Alcohol Mother-in-law likes to drunk dial

[ladyswan]

Not sure how to start this one with any grace, so I'll cut to the chase:

My mother-in-law is a drunk dialer who prefers calling late at night. I have no idea what to do about this. We've tried talking to her about it, yelling at her about it, and taking the phone off the hook. Sometimes she calls at 4 am.

My father-in-law has cancer now and the number of late night calls has increased. Where does the line get drawn? How do you draw it? It feels like we've tried everything but it's not getting through to her.

I thought briefly about blocking her number but that would mean cutting off a source of support for her husband, who never bothers us with the same behaviour.

If you can offer some perspective or a suggestion, please do.

[Atlantis]

Would it help to unplug the phone when you are going to bed and then plug it back in when you get up?

[ladyswan]

That's what we usually do. The problem is that sometimes we forget to unplug it before bed, and sometimes we forget to plug it back in. My hubby's boss usually calls at 6:30am to let him know which work site to report to and neither of us uses a cell phone.

[Lizzy]

That's a tough one since I find the drunk dialers forget everything that is said to them ....and you need to hear the phone......number change is all I can come up with and that's not simple either.

[astronaut]

hmm, this is a tough one for sure. When my great aunt called us constantly all hours of the day, we got call display so that we could choose to answer it when we wanted. Of course, that might not work for you because the phone would still wake you up at night even if you saw it was her and you didn't have to answer it. Also, call display costs extra money, AND you wouldn't know whether it was your father-in-law or mother-in-law calling so if he needed you for some reason, you wouldn't be able to tell if it was him or her just bothering you.

Can you get rid of the phone in your bedroom? Can you turn off the ringer on your bedroom phone and leave the ringer on, on another household phone so that the phone ringing won't wake you up but then the household phone will still ring in the morning when your husband needs to get his call?
OR you could turn off the ringers on all your phones and let the answering machine pick up the caller's message so if it was an emergency or a message for your husband, you would still get the message because you didn't have to take the phone off the hook. If you don't have an answering machine, they are fairly cheap to get so it won't cost you much.

hope you figure out something and that your mother-in-law can maybe get some help to get her drinking under control.
astronaut

[ladyswan]

We don't keep a phone in the bedroom and only one of them has the ringer enabled. I'm a very light sleeper though so the phone in the living room still wakes me up. Call display doesn't do much good when I'm already awake.

One of my friends mentioned you can buy phones that you can program to go straight to voicemail at certain times of the day. Mine isn't like that, but I'm seriously considering investing in one. It would be even better if certain phone numbers could be completely banished at night!

It would be wonderful if she'd take her alcohol abuse seriously but the woman lost all her kids because of it and I doubt she's going to change any time soon.

[paul m]

Hello Ladyswan. Bell has two features that you can get. 1) all calls go to voice mail during certain hours 2) all calls from certain people go to voice mail all of the time. I don't know the cost, but you can just dial 310-bell(2355) and a customer rep will help you. You can sometimes do it on line as well, just google bell. Take Care. paul m

[emilix123]

Drunk dialing is a pop-culture term denoting an instance in which an intoxicated individual places phone calls that he or she would not likely place if sober. The term often refers to a lonely individual calling former or current love interests.
"Drunk texting" is a related phenomenon, and potentially yet more embarrassing for the sender as, once the message is sent, it cannot be retrieved; the message will most likely be misspelled (due to being drunk), and it might be reviewed and shared among many.

[AJ]

Welcome to the forums Emilix123.

[paul m]

Hello Emilix123 and welcome. Thx for the info and I hope that you will post more. Take Care. paul m

[uni]

Welcome Emilix123!

Ladyswan, how have things been since you last posted?