Adult children of alcoholic parents

[Quirky]

I am trying to shake off a guilt that I shouldn't have and I am going to pursue this through my counselling or through AL anon.
Happyone
xx

Very positive step, well done

Lisa x

[yorkylover]

Hi I can relate in some ways,my dad used to drink when I was a child.And my brother is an alcoholic.

[Coni]

Hi happyone,

I can relate to a lot of what has been said here by you and honeybee. My mum started drinking heavily after my dad died when I was 18. I know she was struggling to cope but I also felt I had to be the parent, while trying to grieve for my dad. That weighed heavily on my shoulders...I was so scared (she was suicidal too), angry, upset...I didnt know what to do. She continued to drink throughout my adult life until she died a year and a half ago. I have so many mixed emotions. Your both so right, the bitterness and anger and guilt are difficult while you still love someone. I also feel a strong sense of loss and probably grief for what 'might' or 'should ' have been. There are many other things mixed up withthis for me too but sometimes I feel so much like a child and I just long for someone to give me cuddle,tell me Im ok and look after me for a while.

Hugs to you all

Coni X

[W.I.F.T.S.]

My dad is an alcoholic, although he'd never admit it. As far as he's concerned, you have to have a bottle of Vodka for breakfast to be an alcoholic. For most of his life he's gone to the pub every night and drunk until he's drunk, very often ordering two pints at last orders. He also goes out in the afternoons and gets steaming drunk. He's not a pleasant drunk either. When my parents separated I used to dread him coming home from the pub when I stopped at his house because he'd make me feel so guilty and bad about myself that I'd end up in floods of tears. He also used to go to the pub all afternoon when he had me and my brother for visiting and, because kids weren't allowed in in those days, we'd be sat outside the pub all afternoon waiting for him.

His parenting skills are pretty woeful. I was deeply upset about my granddad's funeral on friday and (sober) he started on me about not going to work during the morning and allowing someone else to drive to the crematorium. I'm starting to think of him more an more as a sadistic older brother than a father, he seems to get pleasure out of knocking me down and telling me what a useless waster I am. I currently live with him and my gran and he loves 'stirring' it with her, so that when I come home she's got a bee in her bonnet about something and she starts on me straight away. I think that he has a lot of issues. He seems to be getting more kind of arrogant: "are you making me a cup of tea?" (as soon as I come home from work), "are you giving me a lift to the pub?" (to my brother, as soon as he arrives to visit him....most people would have spent some time with my brother first and then got a lift as he was leaving). My brother's wife has a rule that everyone has to take their shoes off at their house and he wanders through in muddy shoes and decides to put the tv on and watch some horse racing! This is all whilst he's sober, by the way. He also has a tendency to lie....he told my mum whilst they were married that he had a collapsed lung!

At the moment, I really don't think that he's a very nice person. I think that much of my anxiety, depression and self-loathing is attributable to him putting me down and telling me I'm useless all my life. When I came home from London after having suffered a breakdown he said "don't you think it's all a bit of an excuse?". I think that my perfectionist qualities come from trying to impress him and earn his love. I can only ever once remember him telling me that he's proud of me. No wonder, that nothing is ever good enough for me and that I feel that I can't do this or that "because I'd be disapproved of".

I think that most of my neuroses are to do with an oversensitivity to how my dad and my gran view me and how that affects my standing amongst the rest of the family. That was one of my biggest concerns when I had my breakdown: I've cocked up and let my family down, they were expecting so much of me. I came home from London and got a 'proper' job in a factory (even though I've got 4 A levels and a degree) to try and win back their approval. I stuck it for three and a half years, hating every second of it, because I felt pressured by them into stopping there in case I got myself into another mess. It takes the biscuit really, when my dad quit a job with a large chemical company after 30 years or whatever to go and be a security guard in a supermarket, then an icecream man and now a bookie!

If anyone's a waster, he's a waster. He spends his life at work, in bed, in the pub or watching telly. Unbelievable that he can make me feel so bad about myself, when he's got so little to write home about himself. The thing is that I do try and talk to him about what's going on with me and I do try and make an effort to spend quality time with him, not least because he's had heart trouble, but it feels like a one way street a lot of the time.

[happyone]

Hi
sorry to hear your mum passedaway Coni,
I think the death of a parent heightens the feelings that we have in terms of them drinking too much. My father passed away a few years ago and the guilt of saying things negative about him, weighed heavily.
I see guilt as such a destructive emotion and it confuses everything. It has taken me a while to realise that I can still love my mum dearly, but feel a sense of loss for what I didn't have as a child. Yet, I also had so much love as a child, it was just either very good or very bad. Just never normal. This book I am reading highlights that many parents who were children of alcoholics don't know what 'normal' is. My parenting skills are something I get so anx about, but on looking at them rationally, they are not that bad. I just have a strange yardstick to measure them by.

sometimes I feel so much like a child and I just long for someone to give me cuddle,tell me Im ok and look after me for a while.

We are all children really coni. We all want someone to look after us for a while and that is not wrong. I spend so much time wanting to be 'strong' and 'not needy' that I fail to recognise that I am indeed an individual who has fears, doubts and pain like any other person.

WIFTS, a lot of what you describe sounds so sad, yet so typical of being brought up in a household like this. I couldn't even begin to guess the psychology behind your fathers behaviour, but I would imagine that if he drinks that much, he is always to some degree affected by alcohol. Some people are never truelly sober as there is always alcohol in their bloodstream somewhere.
It doesn't sound though as if you are in the ideal situation for your anxiety and mental health.
Remember, this is not your problem You are not a bad person and the only person you have to prove yourself to is you. You don't even have to do that really, we shouldn't need to prove ourselves.

Take care folks

Happyone
xx

[Under~The~Stars]

Happy, what a very brave post, well done you I know that must have been hard.

I'm so sorry for everyone who has been affected by alcoholism. I can relate to that.

My thoughts are with you all xxx