, unless you want to go pretty drastic by doing things like calling the cops on her if she's driving drunk. I wouldn't do that myself, the consequences would be severe for the family, even if you manage to do it anonymously.
As for therapy, eh, for a would-be psychiatrist I'm ambivalent on it. I like me my drugs, no wishy washy bullshit. But that aside, therapy covers a lot of different techniques, from those with good empirical evidence bases to bullshitting everything like Freudians and Lacanians. I hope they're doing the more validated (and ideally less woo) stuff, but it's not a miracle maker, especially when a person seems to plausibly lack insight or regret for their decisions.
I'd advise you to wait and watch, at least for now. Or perhaps have a good bud of your brother, some he listens to, try and give him a hint. Or maybe have the family corner your SIL and make pointed comments when she's acting up.
But what do I know dawg, other than that it's a shitty situation to find yourself in. I do hope it works out!
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