@uuu I don't know enough about you to offer hard advice - still less about your mother. These are some thoughts to give you another perspective rather than definite suggestions.
A way to deal with this problem is ultimately about taking control of your relationship with your mother. It's so very hard with a condition like alcoholism because it sits just over the border of debilitating mental disorder and people dip in and out, so they are ok much of the time and not ok the rest. I learnt how to deal with this sort of problem the very hard way as my father slipped year by year into dementia in his old age. Of course it's very different with an alcoholic because there is always a chance of recovery, which of course is not possible with dementia. The trouble is that these conditions in someone we love are like penetrating oil that finds all the weak spots in our own emotional makeup. It's really important to take what they say and how they behave as their illness talking, and not take it personally. But that's easier said than done, because they can find your weak spots and hurt you, or at the very least wind you up with both concerns and accusations. When people lose part of their ego, they can no longer control fully their inner impulses and they start to express them and project them in negative and damaging ways. They look for confirmation in those close to them - they want you to acknowledge and agree with their views, because they need it to balance their terribly hurting inner selves. It's really important to see this because it leads to compassion rather than censure and helps us to love them even though they are so difficult.
What I did with my dad was to realise this rationally and keep it as the basecamp of my relationship with him, even when I forgot it in the heat of the moment (which I did frequently). A very hard thing to face is that in doing this you have to change roles with your parent - you have to take on the role of parent to their child, and that takes some adjusting to emotionally.
Some practical things - I learnt the hard way that arguing with them when they are in a bad way is a waste of time, and just damages you. What they say and how they feel isn't coming from anywhere rational and they often have far more energy than you to persist in the face of all reason. These emotional disorders have enormous potential energy and you cannot confront it head on. It really depends on how resilient you are yourself how you deal with it, but it's better tactically to go along with them - you don't have to agree (and often mustn't) but listening to and sympathising with what they are saying without contradicting it is not agreeing with it. There are a couple of techniques too that help, because you will not be able to just let them dominate your relationship with nothing but their fantasies and prejudices. Both are aimed at breaking the flow of what they are saying:
- One is to divert - have a range of topics that you can raise with them when they start digging their hole, ideally things that will catch their interest and lead them onto safer ground. It might not only be a conversation switch, but a suggestion you go for a walk, or a 'sudden' realisation you need to do some shopping, etc.
- The other is more drastic, which is to withdraw - not storm out, but go to the loo, or develop a convenient headache, etc.
It takes quite a lot of emotional health to be able to cope with someone like this. If you are fragile and get triggered easily, you need to consider whether an extended involvement with your mother is going to be good for you both. No matter how obliged you feel to her, in rational terms you will do her as well as yourself a grave disservice if you both end up in an emotional crisis that sends her even more to the bottle. If you are reasonably resilient though, then the compassionate thing is to distance yourself from her emotionally and tolerate her uncomfortable conversation as just a manifestation of her condition, rather than as something personally aimed at damaging you, and start to see yourself as the parent in your interaction with her rather than the child (and victim).
Now there's a lot here that I'm assuming, but it seems reasonable seeing that your relationship with your mum is good over the phone and when she's sober. Of course, if her agenda is to pull you down whatever, sober or drunk, then the advice is similar, but you need to be much more self-sufficient, and it may be that keeping her always at arms length is the only way.
I've not talked about whether you should challenge her to seek help and a cure for alcoholism. That's because until you have got control of your relationship with your mum it won't be at all easy to do this.
