For those of you who only had or have one alcoholic parent, I'm curious to know how the other parent operated. Did they take control of the situation? Did they live in denial? Did they go off the deep end? Did they abandon you to remain with the alcoholic parent? Were they supportive of you, explain what was happening, etc.? Did they take out their frustrations on you? Did they get help from their families or friends?
My own mother (who was not the alcoholic) lived in complete denial. She did not tell her family, his family, her friends until it was so obvious (i.e., he worked drunk, driving drunk, falling over drunk) that she couldn't deny it anymore. Both of my parents were completely emotionally absent and other than the one time I can remember my mother saying "maybe you should get counselling," I don't recall her ever offering any advice or comfort. And at 17 - which I think is the time she suggested counselling to me - I wasn't mature enough to know how to go about that on my own.
My own mother (who was not the alcoholic) lived in complete denial. She did not tell her family, his family, her friends until it was so obvious (i.e., he worked drunk, driving drunk, falling over drunk) that she couldn't deny it anymore. Both of my parents were completely emotionally absent and other than the one time I can remember my mother saying "maybe you should get counselling," I don't recall her ever offering any advice or comfort. And at 17 - which I think is the time she suggested counselling to me - I wasn't mature enough to know how to go about that on my own.
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Re: The Alcoholic Parent vs the Non-Alcoholic Parent
Tue, June 5, 2007 - 2:08 PMboth of my parents were alcoholics. although, since they only drank/drink after a specific time each day and only drank at home, they never saw themselves as alcoholics. none of the relatives lived close and my parents didn't have friends and were unsocial, so basically it was the way of life and it was my brother and I who lived in denial, since we really didn't know any different. -
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Re: The Alcoholic Parent vs the Non-Alcoholic Parent
Tue, June 5, 2007 - 2:25 PMCyni... your situation is almost identical to mine... as far as they only did it at home after work... but with mine, they both did it more after they were divorced. my mom went out with "the guys" after work every night to the bar, and my dad sat quietly at his house alone and drank... they both ramped up over the years. The worst part for my father happened after I had left home for the military, and was at home on leave... i didn't visit as much as they wanted, i just couldnt' deal with it... after i got out of the service and moved back into my hometown, and still didn't visit and hang out all that much, my dad started to get the point.. add in the fact that my sister was not leaving her children there at night, no matter how much they wanted to keep them... a few people in my family had strong talks with him... nothing was working, but then he got sick, with pneumonia, and the doctors had him very medicated for a few days, and he realized he had gone 4 days without drinking and just decided he would never do it again... he hasn't... and i'm so thankful...
my mother is a different story, she moved to SC with her new man, and drank more and more... the two of them got drunk every night after work, and all day on weekends... my brother and i would go to visit and i would get sick every time, the stress of it just ate at me... the boyfriend began to hate me... says i'm judgemental... it came to a point where he has told my mother she has to choose between him and us.. she chose him... but swears that she didn't choose at all, she just still lives with him and drinks ALL the time... She has driven into a house, fallen in stores, had to go to the ER many times for seizures... all from alcohol... but i'm wrong for pointing my finger at the JIM beam bottle as a crutch and culprit.... now we hardly talk, i can't be happy go lucky when she's killing herself... the latest thing is that her kidneys are failing... she is going to die.... unless she quits... i've just accepted that she is going to die...
back to topic... my father now feels sorry for my mom, and tries to help my brother and i deal with how she is. my stepmother just shakes her head and tut-tuts... its weird, at first he was drunker and she was helpful in understanding, but now she's the drunk one and he's helpful.... its harder for my brother, as he is hurt by it all, but hurt more by watching me try to protect his feelings in all of it... what can ya do.... -
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Re: The Alcoholic Parent vs the Non-Alcoholic Parent
Tue, June 5, 2007 - 3:01 PMyeah, I can't handle hanging out with my parents for very long. over time, I didn't stay the evening/night because I didn't want to be around them when they drank. not that they ever really did anything hostile/violent or whatever, just that they weren't present and it was just the same stories, etc... when they were sober during the day, it seems like they're just trying to keep busy until it was drinking time. they were never there emotionally, or when you would ask them for advice or wanted to discuss meaningful things.
I think my mom just drank with my dad out of sympathy and to bury her feelings about all that. I don't know if she would have left if she had the chance, but she didn't. -
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Re: The Alcoholic Parent vs the Non-Alcoholic Parent
Tue, June 5, 2007 - 8:48 PMWhat can ya do indeed...I guess I've come to realize that the answer is "not much." Of course, we can be there for the alcoholic and support them as best we can. We can offer advice. We can offer emotional support. We can be strong when they can't. We can try to be loving and empathetic, forgiving, etc. But ultimately, they may not accept any of that. And in the end, they are responsible for their own actions. I guess that's one thing I've learned over time. I DON'T have control over anyone other than myself, least of all a parent who is (or in my case, was) addicted to alcohol. I think one of the challenges we ACOAs face is learning to live with that lack of control...accepting that some things will happen no matter what we do and no matter how much we don't want them to happen. Thoughts? I suppose that's a life lesson in general really isn't it? -
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Re: The Alcoholic Parent vs the Non-Alcoholic Parent
Tue, June 5, 2007 - 11:07 PMLike others, both of my parents were alcoholics, although I think my mother drank with my father out of sympathy/empathy, whereas he has had a lifelong compulsion to drink (and do other drugs). After they split up, my mother got sober whereas my father never did. In terms of the denial question, the funny thing is that everyone in our family knew and they never did anything about it. That's probably because denial is a family disease (my grandfather was an alcoholic, my grandmother was an ACOA, and on and on). This stuff really goes deep and perpetuates in never ending cycles unless and until someone gets into recovery- thank god I have started working hard on addressing these issues within myself, and my sister and I are moving further and further away from denial, and as a result have started expecting our parents to stand on their own two feet and act like adults. It's hard to let go of trying to control the outcome, especially when it's so painful to see someone you love destroying themselves, but realizing that you have no control is a liberating feeling. It frees you up to work on yourself and your own issues, and gives you some power to decide how you want to interact with your parents as an adult, rather than going into sad/bitter/angry/resentful child mode whenever you're around them ( I've been doing this my whole life!- esp. around my dad). Today I feel more free to choose whether and how to be around my parents, and how to feel about them, because I've got more of a perspective of loving detachment. I love them and I want them to be healthy, but I can't do it for them. I can't make them do anything. I can just love them, hope and pray for the best, and release the outcome.
What I have trouble with is being angry at my extended family for not trying to intervene. They knew that our household was in total chaos, and no one did a damn thing to help us. That's something I still can't get my head around. -
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Re: The Alcoholic Parent vs the Non-Alcoholic Parent
Wed, June 6, 2007 - 7:54 AMWell put Jade. Thank you for that. I agree with everything you've said. Although my dad is not a drinker anymore, he's a pill-popper and my youngest brother is an alcoholic and he lives with and cares for them. He is 28, has never worked, has tried suicide twice that I know of, etc. The codependent relationship they have makes it extremely difficult for me to go home. I confronted my parents about medicating my brother, which they admitted to. Besides being criminal, it's just plain sick. I truly feel that they are so selfish that they've in a way made him their slave because they are too childlike to take care of themselves.
So, I have a hard time not retreating into angry/resentful child mode when I'm around them. It's so obviously dysfunctional to a "normal" person. As long as I don't hear anything from my other family members, I can more or less keep up with loving detachment, partly by not living near them. And I have already forgiven myself for the outcome which appears to be quite evident to me. I know there is nothing I can do because I've been trying for 20 years. I can only empathize, offer support if they ask for it (which they never do) and be there for my other siblings in their struggles over it. And ya, there is some freedom in getting to that realization. Guilt still creeps in every now and then, but one visit or phone call home is usually all it takes for me to return to detachment.
I've found your words reassuring and thoughtful Jade. So thanks again for sharing :)
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Re: The Alcoholic Parent vs the Non-Alcoholic Parent
Tue, April 29, 2008 - 2:39 AMMy father was the alcoholic. My mom was verbally abusive and pissed all the time. (As an adult, I understand now that she was angry and trapped in her situation.) My dad was the supportive caring one. But he got very sick towards the end (skinny legs and arms and swollen belly) and died in a one car crash two days before my 13th birthday. My mom was emotionally incompetent. She never talked about any of it with us kids. She took out her frustrations on me and my dad (my siblings -two sisters- were polarized toward her). It's been nearly 40 years since my dad's death and she is still very emotionally immature.
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Re: The Alcoholic Parent vs the Non-Alcoholic Parent
Tue, April 29, 2008 - 10:51 AMMy father is the alcoholic in my family and my mother is not so much in denial as in some sort of selective denial. Her parents know, a few friends, that's about it. She has never taken control of the situation, never used the word "alcoholic". I now live 5 states away and talk to her everyday, sometimes multiply times. Every time he has a "bad" night, she gives me the most minute details of how it went and I want to scream, "that's why I moved 5 states away!" The irony is I prefer my father (sober) to my mother.
