I am the adult child of an alcoholic and just coming to terms with it. I am also very codependent, which I think relates being an ACOA.
I married an addict. Did it have something to do with my father being an alcoholic....maybe, maybe not. I'm still trying to figure that out.
You don't realize how HARD it is to grow up and not know if you father is going to yell at you when you walk in the door or if he will be "normal" dad. It doesn't matter that you are a great mother, my mom was too. It was still TOO scary for me to come home and have to deal with an alcoholic father.
I have been ashamed of it for a long time and didn't talk about it because I didn't want everyone to know that my dad that way. He missed out on my school functions, he left us for days at a time, he was mean, he yelled, he wanted to pick fights, he drove drunk, etc.
I have to say, it affected me as a kid more than my mom ever knew. She still doesn't know.
its hard growing up with an alcoholic father.
I don't want this to sound harsh but I want you to see it from another perspective. It doesn't matter that he may not be physically violent.
Some of the things in your post just got to me.
Since I can't quote yet, this is one of them:
"I know my 13 year old son acts out to his younger brother and when I try to talk to him he just gets angry and says his dad doesn't have any right to treat him that way either but he does so I think my son feels justified in his actions toward his brother."
This is another:
"My 14 year old daughter was in tears and couldn't understand why he was only yelling at her and hadn't even said hi."
My self esteem has been bad for a long time. I don't feel good about myself and I am just now learning to love myself. I had bad relationships with guys and had bad relationships peroid. I didn't feel good about myself growing up because of what my dad did or said or how he embarrassed me if I happened to have a friend over. I hated not being able to have a lot of friends stay the night because my dad might be drinking and who knows what he would have done.
Well, I am gonna hop off my soap box. It just seems to me that you do have an idea of what this is doing to your kids. Have you asked them how it affects them?
Everyone has to reach their bottoms, including the codependent.