Morning all. Hello Truth. A list sounds like a great idea. If one of the things is proving too difficult or triggery then move onto the next thing on the list. You are doing soooo well. You too, Tristessa :) (by the way, is your name a Smashing Pumpkins or Manics reference? Or neither? 
. I hope everyone slept well and has at least a little bit of boing. I'm sure all our boingometers will show some improvement if when the sun returns.
Can I ask your advice, please, Babes? It might be wise to get yourself a 
, I'm afraid this is going to be a long one...
I am realising that there is something in particular that is threatening my sobreity. By the way, I'm not aiming for total abstinence. I have enormous respect for everyone who can do that, but for me, right now, I know I couldn't do it, and, I have to admit that I don't want to. However, my drinking has reduced dramatically. From a bottle (or a bit more) almost every night, when I first climbed aboard, to just drinking once in the last ten days, and I didn't find any cravings that difficult to manage. That said, I did drink a full bottle when I did drink but it was a Saturday (therefore DH could get up with the DC the next day), I had planned it, and I drank it quite slowly and did not consider having any more, and no-one suffered the next day. That is progress for me, although I know it is not ideal.
Aaaaanyway...I am learning to prevent my triggers, learning how to manage cravings, learning how to deal with my emotions without drinking. There have been blips throughout the last few months of course but all in all I feel quite positive about my future. By the way Help, that anecdote about alcoholism being in the next room doing push-ups was very, very powerful. Anyway, whilst I am learning to deal with other things in a less emotional way, contact from my father always, always leads to an emotional response. It has been particularly bad over the last few days (trip to A&E, dramatic and seeking behaviour, getting people I don't know to contact me about him when there is really no need etc). I am alternating between worry, frustration, depression and anger and I just can't see how it can ever be any different. To try and cut a long story short, he left us when I was five and my sister was two. I believe he had an affair (my mum won't speak to me about him 
so I know very little about what happened). I do know that he had severe mental health problems prior to him leaving and my mum did her best to support him (he was hospitalised for long periods) whilst managing alone with two young children. He is now in his late sixties but has continued to suffer badly with anxiety and OCD. He has some physical health problems too but it is the mental health ones which render him almost housebound. He has never worked (he truly is incapable), has few friends, lives in poverty, is incapable of cooking or looking after himself, and the inside of his flat is so cluttered it looks like the type of place people make documentaries about :( It is so incredibly sad. What a horrible, sad life he has had, and I cannot imagine how/why it would ever change... So on the one hand I have huge sympathy for him, but on the other I just don't like him :( He is completely self-absorbed, manipulative, attention-seeking, unreliable (obviously I don't rely on him for anything, but it is amazing how someone can let you down even when you don't ask or expect anything of them). It is so hard to explain how difficult he is (everyone says the same, it's not just me). I see him rarely (twice in the last five years, maybe, each time for a few hours). I've seen him every few years (for similarly short visits) since I've been an adult, and when I was a child we went through phases of seeing him every couple of weeks, then nothing for months (I think, again it is not talked about). By the way, he's lived a long way from us for as long as I can remember. Now we're outside of the UK so a trip to see him involves a flight and a long car journey, so regular contact ain't gonna happen. So I've never had a happy, loving relationship with him (partly due to his mental health problems - I found it very hard as a child, and why my mum let me visit him in the 'institutions' I don't know...difficult memories :(). So now he seems to be expecting me to care for him. He has given me the telephone numbers of the housing association, district nurses, his friends etc. I haven't asked for them, I haven't said I will help, but he seems to have pushed this onto me. I don't know what to do. I feel guilty as hell but I just don't like him, and I have never had a good relationship with him, and I don't remember him ever being anything but self-absorbed, selfish, dismissive of whatever I say, manipulative and weak. How horrible am I? He is such a sad, lonely man. I feel I should take some responsibility (being his eldest child), yet I feel that actually I owe him nothing. To be quite honest if he wasn't so vulnerable I would have no contact with him. Every time he contacts me (several times a week, at least), my heart sinks. I am ashamed to say that I won't give him my new phone number because I found the phonecalls too difficult, too intrusive, and he would give my number to his friends and ask them to phone me too. He'd phone me at work and just be inappropriate. He's not awful - he's not angry, or violent, or abusive, but he is just selfish, inappropriate, and manipulative. I find conversations with him so difficult. He ignores what I say, things that I tell him are important, or important to me. I expect nothing from him, yet he seems to expect a lot from me. I suppose my dilemma is - is he my responsibility?? I feel so guilty that I don't do more, yet I feel like I'm not being true to myself when I make so much effort with the things that I do. Every year I send him a hamper at Christmas with homemade decorations (done by the DC), nice food, presents, cards etc, I always send a Father's Day card and present, always send him a birthday card and present, always on time. I bought him a cooker, a TV, a PC, all things he just happened to mention that he needed...he barely said thank you. If we get anything from him it is almost ALWAYS very late. It's not about the card or the gift (he finds it difficult to get to the shops, I understand that), it's about the thought. Everything is always about him. So I'm angry and hurt and depressed (I know he'll never change). But I feel guilty. I sometimes try to put him out of my mind but then I get an email from him and BAM! I'm feeling like this again. Smartphones have a lot to answer for...I can be at the shops, walking the dog, playing the DC, in bed, and then I get an email from him and I just want to cry, or scream... So what do I do? I can't change my email address as that is the only way we communicate. But each time I hear from him (especially recently with his latest sympathy-seeking behaviour) I feel like all the good work I have done on myself and my drinking recently is just seconds away from being completely undone. I don't know how to deal with my feelings towards him. And I don't know how you lovely Babes can help, but I don't know what else to do :( DH feels as hopeless as I do (yet his brain has an 'off' button...). Any thoughts, anyone? Sorry to be so incredibly me, me, me, and if you've read all this you deserve a bloody medal! x