I'm new, please help.
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Join Date: Jul 2017
Posts: 3
I'm new, please help.
Hi there,
I really don't know what to do about my dad and after asking for some guidance google has found me SoberRecovery. I need some advice/support for dealing with my dad.
A brief summary of the last few years: He is a functioning alcoholic (I think that's the word for when they go to work each day?), but he is never angry or abusive (except I guess emotionally without intending to be) he is just completely absent and disinterested in my mum's and mine and my brothers lives. He has no hobbies or interests and not a friend in the world. But that has always been his personality so I don't think I can blame that on the alcohol. My mum left him last year and he completely fell apart (threatening suicide) and we got him into a private rehab clinic for 4 weeks (only with the promise of my mum going back to him after). About 6 weeks after leaving there, they closed down so he lost his support meetings and ended up drinking again.
Mum left again, another breakdown, and we felt so pushed into a corner that my mum took him back for fear that he wouldn't make it through the day. A week later, she realises she was manipulated and is planning to leave again at the weekend (when her rental becomes available and without telling him she is going). So I know what is coming our way and am so scared and have absolutely no idea what I am supposed to do.
After last week, when he manipulated her into taking him back I was so angry I told him I didn't want to see him anymore (not that I see much of him anyway as he has no interest in my life). But suicide help forums say never leave them alone. I am a sensitive person and can't really cope with watching him in such a state and threatening suicide but I feel like I would be a terrible human being to know what he is going through and not be there for him. Other things I've read say that sometimes you need to cut contact as it is only then that the alcoholic may change. Please help me. Do I stay firm with not wanting to see him or do I try to be there for him. And if I am there for him, what do I do! I just feel I have given all I can give and now it needs to come from him to want to change, not just to go along with what people organise for him to keep them happy.
Any advice/support would be so gratefully received.
Thanks for listening
Sammi.
I really don't know what to do about my dad and after asking for some guidance google has found me SoberRecovery. I need some advice/support for dealing with my dad.
A brief summary of the last few years: He is a functioning alcoholic (I think that's the word for when they go to work each day?), but he is never angry or abusive (except I guess emotionally without intending to be) he is just completely absent and disinterested in my mum's and mine and my brothers lives. He has no hobbies or interests and not a friend in the world. But that has always been his personality so I don't think I can blame that on the alcohol. My mum left him last year and he completely fell apart (threatening suicide) and we got him into a private rehab clinic for 4 weeks (only with the promise of my mum going back to him after). About 6 weeks after leaving there, they closed down so he lost his support meetings and ended up drinking again.
Mum left again, another breakdown, and we felt so pushed into a corner that my mum took him back for fear that he wouldn't make it through the day. A week later, she realises she was manipulated and is planning to leave again at the weekend (when her rental becomes available and without telling him she is going). So I know what is coming our way and am so scared and have absolutely no idea what I am supposed to do.
After last week, when he manipulated her into taking him back I was so angry I told him I didn't want to see him anymore (not that I see much of him anyway as he has no interest in my life). But suicide help forums say never leave them alone. I am a sensitive person and can't really cope with watching him in such a state and threatening suicide but I feel like I would be a terrible human being to know what he is going through and not be there for him. Other things I've read say that sometimes you need to cut contact as it is only then that the alcoholic may change. Please help me. Do I stay firm with not wanting to see him or do I try to be there for him. And if I am there for him, what do I do! I just feel I have given all I can give and now it needs to come from him to want to change, not just to go along with what people organise for him to keep them happy.
Any advice/support would be so gratefully received.
Thanks for listening
Sammi.
Member
Join Date: Jun 2016
Location: Adelaide, Australia
Posts: 28,657
Sammi- welcome. I cannot give such advice...some will say that threatening suicide is a classic gas lighting strategy. BUT you have to gauge that. Others will say he will think..' I will drink myself into a dangerous state..that will show them'. And we would all be right.
What I WILL advise is you seek support for YOU. Al-anon? You cannot put your life, or invest in a situation as if you are in a holding pattern, unceasingly circling,.
I do KNOW- from my own crap experience (me being the alcie) is no one or nothing could MAKE me stop drinking, it had to be me wanting to. Wanting sobriety more than drinking.
What I WILL advise is you seek support for YOU. Al-anon? You cannot put your life, or invest in a situation as if you are in a holding pattern, unceasingly circling,.
I do KNOW- from my own crap experience (me being the alcie) is no one or nothing could MAKE me stop drinking, it had to be me wanting to. Wanting sobriety more than drinking.
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