Friedman

Hi,

This is my first post here, and it ended up being a lot longer than I figured, sorry. The summary is that I'm trying to find some way to maintain at least a bare minimum relationship with a Dad who won't even stay not-drunk for brief visits first thing in the morning.

The back story here is that when my Dad retired about 10 years ago he started drinking. He had never been much of a drinker before that. It got more and more over the years, and he refused any offers to help deal with it. About 2 years ago he reluctantly went to a few AA meetings but said he didn't get anything out of them and he wouldn't go back (he's always been pretty introverted and won't talk about anything so I wasn't surprised).

Fast forward to a year ago and he is rushed to the hospital for multiple surgeries because of internal bleeding - his stomach blew a hole from the alcohol and lack of proper nutrition. He spent a month on life support and then another 2 months in the hospital recovering. Obviously, we were hoping almost dying would be his rock bottom, but soon after being released he started up again. My Mom kicked him out about 6 months ago and I've really been struggling to figure out how to maintain some kind of relationship with him.

It would be a big stretch to call him a "functioning alcoholic" in that he seems to be barely surviving. My Mom still makes food for him, which I'm conflicted about because on one hand it's enabling him to have more money to spend on booze, yet I don't know if he'd put in the effort to eat enough otherwise. My Mom feels like his doctor should place him in a care facility, but it's honestly not that he can't do any of these things for himself. When he's sober he talks perfectly lucidly, we play cards, etc, I just don't think he cares. I don't think he's ever cleaned his apartment, his clothes are a mess, and he goes out once a day for smokes and wine, and that's it. I'm not comfortable doing any chores for him because I feel like that'd just enable him to keep living just to drink (I might help if he asked though?).

I used to try to go see him once a week for dinner after work, but gave that up after he was consistently drunk whenever I'd show up. I switched to trying to go in the mornings on Sundays, but I could probably count on one hand how many times he hasn't been drunk then either.

To be clear, I have discussed this with a councillor multiple times and feel OK in that it's not my responsibility to fix him, or anything like that. I'm pretty much past feeling hurt by what he does (or doesn't do) but I do still find it frustrating, in the sense that I'm trying to find a way to maintain some bare minimum of relationship with him, but I can't do that if he won't even avoid being drunk at 9am.

I have discussed with him many times that I'm not comfortable being around him when he's drunk. He's not violent or beligerent, rather stumbles around and doesn't really talk at all. Aside from finding this depressing and frustrating, it feels like a huge waste of my time that I could be spending with my own family. He always says he'll be sober for a visit, but isn't very often. I've even given up asking him to be sober and ask him to just not be drunk.

My councillor did suggest that sometimes providing relationships with people can be an incentive for an alcoholic to stay sober. Clearly that hasn't worked for just me, in that he feels comfortable being drunk around me, but I've been trying to set up get togethers with his siblings and my family. After finally getting one setup he bailed a full 2 days beforehand, I assume for being nervous after not seeing them for so long. He hasn't seen my daughter since getting out of the hospital; I've told him I'm not comfortable with him being drunk around my kids, and he has yet to show the ability to not be. (I don't care if he's had a drink, but definitely not drunk). Further, he still hasn't met his 3-month old grandson, which is a big part of why I want to maintain some relationship so my son can at least have met him. If my Dad keeps going I don't expect he'll last too much longer, in that I'm sure his stomach will fail again and he probably wouldn't survive those surgeries again - he just barely did last time.

So, I'm not quite sure what I'm asking, but does anyone have advice for how to maintain a relationship under these circumstances? I've generally tried to be non-confrontational with him, in that my parents relationship was pretty bad, so I don't want to be another person bickering with him. But, I have reached the point where I'm sick of wasting my time to visit him when he's drunk so will probably tell him I'm done until he tells me he's willing to not be drunk to visit (and obviously follow through). I need to be able to follow through with it though, as saying I'm done would probably be more stressful for me than him, since I'd start worrying how he's doing. I'm conflicted because the odd time he will be OK for a visit, so that makes me feel like I should keep trying.

Anyways, just writing this out has been helpful, but any tips would be appreciated.

Thanks!