Need help dealing with my father's alcoholism

LegacyUser

Going unregistered for this one, to be fair to all involved.

Well, I basically need advice on how to deal with my father and his alcohol addiction.

He is a binge alcoholic. When I was younger I remember him being drunk at various times of the year, whenever he had a break from work. He would drink extremely heavily and usually this would carry on for about 2-3 weeks after going back to work.

It was always worse around Christmas, with one year being so bad that I remember him being drunk on my Birthday (end of March!!)

In recent years he has 'cut-down' to only going on these binges at Christmas time. However 6 years ago, my mother left us (at Christmas!!), making his binges a lot more frequent.

Of late he had been quite well behaved, only drinking at Christmas time and not driving while drunk anymore. He turned to beer instead of vodka too.

However the last two years have been awful. Both last year and this year he has gone mad with drinking. So far today he has drunk two litres of vodka. He is completely legless and is actually on the floor beside me roaring in my ear about complete bollox. Absolutely meaningless stuff.

Myself and my brother tend to not do anything about his problem as after January he's fine and he is the best father in the world again until 22nd December. But this has just gotten far too much for me now.

This year I have been affected by the recession and I was really looking forward to the simple things of Christmas, ie: family, the dinner, movies etc...
However, I suppose its only this year that I realise how bad it all is.

PS: Sorry if this is not making sense its hard to concentrate because he's talking so much crap beside me.

He has problems with his blood pressure, he's on medication for it. He also had a health scare this September (bowel cancer - he's okay though thank God) and that made him more health conscious with regard to eating and walking. I honestly thought that he would cut down this year, but he's worse.

I try to talk to him when he's like this but it's impossible.

All he has done the last two days is talk about death. One minute he wants to die, the next minute he's getting premonitions about the neighbours slitting his throat. Then he's telling me that i'll be dead in 10 years and that he's afrais to die!!!!

He's also started talking about having small pains and numb feelings down his left arm. I honestly don't know if it's just for attention or what.

He's driving me crazy and he wont go for councelling. When I try to speak to him about this sober, he just refuses to listen. He thinks he's fine.

I'm so desperate for some kind of advice. I go to councelling myself and I'm fine with this in my own way. It's not impacting on my own mental health, but I'm very worried about his.

LegacyUser

Deat sourcys,

I am very sorry to hear about your situation. Your Dad is clearly alcoholic. Unfortunately it can take a lot to get to the point of acceptence. Many drinkers have to reach an extremely low point before they accept.

There is support for family members of alcoholics, al-anon. You could speak to a counsellor at Aiseiri or AA and ask them for a contact phone number. If you can get hold of someone at al-anon you will then have support and advice better than I can give you here and you will no longer be alone.

Your father clearly needs an intervention. He needs to see how his actions are destroying his childrens lives and his own. He needs to see the hurt and pain that he is causing. He needs to see a video of himself as he lies on the floor screaming and ranting.

I wish you well and hope that you manage to make some sort of progress with him, But don't suffer this for the rest of your lives, at some point you should consider being prepared to escape and live your own life in peace and happiness.

meganj

Try http://www.al-anonuk.org.uk/ it's a UK website but it represents Ireland as well. You may not be able to stop your fathers drinking but al-anon offer support for families to cope and learn how to help your father. At the very least they will offer you emotional support as you embark on this journey to help your dad.

username123

OP - unfortunately there is nothing you can do to stop your dad from drinking. His drinking is having an impact on you (and anyone else he has a relationship with), alcoholism is an insidious disease that affects all around, not just the alcoholic. The best thing for you to do would be to go to Alanon. There you will find the support, advice, wisdom and tools you need to learn how to cope with your fathers alcoholism. He is clearly in complete denial of his problem. Sometimes those of us close to the alcoholic actually enable the problem without realising and help keep the alcoholic in denial. If you go to Alanon you will learn how not to enable your dad and how to change your own behaviour - which might also have the effect of changing his behaviour.

Just remember, you didnt cause it, you cannot control it, and you cannot cure it. You cannot change anyone elses behaviour, only your own, but changing your own may change the dynamic of the situation.

I wish you well and hope you get some resolve for this awful situation.

LegacyUser

thanks for the advice

Just to update - myself and my brother took control of his drink stock today and basically drip fed him small amounts of alcohol.

The result? He had the shakes, was miserable and I felt awful. I felt like I was torturing him, not helping him.

However, although he is drunk, he's in bed, he's no-where near as drunk as he was yesterday and he ate a sandwich, the second thing he's had since xmas day!!

I've cancelled going out on NYE, I don't like it anyway and I think it's unfair of us to wean him off the drink to leave him alone on NYE. I know some of you will say it's not my problem - but he's my dad - I was once at risk of suicide and having people around me even when I was acting like a demon made all the difference.

I hope I do go to AlAnon. Problem is, as I've said before, we are as bad as he is for brushing all this under the mat after Jan. It never happens again until Xmas, so it all gets put to the back of our minds until Christmas comes round again.

I'd do anything for him, but I'm working extremely hard to get through my own stuff - I wish there was a way to force people into councelling!!

LegacyUser

Dear OP,

I am so sorry to hear about what you are going through. Just to let you know you are not alone. My mother is also an alcoholic and for years my family have just ignored the problem. Acted like it does not exist. We conforted her numerous times last year, interventions, counselling etc. I think she just went along with it all to keep the family happy and keep everyone off her back. But looking back on it now I realise she will not stop unless she want to and there is little we can do about it. What happened in my case was that I was concentrating on "fixing" her and ignoring my own issues and how her behavouriour was effecting me. Eventually it all got on top of me and I went on a major downer. I am now in counselling and dealing with my issues. But my advice to OP is to protect yourself and your own mental health. As selfish as it may sound and it took me awhile to realise I can't fix my mother but what I can do is take care of myself. And thats my message to you I just hope you remember to protect yourself and take care of you. Thats what I forgot. I hope it all works out for you!

LegacyUser

Hi Dawdles

I am in councelling too, but for other issues. It does help me to focus on myself more, something I wouldn't have done in other years


On a sadder note - it all came to a head last night when my father's lung collapsed. We rushed him to A&E. He's in hospital now, maybe for a week - it could take him up to 2 more to fully recover. The doc's are saying its not necessarily related to his drinking but I know it is. For two days straight he was trying to force himself to get sick. Turns out the pains in his arms could have been an indicator that this was coming.

Its horrible that it had to end like this - to see in 2010 in a strange place surrounded by people roaring and screaming. But maybe also the wake up call he desperately needed. at 57 and with blood pressure problems I don't know how much longer his body can take all this.

username123

sourcys wrote: »

But maybe also the wake up call he desperately needed.

This is what you need to focus on OP - now that he is in hospital you can actually use this as an opportunity to try and sort out the drinking as well - speak to him, and speak to his doctors, explain he needs help, they will offer it - but only your father can make the decision to accept the help he needs.

I understand you feel you need to help your father and thats totally commendable, but you need to educate yourself on alcoholism to make sure that the help you give isnt actually enabling the problem. I tried to help my own father for many years, and in retrospect I didnt know what I was doing and I was in fact helping him to continue to be alcoholic. Its a weird non intuitive disease where the real help can seem like its you just being a nasty cold person.

Have a read of this:
http://www.theharborhhi.org/Content/amgrf.pdf

It will help give you an understanding of the dynamics of alcohol in a family.

Sorry the xmas/new year has been so bad for you and your family, it would be well worth all your time to make a hard decision to start tackling this problem head on in 2010. But just be aware that the only person you can help is yourself, but changing your behaviour will change the dynamic of the alcoholism in the family. If you do go to Alanon (and i really cant recommend it highly enough) get your brother to go too, its better if everyone involved goes so that you all learn the same healthy message together and are consistent in behaviour changes.

LegacyUser

Hi OP,

Its difficult to deal with and as others have said before its the dinosaur in the living room that everyone keeps walking around. My dad is an alco as well, what i find hard is seeing his vulnerabilities it wrenches my heart, many children of the alcoholic feel responsible for them and this can cause an unhealthy attachment with that parent. I know with me and my BF we had to work on ourselves first to get to healthy place so we could change the negative dynamics, and we were both feeling responsible for our parents.

So i do feel that the best advice you could have is to go and work on your own issues which will then have a ripple effect on the family around you, if you continue to try and understand this all yourself you will continue a dysfunctional cycle, the alcoholic will thrive on you all feeling guilt and responsibility around him, the best thing to do is to go to therapy, understand the real fundamentals of alcohol, lean new ways to interact with your dad, you say you would do anything for him but would you do anything for yourself.

tinkerbell

Hi OP, I'm sorry to hear that you are going through this. However now that he's in hospital, he won't have access to any drink for a while at least. I don't think you can do anything unless he wants to change himself.

Like others suggested, read up about alcoholism and go to AlAnon with your brother, it might help some bit anyway. Also try to remove all the drink from the house.

gerandtim

I would definitely advise you go to al anon and get some of their literature. even if you do not want to go to meetings their information is a great help. i went 10 years ago regarding one member of my family and reading their info this week has helped me again with dealing with another family member. I realised I have been enabling the alcoholic by doing things for them that they should be doing themself. It is when they hit rock bottom that they will do something about it. Otherwise we only prolong the situation by giving too much assistance.

CamillaRhodes

Sorry to hijack this thread a bit, and huge sympathy to the OP - hope your dad is on the mend now?

I have similar problems with my own father, which have also been going on for years and I can feel it starting to take a toll on me. I've heard recommendations for Al Anon, but was turned off by all the christian/religious language - I'm really not keen on being talked to about god and the likes (am an atheist and have had a lot of problems with religions and religious orders in the past, hence am keen to stay away). Are there any support groups like Al Anon which don't ask you to "to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God" etc etc?? I know people will say (and they already include the language) "it's god as you understand him" which could be an inner god, but I gotta say even the language and referring to "him" and so on really bothers me.

Thanks for any advice / suggestions.

gerandtim

I am agnostic myself and couldnt relate to the god thing either. But there is good information on Detachment which is very helpful in living with alcoholism and teaches you to practice tough love. It is difficult when you love someone but enabling only prolongs the situation. Wish your father recovery and peace. Take care of yourself most importantly.

username123

CamillaRhodes wrote: »

Sorry to hijack this thread a bit, and huge sympathy to the OP - hope your dad is on the mend now?

I have similar problems with my own father, which have also been going on for years and I can feel it starting to take a toll on me. I've heard recommendations for Al Anon, but was turned off by all the christian/religious language - I'm really not keen on being talked to about god and the likes (am an atheist and have had a lot of problems with religions and religious orders in the past, hence am keen to stay away). Are there any support groups like Al Anon which don't ask you to "to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God" etc etc?? I know people will say (and they already include the language) "it's god as you understand him" which could be an inner god, but I gotta say even the language and referring to "him" and so on really bothers me.

Thanks for any advice / suggestions.

Im an atheist too and I got great help from Alanon. There is also the expression 'take what you want and leave the rest behind' - which is exactly what I did, I took the support and sharing of the other members, the useful tools of how to deal with an active alcoholic and I just left behind any god related bits, or used a mental image of science/evolution/nature as a higher power than me if I was trying to get my head around a particular concept.

Believe me, minor religious-like references in an Alanon meeting were the absolute least of my worries when i needed to go there. In fact, I was in such a state that if it would have helped the situation I would have grabbed the good book and started banging on it - so desperate I was at the time. However, i was never asked to compromise my belief system and found that I could quite easily merge my atheism and my Alanon without inner conflict.