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?

It's interesting. I don't often think about how father's drinking affected me. I sometimes get fed up about how it affected him, and the difference it would have made, but usually I don't think about what it did to my life. It did a shedload. Coincidentally I found a stash of ten empty whisky bottles this week, courtesy of father, and that knocked me for six again.

I am sorry if I have upset anyone.

Just reading your posts has just reinforced the pact I made with myself to never get mixed up with addicts again.

Yes, this.

Hope you get the help you need Wilde, and that one day you can understand some of the comments on this page without such bitterness ... But I understand why you can't right now.

Alcoholics in some cases can stop.

My mother cannot stop. We have done EVERYTHING to stop her. I've gone no-contact, we staged interventions, we've urged her to go to AA.

She thinks she's just too great for all of that.

She thinks she's better than everyone.

She's almost 80. It's not going to change.

We are all helpless to change her. So yes, I do think cancer would have been preferable. Hate me all you like. I can live with cancer. I can't live with someone who is ruining her life and everyone's lives around her. Won't seek help, disregards others' interventions..... just keeps doing it. There is no end but death by alcohol and daily abuse along the way. I think a saintly death by cancer would be a blessing in comparison. Sorry, but my life has been RUINED by my mothers drinking

I hope all the vented anger, despair & disgust on this thread has made PPs feel better.

Maybe Wilde might like to think about some of the things she has posted aswell.

She has dumissed people as being 'ignorant' that have lived with alcoholics. Dismissed people who disagreed with her that alcoholics are lovely is you are only kind to them. Dismissed someone who was beaten by her alcoholic ex and compared it to cancer. which has driven at least one person off the thread yet she refuses to apologise

SpoiltMardyCow I'm really sorry if I have upset you, and I agree. I really do agree having been in the position to compare.

I accepted that I would never change my father about thirty years ago. It made things a lot easier for me.

I still broke down when I found the hidden empty bottles.

Haven't rtft as it's so long but you are wrong about comparing alcoholism to an illness such as cancer.

It's absolutely not the same thing. The latest evidence supports alcoholism as a behavioural disorder, not an illness. With an illness, you have to do as the doctor says to try to recover. With alcoholism, you have to own your recovery. You can't get over it by following someone else's instructions.

If you've reached your tipping point, take responsibility for getting there and take responsibility for getting back. It's the only way.

Sorry, but my life has been RUINED by my mothers drinking

Erm. I'm bracing myself here. What happened to taking responsibility for one's own life, happiness, etc? My life has been ruined by my health. I feel sorry for myself, and I feel sorry for you Spoilt. At the same time, I accept that it is my life now and it's down to me to figure out how much of the damage can be fixed, where to get help with that, and so on.

Same for any addict. Their life has been ruined, if not totally then it's a guarantee large parts of it are permanently fucked. Their challenge is to accept what it is, figure out which parts can be fixed, and so on.

As it is for everyone when shit goes badly wrong.

Ah, definitelybutter, how could you upset me? Not at all. I feel so emotional reading all this.

My first memory is waking up in my parent's bed and smelling something putrid..... my mum had puked all over the floor. And my Dad telling me that "mummy has been ill in the night".

ALL MY LIFE.

I am sick of the abuse, the phone calls, the dread....

I almost hate my mother. All the humiliations over the years which are too much for me even to fathom.

I wish she had cancer instead. At least I'd feel sympathy instead of the dread I feel when the phone rings and I weigh up whether she could be drunk at 9am and what will she hurl at me next. Sorry, after 40 years plus of this abuse, i just wish it would go away.

Ok, it is not your fault that you are an alcoholic, but how does that help you right now? Have you been to AA? what happened?

Ok. I have had time to think and process my thoughts.

The behaviour of an alcoholic can be damaging to their loved ones. In fact, I would go as far as to say that it is ALWAYS damaging.

But, I will still reiterate that alcoholism is an illness - it is recognised as such by the World Health Organisation. A fatal one. Cancer is a physical illness. You can see its consequences. Dementia is a 'mental' illness. You can see and hear the symptoms. Alcoholism hits you the double whammy. It hits you physically with the physical effects of the poison and it hits you mentally with the torture of trying everything to battle what is misunderstood by everyone but those who have gone through it or go through it.

I KNOW that what I live with is an illness. I know that, because I simply do NOT have the choice that normal people have. It is not a choice like 'dry January'. It simply is not a choice. If it was a choice, I would be the last one drinking.

Ok, so my life hasn't be RUINED. Exaggerating for emphasis.
It has been BLIGHTED. Is that better?

You can CHOOSE to get help. That is the difference not that you'll listen

Spoilt. I didn't want to have a go at you - just trying to level a rather uneven playing field. I shan't presume to offer any advice, but hope you soon find ways to live more serenely with your mother's condition and what it's done to you

I've typed so many responses but deleted them as I would most likely get banned. But I will say this...

An alcoholic ruins lives because they will do anything for one last drink and don't give a fuck who they hurt or have to stand on in the process and those closest are usually hurt the worst..

A person who has that fucker Cancer will do anything for one more day with loved ones. They will put on a brave face and say they are OK but be in agony, they will tell you not to worry, everything will be fine when they know it won't, they will worry about you and how your feeling/coping and if your gonna be OK.....
alcoholism is nothing like cancer

Already hurt the feelings of everybody that has has seen somebody suffer with cancer and now moving on to dementia? Awful behaviour.

I'm by no means telling anybody what to do here but I'll be stepping away from this thread now as I'm finding it really upsetting and it's bringing up a lot of old feelings for me. I'd just like to suggest that anybody feeling the same way does the same at this point. There is nothing good to come of this thread other than further hurt.

More for those this thread has upset/angered.

Spoilt - I think what you are describing is more 'Nothing other people do can make an alcoholic stop drinking if they themselves don't want to' not 'some alcoholics cannot stop drinking'.

Unless any addict is committed to stopping and staying away from the thing they are addicted to nothing can help them, even then it is very difficult.

Addiction is awful but the power to change is entirely the addict's. I don't think it is unfair to resent the effect someone's addiction has on other people around them. Especially children of addicted parents who had no choice in who they were born to and had to grow up in chaos.

So much self-pity.

Should I be the brave soul and just kill myself Maud?

Now you have also brought dementia into it.

What about taking some responsibility yourself OP?

I will still reiterate that alcoholism is an illness - it is recognised as such by the World Health Organisation. A fatal one. Cancer is a physical illness. You can see its consequences. Dementia is a 'mental' illness. You can see and hear the symptoms.

I suppose it reassures you that you're not an awful person to think this way about alcoholism, but to compare it with cancer or dementia is bordering on the outrageous. At best it is displaying the kind of self-indulgent, blame-everyone-else behaviour of an alcoholic not in recovery.

As a dear, dry, in recovery-alcoholic friend of mine says "an ahole is an ahole, whether drunk or sober."

I don't like the deity/higher power bit of it, but OP you really sound as though you could do with a dose of Alcoholics Anonymous commonsense and humour.

Wilde, it's interesting that you chose two endogenous illnesses as illustrations. Do you see addiction as something "in you", some fatal and hideous flaw within yourself like cancer cells or amyloid plaques?

When we have exogenous illnesses, caused by some virus for example, healing and recovery look more straightforward. Remove the cause; heal the infection; manage the after-effects. I think it's often best - and perfectly logical - to see addiction this way.

I'm going to have to stop posting here, as I'm on the verge of going too deep and writing essays. Congrats on processing your thoughts Can you do any more of that without getting pissed, or is it too upsetting?

No Wilde you have not chosen to have an addiction.

That's the only way in which it is comparable to any other things.

The difference is that you, and you alone, have the power to recover. You are not dependent on progressive neurological degradation and the effectiveness of drugs to slow it down, you are not dependent on how well your tumour responds to treatment or where it happens to be positioned, how big it got or whether it metastasised before it was discovered.

How badly the consequences of your addiction affect you and others around you is within your power. There is nothing that therapy, medicine or support can do for you if you have not chosen and committed to stopping drinking.

you can't choose NOT to be an alcoholic

Yes, you can. My adopted brother did. And several dear friends. They stopped blaming everyone else, and started to take control of their own recovery.

Wilde, you may not want to hear this. But you do have a choice. You are not a toddler. You have the choice not to pick up that bottle or pint or whatever. And not drink it. And yes, repeat, for the rest of your life. It's insulting to compare yourself to someone with cancer.

Of course you can get help to make it easier. I would suggest therapy, not prayer. But ultimately, it's your choice.