Alcoholic parent - do you ever stop hurting?

[RosslynM]

I am nearly 50. My abusive alcoholic father died more than 30 years ago. Yet, sometimes I still feell so hurt about the stuff he did to my family. Violent and abusive towards my Mum, my sibling and I, living in poverty in a filthy flat, the daily humiliation of everyone pointing at us or pitying us; walking down the road with my friend and seeing him drinking from a whisky bottle in the middle of the day on a busy street, being ashamed to bring my first boyfriend home with him drunk and snoring in an armchair.

It has got worse since I had my own children (now teenagers), I always put them first, like the majority of parents do, I just feel he must have hated us all so much. Is it just me or do others go on hurting throughout the rest of their lives?

What if anything , do you wish you had done differently if you could speak to him again.
I only ask this because my dad is an alcoholic (still living) we are estranged.
I recently wrote a letter telling him how I think he let us down. Is a bully etc.
I haven't posted it. But I think I want to.
The 1 thing that is different with my kids is they will never see me drink to excess. Ever!

You couldn't get through to him - it was like speaking to a brick wall. I would tell him how much he hurt us but I know he wouldn't care. I used to wish him dead when I was young and I wish he had died a lot sooner.
I wish I had been more assertive in persuading my Mum to leave him when I was younger. She eventually divorced him when I was 16 and we were rehoused away from him a few months later. He died soon after that. She began and stopped divorce procedings several times - in the end she only went through with it because I threatened to leave home.

Sometimes I wish I had had the courage to ask to be put into care or with a foster family when I was 10 or 11; I would have been mortified had that happened at the time but I don't think alcoholics or their co-dependents are fit to raise children. I grew up with panic attacks and feelings of low esteem which I have fought against but still have to an extent.

I dont think I'll ever get over it. Havent spoken to my dad for 10years, hes never met my husband or my daughter and I often tell myself that one day Ill be indifferent to him but the truth is Im completely devastated by it. The only plus is that now hes out of our lives, my mum and brother and I are really really close, i suppose its because we went through it all together. My fathers drinking has totally shaped who I am and on the outside I seem fine and over it but I dont think I ever will be.

It can be harder when someone close to you dies who you had a difficult relationship with, especially a parent because you're not quite sure how to feel. My father was an alcoholic and kiled himself when my mum was pregnant with me. It will always get to me because I never met him, and wish I could think of him as some great man, but if fact I know he hit and tried to strangle my mum when she was pregnant with me (whilst drunk) and many, many other awful things. Alcoholism is an awful thing, and I feel sad now I have my ds that he is missing a grandad. You need to find your own way to make peace with this, perhaps speaking to a counsellor would help you come to terms with it.

I think the issue was the abuse and lack of love, not the alcoholism. My Dad was an alcoholic but he was also a loving and caring man. Of course people locally knew he drank but I didn't care because I knew he was a great person. When he died I had no complicated feelings about him. I just missed him.

My mum died 6 years ago. An alcoholic. I am still quite raw about it. And frightened. she was a truly wonderful mother, so loving and caring. And then, when I was 20, began drinking, finally passing away after a five year struggle. I am frightened because if it can to my mother, could it happen to me? I do not believe so but I am still concered.

Now i have my son, i am also so baffled as to how she could have behaved as she did, and carried on drinking. Her children were not enough. Whereas my DS is enough for me. if i never achieve anything more in life, i would be fine with that, and I want to be around to see him grow up and have a family of his own.

I am so devastated at all she has missed, and all that I have not been able to share with her and lean on her.

As you can see, the pain of an alcoholic parent is certainly still very much present for me

I know I am not the people you are reaching out to on this thread, but I wanted to thank you for the insights;

I am divorcing my alcoholic abusive husband. My children are 7yo and 18months. I will never ever forgive myself for choosing the man I did to be my fathers children. They deserve so much better.

I am leaving to teach them it is not acceptable behaviour in a marriage, in a family or any kind of relationship at all. I also want to protect them from the embarrasment you talk of OP

I'm so sorry to hear, that the segregation stay with you throughout your life.

My husband is a useless father, and has no positive or meaningful interaction with our children BUT I do believe he loves them with all his heart. He is just wired all wrong. Maybe it is because of his shit upbringing and useless father, I don't know?

I read a quote once that I believe;
just because a person doesn't love you how you want them to, doesn't mean they don't love you with all they have

Devestation not segregation

Op you and I are sadly kindred spirits.

I had a wobble this morning - I'm only mentioning it because it makes what I say next seem like bollocks. You can read all about it on the survivors of childhood sexual abuse thread. But -

Rosslyn - Yes, you can. I wobbled today but have had many, many years of good life. For me one bad day every 14 years is preferable to living everyday as was.

We can let go - not forget or ''move on'' but choose to let go of the effects the choices of another had on us. You have taken on a lot of responsibility, this is normal. You were a child supporting and encouraging your mother to leave your father - this is not normal. We become fixers, burden haulers, piece makers and pleasers. Your mother was an adult and you were a child - loyalty to the woman you loved has led to the boundaries being blurred on both sides. You become the adult, the parent and it is hard to escape. But remember you needed a parent too. Now you are a parent and the questions just get harder - why (oh god, why?) how could a mother 'let' this happen, how could a father do it. The answers make even less sense.

I had to really accept that some questions would never be answered - I also could not conjure them from inside. I had to accept that my parents were deeply flawed people. I owned that the feelings of guilt, shame and betrayal - how they affected every facet of myself- was being internalised to continue the damage from someone else, I didn't have to punish myself, I had to cut that kid some slack. I had to work hard to accept that I was the fallout, the collateral damage to someone elses drama, the victim of someone else's fight. It was not about me - it was always about him. I did not matter as the person, the person I was was not the cause and not at fault. It would have been the same if anyone had been substituted in my place. It seems to stray scarily close to insignificance but it isn't, I was a good person doing my best in terrible circumstances, I was not the cause of these problems and no child could ever bring about the solution. In taking responsibility for all the things you end up dealing with (because someone needs to stand up) we take responsibility for the behaviour - it is not ours to fix. We cannot see into the abyss and make out any coherence because it often isn't there. We can only take responsibility for our own healing. Our own future. Working for accountability means you can see clearer lines of the burdens that should not be carried by you. The blame that was shifted onto you.

You can do it. After so long it becomes a habit to take the blame, to find those situations and repeat them in some way. Living in an emotional turmoil that is all you know, accepting love the wrong way. You push in the hope someone will pull because you mean enough for them to want to. You can leave the package of toxicity behind. You may have a sadness as you remember, but it will not consume you. Thinking will be less often. Now when I do think I wish I had a good father - how I pity him for being so broken, how I pity him the fact he cannot see my children and the person I was forged into. I pity the fact he couldn't ever see past himself, his selfishness, viciousness and his problems, he was the victim and would never be anything else. The loser. I am victorious in life and happiness. My anger is rare because I don't feel he deserves access to that part of me - I am not a hurt child anymore. I am an adult, a parent and I am not ruled by anyone else but me. The shame is his, the guilt is his, the betrayal of everyone was his - he did this. I will not pay for it. You don't deserve a life of pennance for someone elses sins.

Have you spoken to anyoe about how you feel?

I mean feel now. Healing this kind of hurt is not like fixing a broken bone. As our lives change it uncovers a little area that we didn't see to fix. As that happens continuing with therapy to resolve those new issues is a maintanence of yourself.
As we get older and persepective changes things change yet again - we truely are on shifting sands.
Low self -esteem, no confidence are the worst weapons because they go no working long after the physical contact has stopped. Panic attacks, anxiety, depression or other MH (I do suffer from some MH problems but I am well managed and now not even on medication) - these can be helped.

You deserve to let these wounds heal now - the feelings you have seem like symptoms of the injury. I hope you feel that you can be happy in the life you've made through adversity. You deserve it, you've certainly earned it. You are worth being free of this.

I very much agree with the statement that alcoholics and their codependents cannot be good parents.

I am in the process of divorcing my alcoholic husband, as well as undertaking therapy and going to CoDA & Al Anon groups to deal with my codependency issues. We have very small children, and he might well love them, and is a functional alcoholic so still has a job, but a shit dad. And in the relationship I was a shit mother, as I was so consumed by the insanity of the alcoholism that I was going crazy.

Now that I am out of it, I am slowly beginning to realise quite how dysfunctional it was, the little games that were endlessly being played out. All that attention I took away from myself or my babies and concentrated on him and his behaviour. And I do see the damage it has had on our babies, even if they are little. But at least I have the chance to do the best I can to remedy that. And it won't be easy, there is so much baggage still, emotionally, but we have only just started the journey without him. And it is a relief.

It is no way for a child to be raised, and there was a report out there by Addaction recently with frightening figures about how many kids are living in a family with active alcoholism (3 million or something like that?). I have met so many damaged and hurting adult children of alcoholics in the meetings I go to. That was one of the biggest triggers for me asking him to leave. Realising that I have no power over alcohol and the alcoholic and I could never fix this for our family, I could not imagine my babies having to grow up any longer with it.

I feel like bejeezus, I struggle to forgive myself for choosing an alcoholic as the father of my children. They deserve so much better and he does not really deserve their unconditional love. But I was in denial and he is not a down and out type drunk. He just chose to spend half of their childhood so far getting pissed in pubs, spending all our money, instead of coming home to support me or raise them. I have so many feelings about it, sadness, anger, frustration, fear, fury. And I am really struggling to let go of the codependency. But I am working so hard at that. I was a adult when I got into that relationship, I can only imagine the effects on a child growing up in it. You all deserve(d) so much more and deserve now to take the best care of yourselves.

If you haven't done so before, you could always try Al Anon. Lots of other adult children of alcoholics go there. So I guess to answer the OP, yes many others go on hurting their whole lives, but there are ways to reduce that through meetings, therapy etc. And that will help with the self-esteem and panic attacks (anxiety).

OP No. Not in my case. I'm 40 years old now with a family of my own. I've been through years of therapy and no. The scars are too deep, the hurt is too fresh, the behaviours learned keep repeating themselves and I feel that I am repeating my own father's mistakes (happily not with alcohol, thank god). My brother's come off worse. He's like watching my dad as he was 30 years ago... which is made doubly terrible given that we all watched my Dad die. We know where alcoholism leads, and what it does to families. That pain lives on I think - it's like a genetic disorder and will keep getting passed down, in one form or other. I'm sorry to sound so bleak about it, but that's my experience.

To bejeezus and daffy - I can't find the words to tell you what an amazing thing it is you are doing. It must be so hard for you, but bloody hell, what a gift to give your children. Always, always remember this. You are giving them a chance at happiness that they would never have otherwise. Not just them, but your their children too. It sounds a bit pathetic saying well done, but bloody well done. I wish you and your families all the luck in the world.

I have an alcoholic mother, who in turn had an alcoholic father.
I am determined not to hurt, admittedly sometimes it is easier said than done. She has done some pretty horrific things to me, (abuse as a child etc). There is always an excuse though, blaming her own upbringing. She has spent 40 years blaming, and being a victim though, and I can't bear the thought of being like her.
I hate the phrase 'get over it' but I say it to myself often, because I owe myself happiness and I won't let her deprive me of it.
x

Good for you Isla. I felt like you until my dad died. Then, somehow it just got worse. Like there was a part of my family that had been blown apart but could never be put back together. I spent so much of my childhood wishing he'd die, and then when I was a fully functioning, happy, successful grown up he did. It knocked me for six. I miss him every day, can you believe that? I feel so sorry for him and how much he fucked up, because I can't believe that he didn't realise that at the end. It's a terrible terrible thing he did, a series of very small bad decisions - a pint here, a couple more glasses of whisky there, a smack, a shout, a little nap on the sofa instead of playing with his children... all such tiny blunders. But they added up to a life lost, a family grieving and adult children who will never really get over childhoods that were lost.

After reading this thread I've been thinking about the co-dependent in these parental relationships. As an adult I now blame my mum, and as a mother myself I can't get past how she didn't protect her children. She did nothing. Why? If my DH lifted a finger against my child I wouldn't even wait for an apology, I'd have our bags packed and in a cab before he'd even realised what he'd done. My mum's still alive and although I've made my peace with her and superficially we get on fine, I feel like I've lost her too. I'll never be able to truly respect her and the choices se made.

What a mess it all is, what a pointless waste of our lives. So many missed opportunities. I wish I could move on and sometimes I think I have, I get cocky, then I realise I'm right back where I started from - trapped, despairing and wondering if I can ever let myself be happy.

my father is an alcoholic, a fact that has been drummed into me since i was a small child. Luckily for me, my mum left him when i was 18 mths old, or i think i could have suffered more. Even so, i saw him every week and had to endure him being drunk, sitting in pubs, being unreliable and irresponsible, i suffered low self esteem, guilt issues (my grandparents used to constantly tell me to tell him to stop :() I think i've got problems with intimacy and trust as you get used to being let down. He was never violent or abusive but can be emotionally draining and unreasonable and associate with unsavoury characters. Unfortunately i have a slight problem with alcohol which i have to keep in check, it seems the 'alcoholic gene' is very strong in our family, almost everyone drinks to excess. So sorry you are still hurting.... No advice really but i have found that i don't let it get to me as much now, it's like i've blocked it out or am so used to it now. I will be upset if i've found out he's died because i know he had so much more potential and is such a better man when sober, but i don't hate him, it's an illness and as i know, very difficult to combat :(.

RosslynM:

I wish I had been more assertive in persuading my Mum to leave him when I was younger

You were a child! Please don't beat yourself up. You wouldn't have expected your children to take that sort of responsibility for your own relationship at that age woulld you? You certainly shouldn't have expected that of yourself either.

I wish I had had the courage to ask to be put into care or with a foster family when I was 10 or 11

Again; you were a child. There was no lack of "courage", you were just too young to be expected to make huge, life changing decisions. You should have been the one being looked after. Nothing else.

My mum was an alcoholic. I have come a long way.

Have a look at this:

www.al-anonuk.org.uk/

Al Anon is for those effected by the terrible desease that is alcoholism. I have seen 70 year old women who say that Al Anon gave them a second chance at life. I hope it can help you.

xxx