To think this is absolutely unacceptable?

[Marvwell]

When I was 16 and just coming up to my GCSE exams - or actually more or less in the middle of them - I remember being in the living room of our house - my dad was there too - it was in the daytime - weekday I think - and not a celebration of any kind - and my mum was absolutely hammered in a way that's embarrassing to everyone else if there's no obvious drinking context and everyone else is still sober. My dad was there and said upon witnessing this embarrassing behaviour - when you've got a good job like your mother, you're allowed to behave like that. Just for context my mum did have a high status senior management position.

AIBU to think my mum's behaviour was totally unacceptable when there's a child of 16 in the house and my Dad was totally unreasonable for enabling/trying to condone it?

Your mum had an addiction, an illness, and you wanted your father to leave her?
You don’t seem to have any terrible memories apart from a couple of drunken mum ones, which, in the grand scheme of things, aren’t really horrific now are they.
What had happened to make you so focussed on the past? Do you have issues that you think stem from those moments?

Ha yes that's the one 🙄

One thing inhave learned is not to define myself by any parents' or anyone else's behaviour. Let it go.

Yep, definitely.

How frequent is frequent?

My parents were smashed out their faces every night for as long as I can remember as a child.

At a minimum 5 or 6 bottles of red wine and a couple of litres of cheap cider we're consumed of a night

They were also verbally abusive to me whilst they did it.

It was horrific and I do not drink myself now and get seriously upset of my DH drinks what I see as too much.

Unless theres more to this, from my perspective its a major over reaction.

It’s very telling that the OP hasn’t bothered to respond to anybody who’s asked whether this is a repeat post.

So, I’ll ask again @Marvwell have you posted about this before?!

Very telling. Hate drip feed posts.

It’s very strange.

I get the impression the OP wants posters to condemn the individual incidents and that her dad should have left her because of them. But as one-off incidents, they aren’t horrendous.

Clearly, the fact her mum was an alcoholic is supremely relevant to the context and would probably have garnered more support from the outset. Very strange 🧐

YANBU OP

your mother clearly had a drinking problem and your father was enabling it.

I remember being about 8 on holiday and my mum got drunk in a restaurant and kissed the waiter, then fell off a table she was dancing on. I still think it’s hilarious. She doesn’t have an alcohol problem. I think she’d only had about 3 brandy sours but they hit her hard.

We all have things in our childhoods that would be unacceptable by modern parenting norms. What are you hoping to achieve here? Both parents are dead. Can you not just put this behind you and move on?

You’ve posted about this before. If your mom being drunk when you were a teen has traumatised you so much I suggest you go to therapy….

Can I ask gently op what you’re getting from starting rhe same thread over and over , picking an incident, drip feeding in and the. getting the same answers, over and over

you must be getting something from it. Is it validation? Empathy? Attention? Are you doing the same in real life. Having the same conversation over and over? It does appear you’ve already had therapy for your child hood, but the anger is still palpable.

Do you habe support in real life?a partner, friends, extended family?

to have this as your constant present. It’s your here and now , nearly two decades later, when you should be enjoying your life and child , is very sad.

it’s obviously all consuming for you and I think you need to seek additional help so you can live a happy healthy life

Things were different years ago, people drunk and drove, it was not illegal, i remember being in pubs with police all drinking, i remember head office meetings with lunch served afterwards, there was always lots of bottles of wine and people drove afterwards most over the currant legal limit.
It was such a long time ago, if you dislike it so much you wont let your own children see you in that state, this is how we move forward, learning by our own and others mistakes. Maybe OP as others suggested go and have some talking therapy's to try and let this go.

Sounds like alcohol was/is problems for her.
you’d benefit from some therapy probably

I think your dad speaking to you about her in a denigrating way is far more damaging that your mum being drunk sometimes.

Of course YANBU and I’m surprised at the amount of people saying this isn’t a big deal. Having a couple of drinks in front of your kids, fine. Getting so hammered frequently you fall over, behave aggressively, embarrass yourself etc - absolutely not fine. It sounds like your mother did have an alcohol problem and yes, it’s likely that was from traumas of her own - but that’s no excuse to inflict your traumas on your kids. I totally empathise with feeling like your dad should’ve left to protect you. I wish my mum had left my dad when I was a child too (not for alcoholism but other abusive behaviours).

you don’t have to forgive and forget if you don’t want to/can’t - but counselling is a good idea so you can at least live with it and move on for your own benefit and not be consumed by (very justifiable) feelings of anger and betrayal.

I remember this too, and there was indeed a big backstory, this wasn’t a one off.
@Marvwell Your family situation (not just the one event that you’ve posted with no context) has clearly had a huge effect on your life. Posting slightly cryptic posts on MN isn’t going to help you and there’s already a load of unhelpful “get over it” replies. If you want to unravel what happened to you as a child and how it’s affecting your adult life you’ll need to have counselling. I had some counselling and it did help, if only because for the first time in my life someone said my parents’ behaviour was not OK.

Living with an alcoholic is miserable & traumatising whether the relative is 16, 36 or 66. Your gran's work ethic has zero bearing on OP's early life experience.

Perfectly reasonable response, mirroring the LTB posts on most threads featuring an alcoholic husband.

I think this totally depends on your DM's relationship with alcohol. My own DM was an alcoholic and I hated it when she was drunk, whether she was in one her affectionate moods or being more aggressive. Even speaking to her on the phone was awful because she was always drunk.

Sorry if you went through something similar OP because it's a crappy way to spend a childhood (and beyond!)

Thank you I agree - and sorry got what you suffered

Sounds like you had a rough time as a child but why are you asking this now? Do you need validation for yourself or for someone else in your life?

Binge eating and binge drinking are very similar in terms of the psychological causes, imo.

Haven't you already posted about your mother and her drinking?I'd suggest that if as an adult you're triggered enough to write posts about it, maybe you need to go ahead and get some counselling.

Not normal, but not notable enough to be grumbling about years later

you can be simultaneously privileged and have alcoholic parents.
My dads an alcoholic, and a drug addict, However despite this I never wanted for anything, I had everything materially from him, my mum is incredible, my dad despite still living with addiction curtails it and has a positive relationship with me ans my children, anything I need fixing, doing, moving, he would run to the ends of the earth for me. He does this despite battling horrendous demons from his own childhood

You're getting a hard time here Marvwell.
My DH has no memories of his childhood at all apart from walking himself home (it was allowed back then) from primary school to find his DM passed out drunk on the couch.
She died very messily of cirrhosis decades later, and his DF died of an alcohol related cancer just before that.
It wasn't right for him growing up, and it wasn't right for you either. Your DM was wrong, your DF enabled her. Did he have issues with alcohol too?
I hope you can move on from this.