Thread: My Dad
View Single Post
Old 11-03-2015, 05:24 PM
  # 24 (permalink)  
PurpleKnight
Member
 
PurpleKnight's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: Ireland
Posts: 25,826
Originally Posted by thotful View Post
Thanks for your share. I haven't cut-off contact with my Dad, but I am experiencing the same circumstance of rarely hearing from him. I've realized that when I reach out to my parents for a lunch, or to hang out, I ask my mother. And every single time I ask her to lunch. I don't even mention my Dad. Not because I don't want to meet him. It's because I've become accustomed to the disappointment that he won't meet us for lunch, dinner, a play, a movie, whatever thing we want to do. Even if I go to their house and try and visit with him, he is FAR away. Like I'm running down a tunnel to reach him, and the distance never changes. The distance is created by the disease of alcoholism. I believe things would be different without the disease. I am coping with the loss. It is a grief that I am trying to work through. As such, I don't even think of inviting him anymore (I started this a LONG time ago). Heck, when I had a family counseling session with several siblings and my mother, it didn't even cross my mind to envision my father being there. I just knew...he wouldn't. Even though it was an important meeting because I had cut-off 2 siblings and was trying to reconcile our relationship. My mother tried to make some sort of excuse about why my dad wasn't there. Honestly, all I heard was the peanuts teacher's voice, "waa, waa, waa, waa" and don't remember what she said at all. Might as well have been white noise. I didn't even expect my Dad to be there, so it was a waste of energy for my Mom to come up with an excuse. Cause I knew it would be BS anyways. The disease of alcoholism has crippled my father emotionally. I appreciate the glimmer of his real self that I see from time to time. He's not completely wasted away. Just barely a nub left of his true self. It's truly sad. ANd heartbreaking to watch.
This is the dilemma, and it was my dilemma, on one hand I could have cut off all contact from my dad like my sister did from my teenage years, the reality being one day receiving a phone call to say he had passed away and having to cope with the loss, having never really knew him, or reached out for that father/son relationship, albeit naively founded, or achieved some sliver of a connection eventually.

Disappointment was a common theme in my relationship, the naive 20yr old who in hindsight was misguided quickly realized that when he would arrange to meet his dad it would always be at a bar, meeting for dinner was always delayed as a result of just one more round at the bar with the lads, meeting for coffee was always cancelled as yet another round had over run by a few hours, it quickly became apparent that my dad’s life revolved around alcohol and sadly his son ranked very much down the pecking order.

My naivety, my wishful thinking, my longing for a normal father/son relationship seemed to be always hitting a brick wall, as you perfectly put it the distance never changes how ever fast you run down that tunnel, it was like a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, very much unreachable, the goal posts were always shifting.

The variable of addiction, I think was the key to my acceptance, take out alcoholism and I truly believe that my father was a good man, and how many of us would think differently of our alcoholic parents? Without alcohol my life I truly believe would have been different, mine, my mum's, my sister's, and even my my dad's.

Looking in on someone else’s addiction can be a very lonely place, disappointments, frustrations, in the end I even started to blame myself, you go to the extremes of wondering why did this person even have a child in the first place? What was the point of even being born if they were going to treat us like this? But in time I think that through the lens of the variable of addiction it can start to answer a lot of questions and in a fulfilling way it can create some peace.

It is heartbreaking to watch someone become consumed by addiction, the how did this happen? The why did this happen? Surely something could have been done?

The answer in my experience has been to reach an acceptance that we did the best we could, a person needs to change themselves, there is only so much that can be done, we can talk, and hint, and comment about someone’s lifestyle, but if they are not willing to put into action within their own lives any lasting change, then are we still to blame?

I watched my dad be lowered into a grave on a sunny midweek day, everyone watching knew the cause of death, and I took some comfort in knowing I did my best, and that’s all any of us can do, holding my head high years later knowing no one could have done anymore, that I think is something we need to accept and strive to make peace with.

The loss however does not go away, I lost a dad, I lost the chance to be a son, addiction influenced my life before I even knew what addiction was, the cruel side to all of this is watching the car crash happen before your eyes and not being able to do anything about it.

PK
PurpleKnight is offline