[FormerDoormat]

Living with an alcoholic parent who typically drank 12-18 beers a day doesn't sound like a wonderful childhood to me. Living with an active alcoholic who's idea of "cutting back" is drinking a six-pack a day sounds like far from an ideal relationship to me, too. Working a 100-hour week is outrageous as well, and makes me wonder if one partner is carrying the bulk (or perhaps all) of the financial burdeon for the family.

It sounds to me like your son has had enough of living with an alcoholic under his roof and has decided to set some boundaries to protect himself from further harm.

Long-term partners of alcoholics often don't realize how much harm their alcoholic loved ones have caused them, their children, and extended family. That's because as an alcoholic's behavior worsens over time; so does the level of tolerance their partners display. This co-dependent like behavior is often likened to the Stockholm Syndrome that hostages display--meaning that over time they begin to sympathize with the hostage takers and view their horrendous behavior as completely acceptable.

It's also common for codependent partners of alcoholics to lay the blame for their predicament on others. In this case it appears you may view your son as the bad guy, but he's not the drinker and his behavior isn't the problem. He's just an adult who wants to live a life free from the effect of another person's drinking. And that's his right.

I lived with an alcoholic for 25 years. And for most of those years, I excused his behavior, too. But as his disease progressed, his behavior grew increasingly less tolerable and his health deteriorated to the point where I felt like I was taking care of a misbehaving dependent child instead of living with an equal partner. Yet still I hung on and still I claimed he was a good man and that I loved him. And I continued to make excuses for his bad behavior and refused to see the harm he was causing my child.

When life became completely unbearable, I found SoberRecovery. The folks here encouraged me to attend Alanon and learn as much as I could about alcoholism and co-dependency. And as I learned and grew and participated on this forum, the fog that had been hanging over my head for years slowly began to lift and I started to see that what I thought was a fairy tale life was really a horror show and I was intentionally choosing that life for myself.

Today, I see that I accepted intolerable behavior from a man who claimed to love me. That my devotion to a broken, irresponsible, emotionally unavailable man who loved a bottle more than he loved me cost me my sanity, my health, my child's trust and respect, the respect of my friends, my family, and more.

That's not love, in my opinion, that's a serious case of dependency and it's an illness all it's own. Co-dependency was my problem. Alanon was the solution. I hope you'll stick around the forum for a while and share and learn.

Welcome.