upnorthmi

Hi. I'm a 37 year old married mother of 3 and an adult child of an alcoholic father. My dad has been an alcoholic my entire life. It has gotten progressively worse and I have reached my limit. I've tried everything I can to help and finally am realizing I can't help him...he has to help himself. I'm ready to move on with my life. I believe my relationship with my father is toxic. I'm tired of crying and all the hate and resentment I feel. I want to let him go. I want to move on with my life without him being a part of it. I feel so much guilt because of this though. How can I not be there? How can I not fix what's broke? Nothing I have ever tried has worked but how do you give up? How do I explain to my three young boys why their Grandfather isn't around? They are so young they probably won't remember him but it hurts. How do I let go?

Has anyone let go of their alcoholic family member and moved on with their life? How did you do this? How do I close a chapter in my life that is such a huge part of my life? How do I move on?

Any advice or personal stories are greatly appreciated. I'm having a hard time with my decision even though I feel it is the right one to make.

Thanks.

Willybluedog

Hello upnorth,

Welcome to you, I am glad you found this site, there are lots of great people here who have been through the same ordeal as you.

Please consider going to al-anon, there is also lots of beneficial information on the sticky-notes at the top of this board.

My mom has been an alocholic for over 40 years, she has almost died twice in the last 18months from her drinking, I have finally learned that I cannot change her or fix her, she will do waht she will do.

I have gone through hate, rage, etc. now I just don't care anymore, I jsut want to be done with it, I especially worry about my dad who will not leave her.

This is a great place to vent, no one will judge you for your anger because we all understand, you might want to read the posts from doublewhammy and firecallie, they are very helpful.

If you would like to talk, just reply here or send me a private message.

Take care,


Bill

micealc

Welcome upnorthmi,Get to an AlAnon meetings and you'll learn how to detach from the disease but not the Person.
Great that you have come here...........vent here as much as you want.

dollydo

Welcome, my mother is the main alcoholic in my life, been drinking for over 65 years, and,
still going strong.

I have gone no contact with her twice in my adult life, once for 4 years and another for 10. They were the most peaceful years of my life. I had to let her go, she was toxic,
manipulative and just down right mean. It was her or me, I chose me.

I am back in touch with her now, however, I have strong bounderies in place and I will
enforce them.

Read the stickies at the top of all of the family and friends forums, alot of important information at your findertips. Attend Alanon meetings, read Codependent No More.

The choice is really whether you go down with the ship or jump in a lifeboat and row to the shore. Your priorty is your family, your father is living his life as he wants to, without
concern for how his disease is affecting the rest of the family. His priorty is alcohol, everything with an alcoholic is me, me, I, I.

Keep posting, it will help.

GingerM

You can "not be there" by saying to yourself "This person is toxic to me, I either need to set some hard and fast boundaries ("Dad, if you call me drunk, I will hang up on you. If you are drunk when we're around you, we will leave.") or I need to jettison this person entirely from my life starting by blocking his phone number and email address."

How can you "not fix" what's broken? That's easy. You can't "fix" anyone. Ever. Not unless they WANT to be fixed. You didn't cause it, you can't control it, you can't cure it. There is absolutely NOTHING you can do to make someone else change their behavior unless they choose to change their behavior. My father is an alcoholic. He is currently in jail on many many felony counts. The family has said we'd be willing to accept ANY plea bargain as long as it included inpatient alcohol treatment and ongoing therapy - so far he's refused, even knowing that without the plea agreement, he'll die in prison. And he can't even drink in jail/prison. If *that's* not enough incentive to get treatment, what else could we do? Nothing. He truly refuses therapy, that is his choice. His choices landed him in jail, his choices may keep him there if he doesn't change his mind soon.

I have not had anything to drink in over 15 years. If I was in his shoes, I would take the therapy even if I didn't at all believe I was an alcoholic, simply to avoid what amounts to a life sentence (my dad is over 70. If convicted on all charges, the minimum sentence would be 150 years right now - and all the counts aren't in yet). He won't even "play along" to get his sentence reduced (yet, perhaps that will change, perhaps not)

How do you give up? You don't. You accept. You accept that you aren't the one pouring the stuff down his throat. You accept that he is choosing to behave this way. You accept that you are not God, you can not force people to do what you want them to, even when it's in their best interest. You accept that some people never quite get there and your dad may be one of them.

It sounds easy, but it's not. We do not like to see people suffer, even if the suffering is of their own making. But when they continue to make more suffering and they're "happy" with things as they are, who are you to say it's wrong? Perhaps he would be even more miserable if he wasn't drinking? There is a reason he drinks so much. And even if you could stop the drinking, whatever is driving the drinking would find some other (probably) unhealthy manifestation, because YOU CAN'T FIX THE UNDERLYING PROBLEM.

Acceptance of that is key.

There are varying shades of "no contact". Some people go full no contact. Some say "I'll check in once a month, but that's it." Some hang up if their A is drunk. Some only remain in contact via email, where the meanness and spitefulness carries less sting. Lots of options available.

Sorry to be so blunt, but I'm short on time. I hope this was helpful in some way.

Kialua

Welcome. There is a lot of good advice already posted for you above. This forum is great place to get the help you need as are the meetings. I too had little to no contact with my alcoholic father and my daughter barely remembers him. You have to protect yourself and your kids now, don't get caught up in his craziness and don't feel guilty. It's not your job. Good luck.

DesertEyes

Hello upnorthmi, and welcome to Sober Recovery

I'm sorry to hear you are going thru so much pain. I can imagine how difficult this must be for you because I went thru much of the same with my alcoholic family.

I also found al-anon to be a huge help. The have wonderful books and pamphlets filled with suggestions and insight.

"Letting go" is different from not being there. Letting go means to let go of the _negative_ emotions, as well as the fantasy that some day he will magically quit drinking. In turn that means working on the _positive_ emotions and educating yourself on how alcoholics _do_ quit drinking.

That's what I did, which I learned in al-anon. ( not to be pushy, it's just worked for me )

You can be there for him when _you_ are safe, both physically and emotionally. That's called "boundaries". You can be there for him when your presence can actually make a difference in _both_ your lives, that's called "tough love" and it's actually very difficult to do.

One of the principles of 12 step recovery is called "Ammends". In all the different 12 step programs, there's a little over 100 of them last time I looked, the ammends refers to what _I_ broke. Not what somebody else broke.

A very common comparison in the literature is to diabetes, or heart problems. For example, I have a heart problem for which I take medication. It is _my_ responsibility to take those meds, not over exercise, see my doc regularly, etc. My health is "broke", if you will.

Other people can be supportive of me, like calling 911 when I fall over clutching my chest. But nobody else can take my meds, or force me to take them.

Likewise with the alcoholic. Nobody can "fix" them, they have to get themselves into treatment, or AA, or whatever program works for them and follow directions.

You _never_ give up on an alcoholic loved one. Never. You give up only on those things that have _not_ worked. And you go find _new_ things that have worked for others. That means educating yourself on the disease of alcoholism and recovery from it. A good place to start is the other Friends and Family forums "next door".

Another little pearl of wisdom I learned in recovery is that dealing with alcoholism is _not_ a permanent, forever decision. There's a concept called "One day at a time", which means that everything has a limit in time, including decisions. As others pointed out you don't have to cut him out forever. You can only cut him out when he is drunk, or only on weekends, or only after 3PM, or any combination. The only requirement is that whatever you decide is what works _for you_, and that you allow yourself to change your mind if it stops working.

Little by little, and only the bad parts. Recovery for alanoids ( that's the word for members of al-anon ) is a gradual process, never a huge change, and it's done as _you_ decide based on what you learn from readings and from listening to the experience of others.

You don't. Not today anyway. Later, when you have educated yourself and have a solid perspective on the disease and how you can protect yourself and your children.

I did. By doing all the things I mentioned above.

I didn't "close" it. Some people do. I worked on _me_, on learning how to recognize my own needs, how to establish boundaries for my own mental health and then how to keep those boundaries even though my family never respected them. When they crossed my boundaries I would hang up the phone and refuse to see them. First for a week, then two, then a month, then two. I increased the "penalty" as long as _I_ could stand it.

It's a lot like training an animal, I discovered.

Eventually it got easier, and my emotions became a lot more settled.

It was one of the hardest decisions I ever made. Actually, it turned out to be a lot of little decisions about boundaries and "consequences" and my own growth thru meetings and a couple good therapists. It's been close to 30 years since I started the whole process. It was hard, but now that I have a few decades of perspective and hind-sight I see that it was the right thing to do. I am a great-grandfather now, and the "tribe" is amazingly normal. Keeping those drunks around would not have allowed the young-uns to have a healthy life.

One of the "pearls" of al-anon that helped me understand all this is: "I'd rather live without a drunken relative than _wish_ I did".

Welcome, again, to Sober Recovery. I hope you find something useful here. If nothing else you now have a whole new group of people who understand what you are going thru because we all are dealing with much the same kind of family.

Mike