Soolmaan

Hi everyone,

Without me really knowing my father has been an alcoholic for about 16 years. The first 10 years he functioned normally and could keep a job etc.. I didn't notice much except I did notice that instead of a wineglass he would drink a longdrink glass of wine.

The past 7 years it's got worse. He has had bad periods that he would drink a lot but after several weeks he would cut down and act normal. He's lost several jobs because of his drinking.
Now the past 1,5 year or so it's getting worse and worse, he's hardly worked and there for my parents are financially broke. For the past 2 months he's just pissed all day 24/7. He doesn't even know what time of day it is. A couple of times he's gone out at 3AM going to the liquor store thinking it was evening and it would be open.

I don't live at home anymore, but my mum is living with him. She has had enough of him, she wants to leave him. If that happens I know for sure he will kill himself on alcohol or suicide. He's even said to me he has considered suicide.

What I just can't understand is, why can't an alcoholic stop??

Seeing the family fall apart, and about to lose his wife, that would make anyone stop drinking right? I know it's a disease and I have read a lot that alcoholics can't stop, but for me so so difficult to understand.

I'm about to lose my farther but also my mother because they/she will have to sell the house and move abroad.

My father admits he's an alcoholic and that he needs help, he has agreed to go into rehab which should happen in a couple of weeks. But unfortunately that's not cheap. It's his last chance to stay of the alcohol when he gets out of rehab, but honestly I don't really believe he will be strong enough.

Can somebody please help me understand why my farther is doing this?

Thanks.

Kialua

Hi. My father didn't stop drinking until he was 80. He held a job and stayed married, but he was not a good person. He didn't quit until he was incarcerated at 80 and had rehab.

You never know when rehab will work. I hope it works for your Dad.

Hope4Life

I'm so sorry you are experiencing this Soolmaan but I am glad that you have been able to get out on your own. Unfortunately, the only person that can save your father is himself. He has to want to stop and have the determination to do so. Please consider attending some Al Anon meetings to help you better understand what is going on.

My father, his father and much of my family were alcoholic's. Holidays were hell when I was a kid with everyone drinking and smoking, to the point I would leave the house and go ride my bike.... even at night. I ended up stealing booze from his bar when I was a teenager and then becoming an alcoholic as well. While I never married or had kids, it took me 37 years to get sober.

I hope if you have learned one thing from all this, it is that alcohol is not for you.

I hope you can find the answers you seek.

NWGRITS

My mother has been drinking for over 33 years (longer than I've been alive) and shows no signs of stopping. I have mixed feelings about the disease label for alcoholism, as do many on these boards. Mostly because that first drink is a conscious choice, and everything that follows is feeding the beast. Given that, the recovery rate for alcoholics is very low. Most relapse and very few find long-term sobriety. If your father is serious about recovery, he will get there sooner rather than later, and wild horses won't be able to keep him from going to rehab. I hope he gets his act together, but remember that this is all on him. He needs to do the work on his own for himself, and to be given the dignity to faceplant into the ground if he so chooses. It's not an easy path, and most As who do become sober make multiple trips to rehab before it sticks.

bothsidesnow

My father has lost one wife and now me. We have very little relationship. In my eyes, he chose alcohol over me because denial was easier than admitting his problems and the hurt he had caused. He is now suffering with cirrhosis of the liver. I don't live with him anymore or see him that often at all so I don't know what his drinking habits are like but he's apparently seeing an addiction specialist (said he wanted a way to prove he wasn't drinking to prove us all wrong and use it against us. Lovely) but that's only because he may need a transplant and he knows if that happens he'll be required to prove that he can stop drinking altogether. I truthfully do not believe that will ever happen. I don't think he's capable. It's an awful thing to say and maybe I'm lacking in faith or belief but I've been disappointed an lied to far too much in my life to have any trust that he'll manage it. His actions should be to care for himself anyway so I just retain that thought...

In answer to your question, I don't know. Sad but true. I don't know why my father couldn't give it up for the sake of the relationship with his own daughter. I don't know why it had to reach the point where he may die from its poisonous effects. I understand that it is a disease but that neither makes it simpler or easier to understand and grasp. There must be a recognition of a problem (you say your father managed that and that is a big step) but then there must be a committment to change and I imagine that is just as difficult. For some, addiction and alcoholism is a way of life and the alcoholic does not understand what normal is... How are they to return to normal life when they're so blinded to what their lives are?

I learned a long time ago to not question an alcoholics's choices or actions. It only leads to hurt and disappointment and heartache, especially when they're your father because they stop being one sometimes and you have to be a parent. You cannot take that role. You cannot assume the role of responsibility nor let them make you feel in control of their choices. You are not. They will do and say what they wish and you neither cause or control that and will potentially never understand it. Detachment is the hardest thing but the kindest especially for a child of an alcoholic. It is the saddest thing and most difficult to achieve without being swallowed by guilt but it is kinder to yourself to allow distance and recovery.

I wish you well and I hope this forum provides some support for you when you need it

AuntieSoso

I wish I knew the answer, and I'm sorry you're going through that. My father is an alcoholic. I've tried to reach out to him in many different ways and have been met with a wall. He is a happy drunk who doesn't think (or at least admit to any of us) that he's an alcoholic. He has a great job, a great family, an otherwise great life (in my eyes, I know he's got his own demons that he wrestles with) to an outsider. After almost 50 years of marriage my mom's talking divorce, dad's health is only getting worse, his daughter (me) is pulling away from him. What seems great on the outside feels like it is slowly crumbling. I feel like I am watching him slowly kill himself. I've often wondered if I sat at the dinner table and got razors and cut my arms and was bleeding all over the place, wouldn't he try to stop me? How can he not see that he's essentially doing the same thing?

Sorry, I'm new to the forum and have lots of questions and things I don't understand and your question is one of the very same I have. I guess the answer is he's an addict and can't control what he does. All I know is it is causes me tremendous pain and in finding this forum I know I'm not alone.