Taking care of alcoholic father...

LegacyUser

Hi everyone,

Just looking for some advice about my father. So he's had alcohol problems since I was born, with a few dry spells lasting a few months/up to a year. My parents split up when I was about 5, I lived with my mam and visited him. He was terribly mean and neglectful, either dragging my younger sister and I to pubs for the whole day and night or just leaving us at home (this started when I was 5 and she was 3!)

This summer he's been on an absolute bender, I only saw him last week for the first time in months. He said he's going to stop drinking and he was in an awful state - terrible shakes and spaced out. So I cleaned his house and bought him groceries and stuff and he said he's gone to meetings but I'm really worried about him. He lives on his own and I think he's suicidal. Now he's emotionally dependent on me and I feel guilty like i should stay with him and spend more time with him but I have my own **** to deal with! He won't admit himself to an inpatient facility and I don't know what to do. I want to be there for him but I've so much resentment that I'm struggling to put aside and I'm dealing with depression myself. And I'm only 18!

Any advice? Should I just put the past aside and mind him until he's well? There aren't any other family members that are able or willing to help. He has a few friends looking out for him though.

Sorry about the length and thanks in advance.

ABC

Fakediamond

I think your whole post says it all. He's never been there for you and still isn't - and you're only 18. The reason that no one else is there for him is because he is unwilling to deal with his addiction and they've probably reached their limit in tolerating him. You can't help him, unless and until he helps himself.

It's very sad for you, but if he's unwilling to put any effort into helping himself, you can't take responsibility for him. Consider going to an Al-anon meeting to get support for yourself, they'll help you to deal with the fallout from having an alcoholic parent, which is not easy on you either.

Hope you'll be OK.

intheclouds

ABC989 wrote: »

He said he's going to stop drinking and he was in an awful state - terrible shakes and spaced out. So I cleaned his house and bought him groceries and stuff....

Although the above was very nice of you, its absolutely the wrong thing to do and you are simply enabling him to drink his head off and let someone else sort out the consequences.

Id love if someone came and cleaned my house and bought me groceries and stuff.

You need to go to Alanon and learn how to cope with his drinking. You didnt cause it, you cant control it and you cant cure it.

You are experiencing totally normal feelings of worry and helplessness about this situation and it is absolutely understandable to try to help as you did, but you need to learn how to help in a way that does not enable the addiction.

Its very sad to see someone destroying themselves with drink but unless he is willing to help himself you cant be there to be his emotional crutch - and dont feel a bit bad over that - you cant live someone elses life for them. He has a choice to be as he is and he is choosing it over choosing to love and support you.

iguana

At the end of the day you owe this man nothing. He might be your biological father but it sounds like he was never a father to you. Look at it this way. Was your mother a good mother and if so why did your mother leave him? Most likely because she wanted a life for you and your sister that wasn't ruined by the way he lives. She probably wanted to free you from the hell that living with and caring for an addict is. The odds are it was very hard for her to leave her marriage and face life as a single parent but she did it for you and your sister. To free you from the reality that she was dealing with. So don't feel guilty about not wanting to care for this man now. Step back and take care of yourself.

Maybe in the future if he takes advantage of the help that is available to him and finally gets sober you can have a relationship with him then. But please don't feel guilty for not wanting to get sucked into his life now.

Dravokivich

Anything you do, will have no impact on what he'll do. If you keep picking up after him, the one time you don't, he'll look at it as your problem, not his.

Be available to talk with him. But that'll be it to be honest.

I've been through a lot of the stuff you've mentioned. With someone who was completely against being through an inpatient facility. It took them a long time of being in and out of there to accept and recognise it's what they needed and even then they still fought out against it.

intheclouds wrote: »

Although the above was very nice of you, its absolutely the wrong thing to do and you are simply enabling him to drink his head off and let someone else sort out the consequences.

After what I've been through, I can't stand this. Enabling requires intent. All it is doing is making someone who is trying to help, under a severe amount of stress, unsure of what truly needs doing, feel like an accomplice.

intheclouds

Dravokivich wrote: »

After what I've been through, I can't stand this. Enabling requires intent. All it is doing is making someone who is trying to help, under a severe amount of stress, unsure of what truly needs doing, feel like an accomplice.

I cant agree with this at all. Enabling does not require any intent.

I never felt like an accomplice but I was truly glad to find out and understand what enabling behaviours I was engaging in - so I could stop doing it. The more I learned about alcoholism and the behaviours associated with it (the behaviours of the alcoholic as well as all the people who surround the alcoholic), the better I felt about the situation. Knowledge is power and all that.

Incidentally, my alcoholic never recovered, never even tried. But I learned how to cope despite that. Thats whats important, learning how to look after yourself despite the situation - because you cant control the situation.

Dravokivich

Difference of opinion on it so. But it certainly felt like a finger was being pointed and all it did was allow someone else shirk responsibility for themselves.

I opened my response above, not from this questionable concept of minimizing one's potential of becoming an enabler. But that her father will pull her down with him if she continues to try to help him in the way she's mentioned.

intheclouds

Dravokivich wrote: »

Difference of opinion on it so. But it certainly felt like a finger was being pointed and all it did was allow someone else shirk responsibility for themselves.

Im sure lots of people feel this way and I am delighted you have mentioned it.

Living and coping with someone elses alcoholism is a complex situation and there is no one size fits all solution.

People are different and have different experiences and are affected differently by an alcoholic parent - so its good to see different perspectives. Thats one of the things that really helped me in Alanon - because its group therapy - with lots of different people and situations - I got to see different coping strategies and different outcomes for people and got to learn what worked best for me.