DesertEyes

Hello pattyj, and pleased to "meet" you

No, you are not alone. I always felt I was the only adult in my family, even when I was 10 years old. After a few years in recovery and a couple of good therapists I realized that what was _really_ going on is that as a 10 year old I was the most mature person in the family.

That does _not_ mean I was an "early adult". It just means my parents were _so_ dysfunctional they were below the level of a 10 year old.

In my family it was my father that was the drinker. My mother never tried to get help for her, or for us kids. Later in life she got into pill addiction, but her "role" was very much the co-dependent.

From what you wrote my guess is that your dad has been in his "role" for a very long time. One of the symptoms of a "co-dependent" is that desperate need to _not_ change anything. That's a survival tactic, changes tend to be a handy excuse for alkies to blame for their drinking. A "codie" has enough trouble keeping it together as it is, the last thing they want is another excuse for the alkie to use.

I went no-contact because they were harmful to _me_. Not because of their relationship with each other.

The usual way it works in recovery is that an alcoholic has a "sponsor", or a therapist, to vent to and know what it is like to be an alcoholic. A child is someone that can depend on the parent to be a source of support and direction, at _any_ age. It sounds to me like you are still in that "reversed" role.

I can't imagine how you could. The whole point to recovery is to break out of the "roles" that keep us locked in a dysfunctional relationship.

Of course not.

It seems to me like you have a really good understanding of what a healthy parent-child relationship _should_ be. Maybe you can look into what options you have besides the "parent role". At one extreme you could go completely no-contact. You could try a "partial contact" where you only deal with your dad when he is behaving in a healthy manner towards you. You could set time limits to when and for how long you will talk to him ( that is how I started my no-contact, worked good for me).

You could go thru a list of "roles" in dysfunctional families and choose one that is less harmful to you as a "stepping stone" towards long-term improvement. You could choose no role at all and just be a "neutral observer."

There's a lot of choices, it's just a matter of picking one that sounds like a good "fit" and trying it out to see how it works for you.

Have you gone thru the "sticky" posts at the top of this forum? There's a lot of good information in them. There is also a ton of books about recovery for us ACoA's, most of which are packed full of practical suggestions as to how, exactly, to break out of those old "roles". A good therapist can also be a help.

Mike