GodsChild31

Hi All,

I'm new here but desperate for advice. My dad has been an alcoholic, gambler, and crack cocaine my entire thirty years on this earth. My mom left him a few years ago and since then he has become a leech on me. Constantly, asking for money, loans, food, cable, etc. I have gotten myself into debt feeling bad and trying to help him and he continues to ask weekly for something, be it gas money, or a dollar for a cigarette. At what point does it end?

I know I am enabling but how do you tell your father who you love, NO no matter what the request??

EveningRose

You say, "I'm sorry, I don't have it." Or, "I'm sorry, I still have to pay off my debt from the last time I helped you."

You remember that he's had a lifetime to build up his career and provide for himself. You remind yourself that as long as you keep giving, he'll keep demanding more. He'll not only destroy your finances and your life, but the lives of your spouse and children, if this continues.

tromboneliness

A couple of reading suggestions:

When I Say No, I Feel Guilty, by Manuel J. Smith.

Coping With Your Difficult Older Parent, by Barbara Kane and Irwin Lebow.

Both have helped me a lot.

You have to do something here. Recognizing that you're just enabling your father is important. The flip side of that is that enabling does not help the subject -- it actually hurts him, by allowing him to go further and further down the road to ruin without feeling the consequences. The sooner you can break that pattern, the better off you'll both be. Good luck!

T

Raindance

When I was in treatment, my counsellor had me write a letter to my dad, that you don't send, setting out my boundaries.

I will always be there for him if it's to help in his recovery, but not to enable his addiciton.

In short, it stops when you put a stop to it.

NWGRITS

I have the beginnings of my Mother Letter "due" on Wednesday at my therapy session. I went No Contact and started refusing mail and phone calls from my mother a while ago, but I still get a kick of guilt now and again. It's hard, but my life is so much better and my head is so much quieter without her in it now. It stops when you stop. You have control of this situation. You say no, and you mean it. It's as simple and as complicated as that.