GingerM

Welcome to the board, Lion. I am very sorry that you had to find us, but I am also glad you did.

Al-Anon wasn't for me either, so the fact that it didn't work for you doesn't mean you're a bad person or that you're somehow incapable. We all walk our own paths through this morass of a situation.

First, I'd like to point you to the top of this forum, the section that has all the "stickied" posts and suggest you read the "Bill of Rights of Adult Alcoholics." I think you will find some strength there.

Secondly, I'd like to introduce you to what is referred to as the 3C's: You didn't cause it, you can't control it and you can't cure it.

Taken one at a time:

1. You didn't cause it: I don't hear in your post any self-blaming going on. This is good. This means that you haven't fallen into the pit many of us did of believing that somehow our parent's drinking is our fault.

2. You can't control it: Your father *chooses* to drink. If he didn't want to drink, he wouldn't. I do not drink. No amount of begging, pleading or peer pressure will make me. I do not choose to drink. In reverse, no one is holding him down, prying his mouth open and forcing the alcohol down his throat. The only person whose behavior and decisions you can control is YOURS. You can't control his decisions - and it is highly unlikely that anything you do or don't say to him will make one iota of difference in his behavior - because this is what he *chooses* to do. Accepting this, I believe, is one of the hardest things to do. Accepting that someone we love chooses to take a self-destructive path, and to be able to stand back and say "They have the right to screw up their life in whatever manner they so choose, and I can not change them," is a very very difficult thing. Your mother tried to control the situation by not buying alcoholic beer, yet he found a way to get beer anyway. You can not control him.

3. You can not cure him: Only he can make the decision to stop drinking. You cannot make this decision for him. You can only change you, you cannot change him. No amount of cajoling or harping or whining or begging or pleading or confronting or issuing of ultimatums will make him change his behavior. He will change when, and only when, he WANTS to change - assuming he ever does.

Unfortunately, this is a possibility you must learn to come to peace with. It is entirely possible (and even probable) that he will follow the behaviors modeled to him by his own father, and that he may die in the same way. We all must die sometime, in some manner, and he may be choosing both his time and manner of death in his behavior. But again, you can't control that and you can't change it. You CAN change YOU. You can decide how you want to deal with him as things continue onwards. You can choose to be witness to the process, you can choose not to, you can even choose to bang your head against the wall that is the alcoholic trying to get him to change. But until such time as he wants to, it won't happen.

It may be helpful to frame your "want" in another light. What else do you not want to see happen in this world? Personally, I don't want to see children starving to death, to see families ripped apart in war, to see famine when there is no need of it. I do not want to see social injustice, I do not want to watch my own parents travel down the road of alcoholism that has only one end. But I can do nothing about any of these things. Children WILL starve as long as there are countries being run by warlords. War WILL rip families apart as long as humans still feel the need to fight one another. And my parents WILL continue drinking, even as it rips their world and their minds apart.

1. Your dad will not hear the truth, no matter what words you use to say it. He does not want to hear it, and most likely, is incapable of hearing it. Your truth is not his truth. In his mind, there is nothing wrong with what he's doing. In his mind, he is doing what he wants to do and it doesn't affect anyone else. And it is highly unlikely that you will find any way at all to change what is going on in his mind - because it is too threatening to him, and our minds have very convoluted ways of supporting our beliefs, even in the face of large amounts of facts and logic that contradict those beliefs.

2. For YOUR peace of mind, you may want to tell him what you feel. You need to focus on you and your needs - his needs are being met right now by a liquid. You can not meet his needs, but you can provide for your own needs. Do you need to get this off your chest so that you can look back and say "I did try"? If so, then by all means, talk to him - but do it knowing that you are doing so only to meet your own needs, not in an effort to change him (remember the 3C's).

3. An ultimatum is also called a "boundary" and it is something many ACoA's struggle with. I will only say that if you do issue him an ultimatum, think very carefully about it - because once you have drawn your line in the sand, you must be willing to defend it over and over and over again. And if you draw the line, then ignore it, soon the ultimatum carries no weight (example: the most recent time my dad called me drunk and told me he was never going to speak to me again, I related it to my husband, who laughed and said "as if you could be so lucky!" Notice that I said "most recent time," for he has threatened this more times than I can count. I don't believe his line in the sand anymore because he will not defend his boundary). Make certain in your mind and in your heart that whatever ultimatum you're willing to make is one you can rest at ease with in your conscience.

Also note that not all ultimatums need to be vocalized. The first time my dad told me he'd never speak to me again, my response was "If that is what you want, I will honor your boundary." In MY mind I made an ultimatum as well - if he wanted to be a burro's butt, I would not grovel or beg for him to speak to me anymore, to expose myself to more treatment of the kind I had been getting. The words I spoke to him contained that ultimatum, but not in the way I was feeling it in my heart.

It does not make you a terrible person to want to remove yourself from a toxic situation. It makes you a healthy person. If this person was not related to you, would you give them a second thought? If he was a homeless person, drunk and belligerent, that you found on a street spouting off nonsense and yelling at you, would you decide that you wanted to associate with the person longer? I wouldn't. You are an adult, you are now in full control of your future. To decide that you want to remove the toxicity from your life is far from making you a bad person.

Supporting your mom is a hard thing for me to address. She obviously isn't enabling him or in denial. You can support her by talking to her. You can support her by telling her that your door is open to her. You can let her know you're there for her. But as with your dad, you can not change your mom either. You can't make her leave him, no more than you could make her stay if she didn't want to. You can do nothing for her other than offer her your support and an ear (as I am doing here with you). I can no more change your behavior than you can change your mom's, but I can say "I'm here for you to talk to, I'm dealing with the same horrible family mess, and I am willing to open my electronic door to you whenever you need someone (you can always send me a private message).

The anger will fade as you come to accept what you can and can not change. When you can peacefully accept that there is nothing more you can do about your dad's behavior than you could do about the movement of the tides or the orbit of the moon, you will find the anger fades away. Instead, the sadness will become greater. Acceptance can help with the sadness, but, speaking only for myself, it never really goes away.

My mother now has alcohol induced dementia. Her short term memory is shot, and her long term memory is going. She was once a highly intelligent woman, she was once beautiful, she was once (I've been told) happy. I see in her a loss of human potential, eaten up by alcohol. That makes me profoundly sad. It is not the sadness of a victim who has been wronged, but the same sadness that I feel when I hear of children starving or wars happening, when there is nothing I can do about it. It is a sort of grieving sadness of "what could have been." But right now, it is a "what could have been," not a "what is." "What is" is that I now have a mother who can't remember what's going on from one minute to the next. And a father who is angry, and drowns his anger in drink, and becomes more angry until he threatens - every so often - to stop speaking to me, as if this is somehow my fault (see again the 3C's).

I can't tell you what will happen from here either. I can tell you that if you place your father at the center of your intents, and not yourself, you will make yourself crazy. You can only change YOUR behavior.

I wish you well in your journey - it is neither simple nor short.