AVRT- Life, Death, Living
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Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: California
Posts: 13,044
Hi Terall,
I am so sorry for the pain you are in right now. However,I am happy you are able to be fully present for your dad at this very difficult time. You wil find lots of support on SR.
❤️Delilah
I am so sorry for the pain you are in right now. However,I am happy you are able to be fully present for your dad at this very difficult time. You wil find lots of support on SR.
❤️Delilah
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Nov 2016
Location: neocortex,deutschland
Posts: 57
I am really thankful that I am present for my father Delilah, it would be even more horrible if I was still having bringing the self-centered, self-inflicted dramas of my drinking days to the family.
I was thinking of having a closer look at the grief forum on here, but then some part of me doesn't even want to face what is coming, and I don't want to be grieving him as if he is already gone.
But, I have seperated my grief from any of the AVs thoughts of drinking. The Beast wants pleasure, at any cost, for any reason, I let it rattle on with that, and concentrate on the really important stuff.
I was thinking of having a closer look at the grief forum on here, but then some part of me doesn't even want to face what is coming, and I don't want to be grieving him as if he is already gone.
But, I have seperated my grief from any of the AVs thoughts of drinking. The Beast wants pleasure, at any cost, for any reason, I let it rattle on with that, and concentrate on the really important stuff.
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Join Date: Oct 2012
Posts: 5,937
Welcome to SR, Terall. I'm very sorry about your father; it's a very hard thing to accept and live through. I do hope you will stick around. SR is a great resource.
I was in a similar situation five years ago, and sadly I did not handle it was well as you are handing it now. Back then I was still drinking. My dad's health spiraled down over the period of a few years but still it caught me by surprise. He'd had so many health scares over the years and cheated the reaper so many times that I had subconsciously convinced myself that he'd be fine this time, too. I was with him at the end in the hospital, and sober while I was actually there. When the end was just hours away I bent over him as whispered that I would make him proud of me.
Of course that's not what I did. I had drank pretty heavily for 25 years or so but when he passed it was like my last restraint had been cast off. He had a brother that nearly died from drinking so I always tried to contain my drinking for his sake. But after he died all bets were off. I spent the next year or so drunk virtually every minute that I could be.
But a little over four years ago I discovered this place, and AVRT, in probably the same manner you did. The first night I read all the posts with tears streaming down my face. Someone understood! There were other people like me! As I watched the AVRT "Bullet for my Beast" I realize there was hope, even for a 40+ year old drunk like me.
Even though I lost my dad a lot later in life than I expected to it's still a profound loss. Even now five years later I still catch myself seeing a new story and thinking I should text Dad to tell him about it. Then I catch myself and remember he passed on. But the pain isn't as acute now, and the memories of him warm me now and don't burn me like they used to.
I hope you will stick to your Big Plan. Getting drunk won't help you and it won't help your dad. The best gift you can give him and yourself is to be present, and I mean really present. Accept the pain, embrace it if you can; give yourself and your dad the gift of using the time you have left. I know it hurts to see him suffer but it's kind of like seeing someone drowning- you can't help if you jump in and start drowning, too. Stay on the shore with a life preserver.
Again, welcome to SR.
I was in a similar situation five years ago, and sadly I did not handle it was well as you are handing it now. Back then I was still drinking. My dad's health spiraled down over the period of a few years but still it caught me by surprise. He'd had so many health scares over the years and cheated the reaper so many times that I had subconsciously convinced myself that he'd be fine this time, too. I was with him at the end in the hospital, and sober while I was actually there. When the end was just hours away I bent over him as whispered that I would make him proud of me.
Of course that's not what I did. I had drank pretty heavily for 25 years or so but when he passed it was like my last restraint had been cast off. He had a brother that nearly died from drinking so I always tried to contain my drinking for his sake. But after he died all bets were off. I spent the next year or so drunk virtually every minute that I could be.
But a little over four years ago I discovered this place, and AVRT, in probably the same manner you did. The first night I read all the posts with tears streaming down my face. Someone understood! There were other people like me! As I watched the AVRT "Bullet for my Beast" I realize there was hope, even for a 40+ year old drunk like me.
Even though I lost my dad a lot later in life than I expected to it's still a profound loss. Even now five years later I still catch myself seeing a new story and thinking I should text Dad to tell him about it. Then I catch myself and remember he passed on. But the pain isn't as acute now, and the memories of him warm me now and don't burn me like they used to.
I hope you will stick to your Big Plan. Getting drunk won't help you and it won't help your dad. The best gift you can give him and yourself is to be present, and I mean really present. Accept the pain, embrace it if you can; give yourself and your dad the gift of using the time you have left. I know it hurts to see him suffer but it's kind of like seeing someone drowning- you can't help if you jump in and start drowning, too. Stay on the shore with a life preserver.
Again, welcome to SR.
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Join Date: Jun 2016
Location: Adelaide, Australia
Posts: 28,673
Terall- I empathise. Grief hurts big time. Pain is always there. Drink - NOPE! (based on me- no one else). You and your father/family have my sincerest prayers and you are in my thoughts.
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Join Date: Nov 2016
Location: neocortex,deutschland
Posts: 57
Thank you MythOfSisyphus,PhoenixJ, and Dee, I am quite surprised at how talking cyber can help!
MythOfSisyphus, thank you so much for your heartfelt post, I cried reading it. There is no danger of me drinking, none at all. So many things in what you said struck home with me. My father too, has been on deaths door more times than I can remember, he always pulled though.
This time, when he had his last set of tests, and there is no hope, I felt the sky falling, the ground moving beneath me, I could not believe it!
Now I see him, his fight is gone, he is in pain they can't control and his eyes are dead.
I want to grab him and tell him how much I love him, but he is scared, and I don't want to scare him more by making him think I am saying a last goodbye.
Today I had to go into town, and this busker, was on a violin, with speaker playing such a sad tune, and I sat on a bench and wept, I never weep.
I know in 50 years we will all be dead, apart from the very young family, that doesn't help at all!
The very last time I engaged with my AV was the day I made my Big Plan..and it was..what if a comet is going to hit the earth and you had to face that sober? What if you were dying and had to do it with no buffer of alcohol, what if someone you loved was dying?
I said to It then, no go. I say to it now..nothing, I don't engage with it now.
MythOfSisyphus, thank you so much for your heartfelt post, I cried reading it. There is no danger of me drinking, none at all. So many things in what you said struck home with me. My father too, has been on deaths door more times than I can remember, he always pulled though.
This time, when he had his last set of tests, and there is no hope, I felt the sky falling, the ground moving beneath me, I could not believe it!
Now I see him, his fight is gone, he is in pain they can't control and his eyes are dead.
I want to grab him and tell him how much I love him, but he is scared, and I don't want to scare him more by making him think I am saying a last goodbye.
Today I had to go into town, and this busker, was on a violin, with speaker playing such a sad tune, and I sat on a bench and wept, I never weep.
I know in 50 years we will all be dead, apart from the very young family, that doesn't help at all!
The very last time I engaged with my AV was the day I made my Big Plan..and it was..what if a comet is going to hit the earth and you had to face that sober? What if you were dying and had to do it with no buffer of alcohol, what if someone you loved was dying?
I said to It then, no go. I say to it now..nothing, I don't engage with it now.
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Join Date: May 2012
Location: canada
Posts: 7,242
tell him you love him, terall, if you can.
it will also give him the chance to face fears and share them with you, if he wishes/needs to, which will give you both the opportunity to be closer.
my mom recently died, and as her pain increased and her very few moments of any clarity whatsoever were almost nil, the relief she had from no one around her 'pretending' anything other than what was going on was palpably comforting to her. to all of us, actually.
there was no need to talk about it at length.
it allowed for 'being present' in a very different way.
hug to you
it will also give him the chance to face fears and share them with you, if he wishes/needs to, which will give you both the opportunity to be closer.
my mom recently died, and as her pain increased and her very few moments of any clarity whatsoever were almost nil, the relief she had from no one around her 'pretending' anything other than what was going on was palpably comforting to her. to all of us, actually.
there was no need to talk about it at length.
it allowed for 'being present' in a very different way.
hug to you
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Nov 2016
Location: neocortex,deutschland
Posts: 57
Fini, there is nothing more I would like than to get hold of my father and tell him how much I love him. We haven't had the easiest of relationships in the past, he had his own lifelong struggle with the drink. His cancer is one of the very few not caused by drink, would you believe it?
We are not a very open, touchy feely family. But I know I will regret it, if I don't tell him I don't care about what has happened in the past with him drinking and the nasty stuff that always happens with drink involved.
Since he has had to stop drinking, my mother, before she knew he was this ill took the opportunity to tell him what a living hell he made our lives. I want to tell him that doesn't matter now, I don't care about that, there was lots of ways he was very loving. But I don't want to dredge up the past with him, as it is a minefield.
He was first diagnosed with cancer 3 years ago 2 years ago they said secondary cancer had gone to his bones and all they could do was hold it off for a while. Now, it is overcoming the treatment.
My mother said when I saw them today, that he was very scared last week, that he could feel it overcoming him. But since then, he is starting to accept this is the end.
He, and my mother, are solid atheists, I'm not, so I'm not able to say anything of comfort that he will believe, for him, the end of life is the end, full stop.
But fini, like you say, it might be of some comfort to him if I be honest, bring the situation out in the open and tell him I love him, no matter what the hassles of te past.
We are not a very open, touchy feely family. But I know I will regret it, if I don't tell him I don't care about what has happened in the past with him drinking and the nasty stuff that always happens with drink involved.
Since he has had to stop drinking, my mother, before she knew he was this ill took the opportunity to tell him what a living hell he made our lives. I want to tell him that doesn't matter now, I don't care about that, there was lots of ways he was very loving. But I don't want to dredge up the past with him, as it is a minefield.
He was first diagnosed with cancer 3 years ago 2 years ago they said secondary cancer had gone to his bones and all they could do was hold it off for a while. Now, it is overcoming the treatment.
My mother said when I saw them today, that he was very scared last week, that he could feel it overcoming him. But since then, he is starting to accept this is the end.
He, and my mother, are solid atheists, I'm not, so I'm not able to say anything of comfort that he will believe, for him, the end of life is the end, full stop.
But fini, like you say, it might be of some comfort to him if I be honest, bring the situation out in the open and tell him I love him, no matter what the hassles of te past.
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Join Date: Nov 2016
Location: neocortex,deutschland
Posts: 57
You know, I have never been through this before, when my grandparents died, they died suddenly, when I was very young, of heart attacks. My father survived his heart attack, and his bypass operation and well past the 10 years that is meant to last. He also survived a bout of septasemia, that would have killed most people, he has had arthritic gout from his 20s, I did really think the man was invincible.
He has abused his painkillers throughout the years, that would also have killed most, and drank amounts you wouldn't think people could drink and still live..when he was having his heart bypass in the hospital 12 years ago, he asked me to fill the form in, and it asked how much you drank and he was, 25 pints a day, 50 units a day!
He since told me, which I didn't know, I thought he enjoyed drinking, how he regrets letting alcohol rule his life.
Since I had my own problems with it, I understand now.
He has abused his painkillers throughout the years, that would also have killed most, and drank amounts you wouldn't think people could drink and still live..when he was having his heart bypass in the hospital 12 years ago, he asked me to fill the form in, and it asked how much you drank and he was, 25 pints a day, 50 units a day!
He since told me, which I didn't know, I thought he enjoyed drinking, how he regrets letting alcohol rule his life.
Since I had my own problems with it, I understand now.
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Join Date: May 2012
Location: canada
Posts: 7,242
terall,
yeah, I never had a good relationship with my parents, and we were neither close nor open, nor affectionate.
shortly before my mom died, she just reached up and hugged my face, which is the only hug I remember e ver getting from her.
in the last few months of her life, as she came closer and closer to death...well, it seems like things just shifted naturally.
you may find if you can open to your love of your dad, that you can just be with him in his fear and yours, and that telling him you love him is all that's needed for a mutual understanding that you have come to a place of peace with his former crap behavior, and your own. none of it may need saying or going into. for me, that place of peace doesn't mean I don't care about the past, or that it didn't matter....but that I'm not disturbed by it anymore. not riled.
my dad is still alive, though he is not well, and though we have not resolved anything of our very long and painful relationship, resolution appears to be happening by acceptance.
being sober really helps, and t he longer I have been so, the more i've experienced shifts into a 'no need to fight, argue, explain or run'.
you have such better perspective now, and, as you say, your understanding has grown/changed.
yeah, I never had a good relationship with my parents, and we were neither close nor open, nor affectionate.
shortly before my mom died, she just reached up and hugged my face, which is the only hug I remember e ver getting from her.
in the last few months of her life, as she came closer and closer to death...well, it seems like things just shifted naturally.
you may find if you can open to your love of your dad, that you can just be with him in his fear and yours, and that telling him you love him is all that's needed for a mutual understanding that you have come to a place of peace with his former crap behavior, and your own. none of it may need saying or going into. for me, that place of peace doesn't mean I don't care about the past, or that it didn't matter....but that I'm not disturbed by it anymore. not riled.
my dad is still alive, though he is not well, and though we have not resolved anything of our very long and painful relationship, resolution appears to be happening by acceptance.
being sober really helps, and t he longer I have been so, the more i've experienced shifts into a 'no need to fight, argue, explain or run'.
you have such better perspective now, and, as you say, your understanding has grown/changed.
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Join Date: Oct 2012
Posts: 5,937
It's a delicate balance, to be sure. I know that making a big deal of it might make it sound like you're saying your last goodbyes and "writing him off". Obviously you don't want that. But it sounds like you both "know the score". There is no time. When we're young we're blessed/cursed by the mistaken belief that we have plenty of time. As shadows grow longer and time grows shorter it becomes to clear just how important that time is. It would be selfish to say thing just to make yourself feel better but be careful not to wait to long to say the things that need to be said. Let him you love him, that you forgive his shortcomings and have been proud to be his son. He knows, I'm sure, but it never hurts to hear it again.
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Join Date: Nov 2016
Location: neocortex,deutschland
Posts: 57
Thank you fini and MythofSisyphus, fini, I get what you are saying, I don't need to get into long drawn out debates with him, he just needs to know that I love him despite everything. That was so touching what you wrote about your mother, I'm so glad you had that moment with her.
MOS you are right, time is running out, I will always regret it if I don't get into words what he means to me.
I just need to bite the bullet.
MOS you are right, time is running out, I will always regret it if I don't get into words what he means to me.
I just need to bite the bullet.
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Join Date: Oct 2012
Posts: 5,937
We're here for you, Terall. I know what you're going through is hard. The last hurdle in sobriety maybe is accepting that the world is not always fair; that you can do everything right and still have challenges. Ultimately though we're defined more by those hard times than by the good times, or rather our reactions to them.
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Join Date: Nov 2016
Location: neocortex,deutschland
Posts: 57
Yes MOS I know life isn't fair, I'm old enough and ugly enough to have learnt that haha, I never did expect any rewards just for giving up something I shouldn't have been doing in the first place (ducking out from life with a liquid cosh when I felt like it). If it wasn't for using AVRT, no doubt I would have been doing the same now.
Death, getting older, losing people, such is life. Old struggles of our youth replaced by new struggles as we get older. I'm starting to gain some acceptance of the situation now, thank goodness. Thank you for all your kind words to me.
Death, getting older, losing people, such is life. Old struggles of our youth replaced by new struggles as we get older. I'm starting to gain some acceptance of the situation now, thank goodness. Thank you for all your kind words to me.
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