dbh

My alcoholic father died this past August.

He only played a minor role in my adult life. However, I would always call him on his birthday and holidays. So tomorrow will be the first Father's Day that I don't have to make that sometimes uncomfortable call. I also didn't have to search through tons of Father's Day cards to find one that was suitable for him. Could never buy a "Thanks for being such a great dad!".

I was just on facebook and some of my friends are changing their profile pictures to a picture of their father.

I'm sad that I don't have a father that I miss.

I'm sad that I'll absolutely never have a father like that.

This is a fact in my life that I guess I still haven't been able to accept.

Thanks for letting me share.

db

dollydo

Sorry that you are sad. My dad was not a warm person, yet he did the best he could do with what he was programmed to know and understand.

I learned to leave it at that. He died last year, and, I do miss him.

Unfortunately, we cannot choose our parents.

JustAYak

I feel the same way about my father DBH. He died 2 years ago. Hugs to you

dbh

Hugs back at you Speedy Jason :-)

chicory

Dbh,
I can surely relate to what you are feeling. My A father died when I was 17, and had been out of my life since I was 12. That is not very long to have a dad. he was drunk so much, and my parents fought so much, that we didn't really miss him when he left, we were just relieved to finally have peace. it hurts now, tho, to think of what could have been.
I am sorry that you are feeling sad.
hugs
chicory

dbh

I'm sorry for each of your losses.

Feeling a little better this morning. Just finished making breakfast for my husband, who happens to be a wonderful father to my children.

So much of my recovery has focused on trying to accept the father I got and grieve the father that I'll never have. The inner child in me still wants to occasionally stamp her feet and yell, "This just isn't fair!!!!!". The 48-year-old woman that I am tells her that life isn't suppose to be "fair".

While making breakfast I tried to think about all that I have to be grateful for on this Father's Day morning. I've been thinking about all the positive fathers I have been able to observe. I'm grateful for the men who made a difference in my life and helped to fill the void where my own father had failed.

I also said a prayer for all the fathers who, for whatever reasons, were not able to be a positive influence in the lives of their children. For those who have passed, I hope they have finally found peace. For those who are still living, I hope that they find recovery and are able to make amends to their children.

I'm going to end with some positive memories of my own father. When he was young, he was very handsome. He was also extremely outgoing and friendly. He could strike up a conversation with just about anyone. People who met him always thought he was a great guy. When I was 8-years-old he took me to see an Osmond Brothers' concert. I give him credit for listening to 90+ minutes of screaming girls.

Thank you for letting me share.

db

chicory

db,

thanks for your post.
I am glad that your hubby is a good dad, that is a true blessing.

I can only imagine the volume of the screaming at that Osmond Brothers concert!

Thank you for sharing. I needed to acknowledge the day somehow, and this helped.

hugs
chicory

SusieC

I can relate too I guess it's normal for us to feel cheated and robbed sometimes. My Dad died 11 years ago but I still can't watch someone having fun with her father. I'm so angry, he died when I was 16, I only knew him so superficially...Healing hugs to everyone who had to go through all this!

DesertEyes

What a wonderful thread, you guys are great.

I ran away from home when I was 12, and never looked back. Years later my father quit drinking and went to AA meetings, but he never got the concept that just not drinking is not enough. He remained the same abusive, arrogant man, just that after AA he'd have spells of not drinking.

Eventually he passed away from all the damage he did to his body. That's when I was finally able to let go of the "debt" I had been holding him to. Somehow, I had always demanded that he become the man he never was. In my own twisted ACoA thinking I expected that someday, somehow, he would wave a maging man and change into some other human being.

I never had a dad. I had a biological father, but not a dad. Now that I am adult I realize that I also never had a red Ford Mustang convertible, or my own private jet plane, nor did I become a pro basketball star. Instead I built my own life and have had a fantastic one. I've met all kinds of fascinating people, fell in love with the most wonderful ladies in the world, even had my own business.

( Okay, so I got a little obsessive and had _three_ business, but that's another story. )

I did not _need_ a dad to have a good life. Just like I didn't need that red Ford Mustang.

Today I take a little time to look after some old folks I have adopted as my "family of choice". They've become good friends over the years, and are always giving me advice as if they were my real parents. They never had any kids of their own, so it's a good fit

Today I don't even _want_ that red Ford Mustang anymore. I'm perfectly happy with my beat up old truck. I feel a little sorry for my biological father, he never managed to find the kind of life I have today, and I no longer expect anything from him, or of my past. I can't do anything about my past, but I can do everything about my future, and I'm starting today by hanging out here and reading all the wisdom you guys share in this wonderful forum.

Mike

chicory

Thanks for sharing that Mike. It amazes me sometimes, how some of us who had such crummy parents, have turned out to have had such better lives than they did. maybe they did teach us something very good- how NOT to be miserable for our whole lives.

That made me feel better too, Mike, cause it is ok that i never had a ford mustang either. i have an old truck, but i have much more than my parents ever did, to think of it. i feel sorry that they missed out on happiness in their time in this world. how does that happen to people?? it does not take much to be really happy- just an appreciation for the important things, and to give love.

hugs to all, we survived another Parent homage holiday... glad we have each other

hugs

tromboneliness

I don't buy that whole "our parents did the best they could" thing. Maybe I'm supposed to buy it, maybe it's good for my recovery if I buy it, maybe I'm only doing a blameless inventory of my family if I buy it, and maybe I can't accept that past unless I buy it.

But I still don't. That was not the best my Dad could do. He was brilliant, he was clever, he could be very funny, he was loyal to a fault, and he was -- let's face it -- right, a lot of the time. But my childhood still sucked eggs, as did much of my adulthood -- and, in particular, the interaction I had with my Dad in his last year or two, during which he was a total energy vampire and I had to retaliate by not visiting very often, only answering every second or third phone call, and that sort of thing, just for my sanity.

I'm doing a 4th Step with the ACA Workbook -- and I know we're supposed to do the "blameless" thing, and so on and so forth. But be that as it may, I do not accept the idea that my Dad did the best he could. Alcoholism may be an illness, blah-blah, I understand that. But there was no need to be such a you-know-what, all the same.

T

PS -- that doesn't mean I hated my Dad; I didn't. It's a mixed bag -- and I observed Father's Day by using my Dad's bowling balls in an important tournament I was in over the weekend. As it turned out, I benched them after a couple of bad games... but then, my Dad wasn't a very good bowler anyway....

tabfan

DesertEyes:

I agree with chicory. I would never have guessed you ran away at twelve and never returned. You seemed to have overcome incredible odds! Hooray for you!

While reading what you wrote, it reminded me of what I read about a certain comedian from the olden days. His name was W.C. Fields. Apparently, he was beaten everyday by his father. Finally, one day while his father was looking for him and calling out to him, (to give him his daily beating no doubt), the kid decided that he had had enough. He waited for his father in the barn with a 2" x 4". When his dad came around the corner, he swung as hard as he could and crowned him good. He then ran and ran and ran and never looked back. He says to this day, he wonders if he killed him.

After I read that, I said "Wow"! Guess I'm not the only one with some anger issues!

DesertEyes

ummmm.... you're not supposed to "buy" _anything_ around here. The whole point to recovery is that _you_ decide what is relevant to _your_ recovery.

Some people had parents who really tried, some people had parents who didn't care. What matters is that _you_ decide for yourself what's important to you. We share our stories simply as examples, so that we can all examine all the examples and then pick and choose what parts are useful to us and which are not.

Exactly right. Young children are not able to make that separation of the "illness" from the behavior. As adults we _can_ do that. The "blameless" part of "realeasing" our parents applies _only_ to the disease.

My father is not to blame for having the "disease" of alcoholism. What he _is_ to be blamed for is that he _continued_ to drink and harm people. Even when he wasn't drinking he was still abusive.

The standard analogy is the guy with a bad heart. He is not to blame for having a bad heart, but he _is_ to blame if he doesn't follow medical advice and eat healthy, get exercise, take medication, etc.

That's just my experience, pick it apart and use what is useful to you. What is not useful just ignore.

Mike