I'm an Alcoholic and my parent's won't support me.

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Hi. I have a really horrible Pickle of a situation. I am a chronic Alcoholic. I am 33 years old, and I live alone. Since the age of 19 my drinking has caused chaos, and my tolerance has gone up and up and up. Nowadays I drink 4 bottles of white Wine on the days I binge. It isn't every day, I am lucky that I don't get dangerous withdrawals, and I can quite easily go without a drink. However when I aim to have one or two, before I know it days have passed and I've been completely hammered. I have had to admit to myself that I can never drink at all, as moderation just isn't possible with me. It's a scary process, but I have been going to AA and met people just like myself, who didn't judge me at all. I went 2 months sober, which was amazing! However, I kind of knew it wouldn't last, because although I live alone I see my parents regularly. They always drink at the weekends when I go round, and simply refuse not to. Slating me for being selfish by asking them to be sober around me. As I just can not bear to be around drunk people and alcohol when I'm sober, it's far too triggering. So I gave up giving up, knowing that I can never cut my parents our of my life, I do love them. So it's just easier to join them and have them in my life and keep drinking. But I know that this isn't how it should be.
I have developed Peripheral Neuropathy from drinking and my mental health is in tatters from waking up hating myself for crazy actions while drunk, then needing to drink again to cope with those memories. We have a Holiday to Greece booked together, and I know it will involve drinking. I'm sick of living this way, and I really don't want to ever drink again. But they are so nasty about it saying "why should we be miserable and bored around you just because you have a drink problem?" Also if I say I'm not going to Greece, they would make me feel bad and cancel the whole thing and not go themselves. Of course, they could just cancel my booking and still go, but they won't, and I'd never hear the end of it. I love that place, and I have been excited to go back all year, but it's just going to mean I can never get sober. I love my parents, and I don't want them out of my life. But they just won't support me in getting healthy. I don't know what to do.

Focus on your recovery. Keep going to AA. Don't go on hols with your parents.

Your recovery comes first. Once you have some solid recovery behind you this might be something you can contemplate but for now, no way.

Well done on starting your journey into sobriety. You've got so much to look forward to and so much life ahead of you.

Hi OP, I have kids. If either of mine had developed peripheral neuropathy from drinking I'd be worried sick and selling an organ to raise funds to get them into treatment and recovery. This is because I love my children.

Your parents are choosing to do the opposite of this. They are belittling you and sabotaging you and enmeshing you with this holiday and cancellation guilt.

In my opinion, which might be simplistic - their behaviour means they don't love you. They don't care if you live or die as long as they can keep drinking.

For that reason you MUST protect yourself, and put yourself first. You have to love YOURSELF enough to save your life by committing to recovery.

There is a little girl inside you who wishes her parents would just love her, would just care enough to protect her. She'll die if she waits for them to do this. It's tragic. That child deserves much more from her parents. But it's how it is.

Cut them out of your life until you are well and secure in your sobriety - at least a year - and then decide from a place of wellness whether or not you want to re-engage.

I wish you all the best and I am really cheering for you because you've already come so far! Don't let them drag you back to square 1.

I agree with the other posters that your parents and in particular your mum sounds toxic and they are not acting like supportive parents. HOWEVER I suspect that you’re also using this as an excuse to continue drinking. You are no longer a child but are choosing to give your parents much more control over your life than you need to. You don’t need to go to theirs every weekend or go on holiday with them. You chose to as an excuse to continue drinking in a “guilt free, oh it’s their fault I drink” way.

Until you take responsibility for your own sobriety and stop blaming them for the fact that you abuse alcohol then you will never be sober.

You nee to decide how much you want to get sober, and drop your expectations of them.

They sound highly dysfunctional themselves and not in a position to offer you any meaningful support.

So, this is up to you. As with recovery from any addiction, you need to make a series of choices and go in the right direction because that's what you truly want, and keep making the right choices forever. It's a long term game andu need to able to identify and stay away from the situations that will gt in your way. Your holiday in Greece is one of them.

She is taking responsibility!

That's what this thread is about

Could your parents visit you at your home once a week, so you got to see them, but on the understanding it is a dry house and they don't bring any drink with them?

I'm a recovering alcoholic with 29 years of sobriety. It sucks that they won't stop drinking around you, but part of sobriety is learning how to deal with others consuming alcohol. Alcohol will always be there at dinners, parties, sporting events, etc.

That said, spend as little time with them as possible. They sound horrible.

I know you need love and support, you've done so well. You're AMAZING. Don't feel you need to answer this but do you think your parents might be abusers, and not the place to get love and support from? That they are an aberration of nature and hell-bent on destroying you, the person who should be most important to them?

I lost my sister just over a year ago in circumstances almost identical to what you're describing. She had just done a detox.

Like domestic abuse, it's the point at which you try to leave (get clean) that's when the danger is highest.

If you had children, would you treat them as your parents treat you? The pattern I saw was my sister being constantly told she was damaged and therefore had to be with them, when she was with them they drank in front of her, even when she had just done the detox and was in danger of dying if she touched another drop.

Their false 'love' was too much in the end, and drove her to take her life. There was much more, (other things our respected, well-loved and much admired father had done caused the drinking and self-hatred in the first place), but I'm wondering what your support circle is like away from them? Do you feel you can survive without them? Do they give you money or support in exchange for you staying silent about their incredibly cruel behaviour? There is normally a pattern of a kind of blackmail where these people give their children things in exchange for the children not questioning why the parents want to see them destroy themselves.

I think their behaviour is a massive red flag. I think your dad might be complicit, however nice he might sound. There might be issues so bad in their relationship they would rather sacrifice you than address them. Don't let them, you know this isn't right how they're treating you.

Please try to find love elsewhere, and build up your own sense of security and a safe place, if you can, then decide in a year or two what you want the relationship to be.

All the best in your fight, you have so much that could be good in your future, so much potential. It's a hard fight, leaving alcohol and your parents - it's like leaving behind all the comfort you know of. But you've started. You know right from wrong however much they try to muddy it. 💓💓💓💓💓💓

Your DM doesn’t drink because she doesn’t care about you - she drinks because she is an addict.

They don't have addiction issues, that's what makes it even worse!

This is such good advice and so kindly written.

Don't dwell on the past. You can't change your parents. Look after your future and make a different relationship with your parents where you feel more confident and in control of your interactions.

Of course they do! They are unable / unwilling to not drink for a few hours to save their child’s life.

Either they are genuinely evil or they are addicts.

Either way - you need to stay away from them until you are many many months sober. (Or maybe forever I’m afraid.)

For info - if I was meeting you for dinner and you said you would prefer it if I didn’t drink I would just shrug and investigate what flavours of J2O the place had.

If you are not an alcoholic not drinking really isn’t that big a deal. Maybe similar to being told that the restaurant has sold out of sticky toffee pudding - “what a shame - oh well I’ll have lemon cheesecake instead”.

I get why people would think that they have addiction issues themself, heard it 100 times, but they guinuinely don't. Dad works 6 days a week so hasn't got time to drink every day. Mom has all the time on her hands, but she doesn't. They enjoy a Saturday night pee up, but it's not a need. They don't crawl the walls for drink like I do. Hence why I genuinely find it even worse that they refuse. If they were alcoholics themselves then it'd be understandable but they're not.

"If they want me in their life and love me then I can't get my head around why they won't agree to it."

Yeah, i can't.

Sorry hit post too soon.

"If they want me in their life and love me then I can't get my head around why they won't agree to it."

You've summed it up there, and sorry to be brutal but they don't love you. Not how parents should, wanting to help their child live their best life. As a PP said, you risk serious health problems or worse with your drinking at the level it has been. Don't let your parents have the power to cause more damage than they already have.

OP, If they only drink at weekends and on holiday, you can avoid them at these times. Keep comms to phone calls and day time visits. Your recovery should be lead by you and they shouldn't get a say in it. You need to stop drinking. Whatever they do is up to them.

You have been so neglected as a child their obscene treatment of you and lack of support is just accepted. Their prioritisation of a holiday over your LIFE is outrageous but met with understanding from you. Your addiction WILL kill you and yet as long as you stay in their sphere of addiction they don’t care.

The issue for them is your sobriety is effectively holding a mirror to not only their addiction but more importantly what sits behind it.

Please consider low contact on your own terms. You can meet for breakfast on Sunday mornings only, if only your Dad comes or neither so be it. At some point they will have to concede. You have to put your foot down. Draw the boundary. Stick to at all costs.

Your parents addiction can’t come before your health and life. It has always come first, and that has to now change.

Get as much support as you can. Pull out of the holiday, let them kicK off, they will live, you may not.

And yet they are happy to let it destroy you?
It is exceedingly painful to face the fact that they don’t love, care or protect you as they should, and their parenting or lack of has caused so much damage.

Please get some support that is ongoing.

This. Good luck OP.

And OP, they are addicts

Their need to drink comes before their child. Although you do have to do this yourself. Are you seeing a gp or drug and alcohol rehab?

The NHS website says you can take medicine to help reduce the cravings?
There are 2 main types of medicines to help people stop drinking.
The first is to help stop withdrawal symptoms and is given in reducing doses over a short period of time. The most common of these medicines is chlordiazapoxide (Librium).
The second is a medicine to reduce any urge you may have to drink. The most common medicines used for this are acamprosate and naltrexone.
These are both given at a fixed dose, and you'll usually be on them for 6 to 12 months.

Your alcoholic parents (which is what they are even though 'you're the one with the problem') also have an illness, which blighted your childhood and casts its shadow over all your lives.

It's their job to take control over their behaviour, and they are nowhere near as far along the personal development as you are. They're in denial, which is an additional weight for you.

Can I be very direct, you are making excuses and blaming your parents as a way to continue drinking. You’re making it not your fault . There are plenty of ways to see your parents that don’t involve alchohol , you can go for lunch in a cafe. Go for a walk. During the week when your father doesn’t drink . It doesn’t need to be a weekend evening when you know they do. You need to decide what’s more important, going to Greece or sobriety, no one will force you on the plane.

getting sober will involve sacrifices, it will involve making significant changes to your life style. Making different choices.

if you chose not to make better and different choices, not to make those sacrifices. Then this is your choice and only yours, not your parents.