A dilemma of Nana Wrangling

[sparkindarkness]

As has been said, one of the major sources of stress in my (and the family’s) life at the moment is my elderly grandmother’s descent into the extra craziness. Alright, she’s never been especially sane, even as a young woman, but age has eroded her sanity down year by year until she has become the extremely irrational and difficult person she is today. So, anything to help in this avenue helps a lot of the family.

Now here’s the issue du jour she has raised:

Nana drinks. She always has. It’s always been part of the culture of the community she is/was a party of. Everyone drank and everyone drank spirits (whiskey and brandy). her mother drank, her father drank etc etc etc. Drinking is the norm. Regular drinking is the norm and we never really concerned ourselves.

However, it has come to our attention that her regular drinking involves several people shopping for her and that she has emptied a full bottle of brandy and one of whiskey in 10 days. Needles to say this is rather a copious amount for a 4’ 10” little old lady to be consuming. How much of the craziness is actually drunkenness and how much is the high alcohol consumption contributing to her mental decline? It's being wrangled back and forth since Christmas and frankly I'm getting ready to suppoprt anything if we can just move on from it

So here is the dilemma and options proposed by the family:



1) Intervention. (the reasonable) We sit down with Nana and say “you have a problem but we’re judging you from a place of love, you know we’re doing this for your own... blah blah blah.” I’m sure we know how this goes. We explain that we don’t want her to drink so much and ask her to cut down etc.
Pros: Treats Nana with relative respect as a reasonable adult.
Cons: Utterly doomed to failure. She ISN’T a reasonable adult. She’s a compulsive liar, extremely touchy, extremely defensive and inclined to forget any conversation 10 minutes after she’s had it. We could have an agonising, emotion laden, painful conversation with her and 5 minutes later she will say “can you get me a bottle of whiskey.” We’ve gently told her Uncle Len is dead 3 times now, each time enduring grief and tears and each time she has forgotten. I’ve come out to the woman at least a dozen times!
Con If she IS an alcoholic, do we really want to force her into withdrawl? She’s not strong enough for that

(The Unreasonable). Nana cannot shop by herself. She’s 80% blind, 80% deaf and 9,000,000% crazy. If we, as a family, refuse to buy her alcohol then she won’t get any. It’s that simple.
Pros: Guaranteed to be effective.
Cons: She’s 88 years old. An adult. We shop to help her, NOT to police her like parents over a naughty child. This is an incredibly disrespectful and undignified thing to do to her
Counter She ISN’T an adult. Sure, in actual age she is, but not in mental age. She is treated like a naughty child who can’t look after herself because she CAN’T look after herself. Old age has robbed her of her dignity, not us.
Con Just because she can’t shop doesn’t mean she won’t try. She’s already been found wandering wearing a vest and an underskirt... do we want to give her more motivations to wander?
Con Withdrawl again

2) Ignore it. We pretend it isn’t a problem. She’s 88 years old, 89 this year. If you can’t succumb to your vices and ignore your health at 89 then when can you? Frankly, if it improves her quality of life and enjoyment of life then we shouldn’t stop it - even if the cost may be shortening it (especially considering her continued decline which means an extended life may, frankly, not be a blessing). In her current state it remains one of her few pleasures and it is a pleasure she relishes in.
Pro: We don’t have to do anything or deal with the problems
Pro: It lets her make her own choice.
Con Part of her extreme decline may be BECAUSE of the alcohol consumption. She may be happier/more sensible/easier to deal with if she cuts down
Con The root of this argument boils down to “she’ll be dead soon anyway.” That is an unacceptable motive nor one I think we could live with with an easy conscience when she does die.

3) Deception. Nana’s sense of taste is... limited. She can hardly be said to have a delicate palate. It shouldn’t be too difficult to water down her bottles without her realising. She still enjoys herself while cutting down.
Pro: She will still be happy (ignorant of any change in fact)
Pro: Achieves the cut down with minimal fuss
Con: Again, she is an adult - what right do we have to make this decision for her? I know I’d be hella pissed if I found out people were watering down my drinks.
Con Will she just drink more because her happy juice isn’t working so well?


So, I’m torn. I keep feeling vaguely inclined to agree with 3, but it still doesn’t feel right to force that on her and maybe leaving her content with her own consumption would be the better option. I just don’t know and don’t know how to convince everyone else.

Comments

[cally7.livejournal.com]

Sparky, I wish you all the luck in the world.