If your father left you to die [Trigger warning for addiction/alcoholism added by MNHQ]

[WildeWoman]

By leaving you to die, I mean 'she's an alcoholic, what can you do'.

And you later found out that he may have been complicit in welfare fraud..........

Would you report him?

Also wanted to say good post from wotoodoo ...

What do you mean by reported him btw? What do you hope happens? Are you really prepared to hurt him like this? I just wonder if when your pain begins to fade, might you not feel horribly guilty?

to everyone who's life has been messed up by addiction. It's horrible and it takes over everything, and none of us know innately how to handle it.

It looks like you are looking to blame someone for your problems, and you are the person to look at, not your father. Yes he could have helped, and I imagine he has done previously, but I suggest go using on moving forward without him.

Some truly heartbreaking stories on here. Loving an addict must be heartbreaking.

Agreeing with others.
I hope you reach a stage where you take responsibility, not for your illness, but for your recovery and the steps you took that led to you being homeless and at death's door.
He didn't do it for you.

He may well be scum for all we know, but you are responsible for yourself. He's not responsible for saving you. Nobody is.

And the sooner you realise that, the faster you will recover.

I bet he has tried to help in the past, over and over again-chances are you don't even remember half of what you have done. If you love an addict, there are only a finite number of times that you can try and help them for your own sanity. Addicts are, by nature, selfish and self centred. As others have said, take responsibility for yourself-if you don't want to have contact with your father, don't.

Wilde, I hope that you are well and getting weller.

And of course some parents are uncaring and unsupportive irrespective of addiction or anything else. Have you felt unloved by him all your life? Before the addiction?

He should not be committing welfare fraud.

I hope you are now getting all the support you need - do you have any counselling or therapy in which you can talk about your father?

Wilde YOU were the alcoholic, not your father. You chose to drink. You made bad choices, that ended up with you being on the street. Maybe with good reason (trauma), maybe not. However, remember, that we all live through traumatic experiences, and we don't all end up street alcoholics.

Are you sure that your father didn't try to help you? Maybe you just can't remember.

I had a close friend, who is also a raging alcoholic. I tried to help her for years and years. She doesn't remember ANY of this.

The endless hours of talking. The taking her in, when she would turn up on my doorstep at 3am clutching a bottle of vodka, having driven from somewhere so blind drunk, that she didn't even know where she'd been.

I regularly took in her child. She would be so pissed by 3.30pm, that she would often try to drive to school drunk, half dressed. I had to lock her in her house and take over.

I rescued her from hotel rooms, with strange men.

Helped her DH check her in, to yet another Re-hab.

Comforted her 10 year old DD, when she would tell her "she would never see Mummy again, as Mummy was going to hang herself".

She doesn't remember ANY of it. And I mean, nothing.

I spent years catching her, and she doesn't know that I did any of it.

I walked away, when she accused me of sleeping with her DH, simply because we had been united in trying to cajole her in to yet another re-hab. It was just the most ridiculous thing she could have said.

I find the message that you sent your Dad recently, is more abuse on your part.

Please leave him alone, my guess is that he has been to hell and back and deserves some peace in his old age.

If I've missed something, then I apologise.

Hmm

It must have been awful for you, but your father was not responsible for your situation. It sounds like you got yourself into an utter mess due to addiction, hurting those around you presumably. Your post is sort of entitled tbh.

How are you doing now OP? Perhaps you should cut contact with your father until you're emotionally healthier, it can't be doing either of you any good.

Unfortunately I agree with some of the other posters where you have to step back and save yourself from an addict. My MIL had a visit from drug dealers a while ago looking for my BIL. He'd finally come clean about his addiction we thought and admitted he owed them money and couldn't pay. My MIL is a recovered alcoholic herself and doesn't have much money but she gave him a considerable sum to save him from that. He then spent the money on more drugs. After that she told him to get out. He was putting her and my SIL's in danger by living there as the next visit would have been very unpleasant.

From his point of view, she doesn't deserve the title of mother, she made him homeless and it's all her fault he's an addict in the first place. From everyone else's he's a selfish arsehole who won't lift a finger to help himself and expects to be constantly rescued.

The truth is probably somewhere in the middle but it doesn't make a difference really.

I'm sorry you had to go through so much op but there are two sides to a story. No one here knows how much your father had to go through with you. Sometimes people reach their limit, and even though you are his daughter it didn't mean that you could take unconditionally and expect him to support you.

The advice given on here so many times in addiction cases is that the person needs to change for themselves and there is so only so much one can do.

It seems as though you are struggling with your recent loss and venting at him. I hope you are receiving the help you need.

Also please don't send that message , it is extremely abusive and it will only confirm for him that he is right.

Not read all the posts as I actually find it too painful but please understand that as much as you feel anger that you did not receive the support you feel entitled too as an alcoholic, you have no idea how it feels to watch someone destroy themselves and everyone around them with their decision to drink.

I don't know your dad but please don't underestimate the heartache and despair you may have caused.

My children and I have been destroyed by their fathers selfish addiction and the financial and emotional scars he has left behind since his death at 44.

I feel personally you may have a longer road to travel on your recovery until you accept that you were the selfish one take responsibility for your own actions. Sometimes self preservation is the only option when you can't stop someone you love destroy themselves every single day

I hope that you turn that corner and live your life to the full as I am sure you are aware some people never have that option

Homelessness inevitably means rape for women. What happened to Zoe was not an unusual anomaly. Homeless women get raped, basically. That is it. That's the way it works.

So condemning a woman to homelessness is condemning her to violence and unwanted pregnancy and the fall out of that.

Your father has a lot to answer for. You are an intelligent, incredibly articulate woman, no thanks to him. His loss.

Have you actually read the other posts though sakura? It's not usually that black and white. (Although if the OP does come back there may be a big big backstory of course)

Anybody who was ever close to an addict knows taking a step back is often the only thing to do. During the worst times of their drinking they can destroy relationships, they are so selfish and feeding the addiction is the only thing that matters, which is the reason so many addicts end up homeless. When they get better they have no idea who did or didn't do what through the years of hell everybody, including the addict themselves went though.

It is great you are in a better place, but do stop blaming others, it is a disease and some are more likely to get it, but ultimately he didn't pour alcohol down your throat and your anger is misdirected. Sending this letter won't change anything, either for him or you, you have probably done worse to him before. He may not have rescued you, but without your own actions no rescuing would have been needed. Focus on getting and staying well and sober and keep the relationships you still have going, don't burn any more bridges .

Ok. I have stayed away from this thread, as I was not sure I would be able for it. However, I have read all the replies.

To answer some questions in relation to my father:

I never relied on him. I learned very early on that money was God to him and supporting his children through life was not the 'done thing'.

I emotionally relied on my brother. My brother is a doctor. He supported himself through uni and fought and battled his way to the top. He still continues to. I googled his name the other night and he is a professor. My brother, being a doctor and clearly being able to discuss this illness or addiction if you prefer, told me, that he had to take a step back from me. He has over the years taken a very big step back from me. But ultimately, it was him who rescued me from the streets (he happened to be over at a conference in London, so I guess it didn't cost him much). I try not to contact him.

I never asked for money from my father until I got a phonecall, 3 weeks into being homeless, for a job paying 140 a day. I begged him for money to just pay for a hostel for 2 nights ahead of interview and money for clothes for interview and transport to the interview and money for accomodation until first pay check. He declined.

Anyway, that is as much as I have to say about my father apart from to lol at the poster who stated that the most he would get out of my email was 'my sheep don't have fluke!'.

What galls me I suppose are the posters who say 'you decided to drink'. The ignorance in this simple statement is immeasurable. I can not express it with words. Let me just tell you, that every day, every minute, every second, I make a decision not to drink. Yet I do. Because I'm an alcoholic.

In terms of being left to die, when I got off the streets, I was diagnosed with bronchitis and pleurisy. Another week would possibly have seen me dead. There was no exaggeration there. Everything I owned was stolen off me. I couldn't receive benefits as all my paperwork was stolen.

Can I just say, an alcoholic treated with kindness is usually the epitome of humility and gratitude. Can I also say that while my craving for a drink would come first, I would give (literally), the hat off my head to someone who looked colder than me. In the homeless community (where I lived, it was only alcoholics - no drug users), the spirit of sharing was astounding. If one day, someone had alcohol, they shared it. Someone who had tobacco would share it. Someone who had food would share it.

In terms of the dangers I faced, apart from being robbed and propositioned, I was never physically attacked. The parks police were quite fond of me and checked that I was still alive every day.

I would love to say that I'm recovering. I'm not. I get off it, back on it, off it, back on it. What prompted my latest 'outburst' on here, was learning about the death of my brother's BIL. 29. An ex rugby player.

PS - as an aside - I have noticed a distinct difference in replies from parents of alcoholics and children of alcoholics. And, my love goes out to Zoe. I don't want to have to join Zoe.

Just reading back now - the paragraph about my brother appears very cold-hearted towards him. I'm not. I adore him. He's my elder by two and a half years. But I love him enough to never contact him anymore. He has a very emotionally tough job and the last thing he needs is me ranting on at him. That said, on good days, we have very deep chats online. We don't ordinarily address the ELEPHANT.

Can I just say, an alcoholic treated with kindness is usually the epitome of humility and gratitude.

That is a very naive and simplistic view tbh.

My exh was really greatful as he was beating me.

You say that people's attitude on here is ignorant. Tbf part of yours is too.

Nottoday. Please don't conflate alcoholics with wife-beaters.

There are plenty of bad bastards who are not remotely alcoholic.

I am very sorry that your bad bastard happened to also be alcoholic, because as sure as night follows day, if he's a bad bastard, alcohol will bring out the bad bastard in him.

Every day, I see homeless people on the street. The humiliation and sadness in their eyes when you give them a pound or a few pence or even just say hello and the absolute astonished gratitude, brings me immediately back to feeling all of that. I frequently cried, just for being given 20 pence. I couldn't believe the kindness of those who gave.

I think most people on here are not at all ignorant, on the contrary, most will have been there, as either parent, child, close friend or partner of an alcoholic or as an alcoholic themselves. Such people understand the sense of denial and the ruthlessness that come with alcoholism all too well unfortunately.

If you live in the UK you can apply for council accommodation and benefits. There are shelters.
How did you happen to become homeless and almost die?

What galls me I suppose are the posters who say 'you decided to drink'. The ignorance in this simple statement is immeasurable

So is the ignorance in some of what you have said.

Yet I do. Because I'm an alcoholic.
No. That has become your excuse.
You can decide to stop it. You are not powerless.
You have to go through the process of buying the drink and drink it.
It may well be hard not to do it. But not impossible.

Can I just say, an alcoholic treated with kindness is usually the epitome of humility and gratitude.

This could not be further from my experience, personally or professionally.

Can I just say, an alcoholic treated with kindness is usually the epitome of humility and gratitude

A vastly sweeping statement that just isn't true for everybody I'm afraid.

It was clear to me from your first handful of posts that you're not yet in recovery. I hope you can get there soon.