Very spot on assessment of the situation formerdoormat. In this case the person posting happens to be my mother and while I feel a little out of line posting in her thread I also feel the need to clear a little up as I don't want her thinking how she thinks I feel is exactly how I feel. I also hope she takes notice of the nine people that agreed with formerdoormat but didn't respond with a post in the thread.
If you're interested in the other threads I started on this situation they can be found here:
soberrecovery.com/forums/adult-children-addicted-alcoholic-parents/159163-facing-my-fathers-drinking-first-time-help.html
and
soberrecovery.com/forums/adult-children-addicted-alcoholic-parents/159899-wow-things-get-pretty-messy.html
Also I feel a need to post a couple small parts of the letter I gave my father to address the his drinking as this is where the above conclusions were drawn from.
I have had a lot of guilt to deal with here, in fact a tremendous amount to carry. I can say without the support of the people on this forum it would have been impossible for me to deal with this so thank you all so very much! I'm sidetracked slightly so here is some idea of the tone of the letter I gave my father.
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I feel the need to write this letter to clear up any issues or miscommunication that may still be out there. I'm sorry it's long but this is the way I think and I don't feel we can speak with clear heads free of emotion at the moment so this is what I have to offer in the way of communication. I feel like some of this I expect you to know and that isn't fair, you can't read my mind and you truly may not have any idea what my real issue is. You live your life every day and I don't know what that life is like. I don't know your battles, struggles, insecurities, flaws or anything about what you're dealing with, facing or running from emotionally. Because of that I want it to be clear off the bat that I'm not passing a judgement or saying I understand the things that make you tick as I don't. This is about myself, my relationship with you our small family and my growth as a human being. This letter is just to put that in a small package so you know where we sit. It's free of the inside scoop I know, pointing fingers or anything else that should cause you to either go on the defense or feel I'm speaking without first thinking about the words I'm saying.
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Quote:
So that brings us to me clearing up the issue at hand. I'm unwilling to accept anybody in my life that has a substance abuse problem and I've removed the people that have. I have up to this last broken promise been willing to accept your alcoholism issue but I have also ignored just how damaging it is for me. The current situation as well as your inability to even see the real issue or cause of my hurt has made many things far more clear to me. The first being that I can't set a limit in my life of not having people that drink around and still have a father. That if you have to make a choice to stop drinking or have a relationship with your son or wife for that matter you will find a hundred reasons that it's my/our fault but in the end you will come to the same conclusion. My only hope is that it isn't on your dying bed. You will be forced to see that I'm choosing to not have people in my life that drink and you're choosing to drink. You will see this isn't an ultimatum, me trying to control you or any other reason you need to justify your actions. The day will come you conclude that you're doing something unhealthy and damaging to the people in your life and you chose to continue doing that even in the face of loosing the family you do have.
I also want to touch on something else. You have never had to hit bottom, you have had a wife and son that love you very much standing down here keeping you from hitting it. Now you have lost one of those and the only thing keeping you from hitting bottom is your wife. She grew up with the same mentality so while she's more understanding of it she's also going to see that you will choose alcohol over the relationship you have with your son and I highly doubt that's going to make her feel very secure. In a couple months you will be in a smaller place, you will have your huge truck payment, a mother in law, four dogs, the same work stresses and no longer have a son that's willing to help keep you from hitting bottom. Stress has never been something you've dealt with well so I don't know how well you're going to hold up like that. There will only be so long you're able to place blame on me and than you're going to have to start taking some of it, pawning it off on mom or drinking it away. So what I'm telling you is that if things fall apart in your life, I made a choice to not want people in my life that drink and you've made one to keep drinking.
I think you're going to have to hit bottom to see there's an issue that needs to be addressed but if that isn't the case I love you and will support you and stand by your side 100% if you decide to really get some help. This is an issue you can not deal with on your own and you have cut back only to kick it into full gear too many times for me to accept you're going to resolve this by yourself. I will support you and even go to meetings with you, whatever you need. Whatever it is you need I will be there and support it but until you face your drinking issue head on, get some help and stop drinking I will not have a relationship with you as you are too damaging to me.
I have just started to sort through the issues you have contributed to in my life with your drinking. I have starting talking to other Adult Children of Alcoholics and seeking support as well as trying to handle the guilt you have used as a tool for far too long. I think you may be reading this thinking you have no problem and I'm crazy but if that were the case you could stop drinking. The fact that you will justify in some way loosing a son and I hope for moms sake a wife soon after will force you to see that you have an addiction that's damaging to the people around you and you need some help.
As for me, I don't think you're going to understanding this at the moment but I'm writing it because I think one day you will. I am accepting that I have a father that will give me up before he'll give up drinking. I have a failed business and on top of having money issues I have reached the end of a wonderful 8 month relationship with a great woman that I'm dealing with. Having you on this property causes me far more stress than I am will to allow so I need to stick to you being gone on the 18th. To be clear this applies to you, I'm not kicking anybody off the property, I'm not giving an ultimatum, being controlling or telling mom she has to change anything. I'm simply saying that your drinking is damaging to me, I'm choosing to no longer accept it in my life and if you choose to continue drinking you need to be gone on the 18th of this month. If that means you have to stay at in InTown Suites or whatever so be it though I hope the threat of loosing one of the two people you have in your life is enough of a wake up call for you to start going to AA and addressing some of your issues.
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As for the situation with not speaking to my mother. I took issue with her enabling my father yet again however I was willing to keep my relationship with her as healthy as I could. I think the pressure of everything, my father and myself and her feeling the need to somehow pick a side made it clear to her that she was either going to have to pull the cover off this mess and face it or keep pretending like there wasn't an issue. So she told me the following:
"You are abusive and should really think hard about who I'm co-dependent on you or dad"
"You just need a cause in your life and now you've taken on this, when this is done you're going to have to try to find something else"
"You need to stop blaming your fathers drinking for your problems in life"
There is a longer list but these are all damaging things to hear from a parent when you're trying to force yourself to not trust their advice anymore as you know there is a sickness causing them to say things to avoid the real issue. I knew at that moment my mother was willing to harm me emotionally to keep this problem hidden and I had to remove myself from that for the time being.
This has forced me to face my own codependency issues and those played a huge roll in a failed marriage. It was in reading on the topic because of the above quote that I learned it was learned behavior, that she got that from her mother and I from her. No blame placed on my mother there but it's an issue I have that needs to be addressed now that I'm aware of it.
So there's the other side to the story. I'm not putting this here for anybody to pick sides. To challenge what my mother is saying or feeling or anything else. I put this here so she had a better idea where my head was and anybody else facing something similar would have the full story.
As a side note, the last week has been tough and frustrating to me. My mother has always said that she "can't have any friends" because of my fathers drinking and she "can't take him out anyplace". This has resulted in my mother calling all of my friends to help them move and a very uncomfortable place for them to be in as well as me having to deal with that. It has defiantly felt like a huge slap in the face having to watch my friends be brought in by my mother to further enable my father.