Is regular black-out binge drinking (with periods of sobriety) more about mental health than chemical addiction?

I’m trying to figure out what’s going on with my mom and what kind of treatment approaches might be effective. She has a long-term alcohol problem, but it looks pretty different than what I usually hear about. She alternates between periods of sobriety (several days to several weeks) where she will drink very little, if anything. But then she’ll go on black-out benders, that last 3-7 days, where she gets drunk to the point of incoherence and doesn’t remember things.

She has a very high tolerance, and recently drove to a liquor store where she fell down in the parking lot. Someone called an ambulance, and her BAC was .29 (and the liquor store had just sold her 2 more bottles…). She’s now been in the hospital for 3 days, and finally seems open to some kind of treatment program.

She also has untreated mental health issues, mostly anxiety from what I can tell, but who knows. She’s a very stubborn, proud person and usually unwilling to seek treatment. We’re trying to help her. But things like AA just don’t click for her. I think she probably needs mental health treatment as much as for alcohol use, maybe more. It seems to me that her drinking is more about mental escape than a specific addiction to alcohol, since it’s easy for her to not drink when she’s in a good mental place.

She’s not going to spend a lot of time figuring out what works, but I’m hoping that she’s at a low enough point now that she might accept help, and if we can figure out the right approach maybe it will have some positive impact on her.

I appreciate any information or suggestions about how to treat this kind of alcohol use.