ctz

Hi. First post here. I just joined because I'm completely overwhelmed with emotion.

I'm the 26 year old adult son of an alcoholic parent. He's 70, I'm the oldest child. He is divorced, has been for about 20 years now, lives alone, drinks alone, and has had health problems. He was always a functional alcoholic, a term I've heard him use. He went to work, came to my baseball games, answers the phone. He's generally been there for me. He definitely financially supported me - as I went to a private catholic high school and then a public university. The things he's done for me hang over my head. I feel like I owe him.

He's been an alcoholic since before I was born, and it was a big part of why my parents got divorced (I just learned this). His drinking became noticeably worse when I was in high school. He just wasn't really there after about 6pm. He was physically there, but not mentally. A lot of one word answers, obvious incoherence, and whatever else. My sister, a few years younger than I, and I confronted him about it more than once. I would find bottles in the car, in the basement, one time I drove down the street and he was parked at the end of the road drinking before he got home.

Pretty much since then I've avoided talking to him in the evening because it's just too depressing, there's no meaningful conversation, and he wouldn't remember anyway. It was easier when I was in college out of state. I graduated and moved home and it was extremely frustrating. It made me feel extremely guilty about my own drinking, which was occasionally irresponsible, but seemed about in line with my early 20's peers. I moved out 2 years ago and live about half an hour away. I see him every weekend. He expects me to come up to his place and 'help out' around the house. Do little chores, sometimes big chores, or projects. It's really not a ton of work, but it is a time commitment, and I really think he just wants a companion because he's lonely - not my fault. I feel like I'm not given the opportunity to want to see my dad, or want to help out with things, because it's expected of me. Now I resent it. I hate that none of my peers spend time with their parents. They moved out and at least seem to be able to live independent and free and I just feel trapped.

He went to treatment recently, he's tried AA classes multiple times. He was in these classes recently for 2 weeks. It surprised me how short it was. He fell off the wagon during those 2 weeks a couple of times and has numerous times since the sessions have been over. He called to apologize for it once. And it almost just makes me mad. I'm glad he's getting help. I just want so badly not to care, to not be involved with these problems. I feel like I should have nothing to do with them. Recently, he called me because he wanted to have lunch, and I declined because I had plans. I called him later, and he had been drinking. I think things like, "if i had spent time with him, would he have drank?" and I always think along that line whenever I leave his house after I"m done helping out on the weekends. Sometimes he'll want to do something else that isn't work and I decline because I have other plans, or because I have things I need to work on, because I too, have a f'ing life, and I just feel incredibly guilty leaving, like "well he's going to go drink now"

I feel directly responsible. I feel guilty for not wanting to be involved. I feel really really angry about it all right now, and my anger seems so unreasonable to me. When I write, "I'm mad that he's old, alone, and drunk" it makes me feel guilty, but that's very much how I feel right now. I just want to disappear. I have my own problems with depression and a million other things going on and this is just such a huge burden on my mind right now. I don't really know what to do. I'm jealous that my mom got to divorce him. I'm jealous my sister in 900 miles away in NY. I'm jealous of all my friends whose parents are together, or 20 years younger, or not alcoholics, or not alone, or not so old-fashioned. I'm completely ungrateful, unreasonable, bitter, and just pissed off.

I completely stopped drinking a few months ago because I never ever want to be my dad to someone else. I don't think he should have had children.