Old 03-01-2015, 05:57 AM
  # 6 (permalink)  
cookiesncream
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Join Date: Mar 2014
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I do completely understand where you are coming from. I think it is fair and reasonable to have a mixture of feelings and it is okay to feel all of them.

Let me tell you a little story, which many have heard before so apologies in advance. My Dad went through a period of about four years when he was an active alcoholic. I was an adolescent at the time. He did all kinds of stuff during that period which we blamed on alcohol. He spent wild amounts of money. He moved our family across the country. He had wild personality ups and down. He got angry at the drop of a hat. We blamed it on alcohol. He quit drinking cold turkey. We thought life was great. No more wild spending, he was kind and loving. Two and a half months later we found him dead of a self inflicted gunshot wound. I was sixteen. I've spent over thirty years grappling with the emotions. Anger for the financial wreckage he left behind. In educating myself, lots and lots of therapy, and finding out more about his past it is crystal clear that he had untreated bi-polar disorder. I feel sorry for him. I've learned to live and accept that he had many pieces to him some of which I did not like. Others though simply make me grieve for somebody who was deeply hurting. I feel badly sometimes that our family spent sooo much time looking at the addiction rather than what he was trying to self medicate. That said it is what it is.

I hope in time you will find your own peace.
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