A
female
age
30-35,
anonymous
writes:MY question isn't really relationship related, but it is Family related and that's very important to have a good relationship with your family.My problem is that I think my dad has finally reached the point of being an alcoholic. I never wanted to fully believe it, but even my mom finally said it the other day. It's getting to the point where she's not even sure if she can handle it anymore. She's actually been trying to find ways to get out of the house to get away from it since it's just him and her now.I am grateful that my father is not abusive or aggressive when drunk, he just becomes a danger to himself, and in some ways to others. Basically, he's been a heavy drinker for at least 10 years, if not longer. It used to be a heavy addiction to cigarettes when he was younger, but once he got off that he became addicted to alcohol to fill the void of not smoking anymore. Unfortunately he never got off the alcohol, and has even gotten worse now. What bothers us (my mom and I mostly), is that he acts as if his life depends on alcohol. He can't go one day without a drink. On a typical weekday, when he works, he'll get home at 3:00pm, now 2:00pm, as my mom recently told me and from that point on he'll make drink after drink after drink. (Basic rum and coke, but it's usually 2/3 rum). In one hour I swear he goes through 2 or three mixed drinks at a time. It just seems like every 15 minutes he gets up to make another drink. Even when he reaches the drunk point every night, he'll still go to the fridge and make another drink which he ends up not finishing cuz he passes out.He won't leave the house after 5:00pm. He just wants to drink and watch tv from 5:00 til 9:00 or 10:00 pm. That's a lot of drinks if you think about it. Granted he is on the bigger side because of all the alcohol over the years. He has a definite huge beer belly, so I know it takes more alcohol to get him drunk but still, it reaches ridiculous limits. I don't even want to get into weekends. And that's when sometimes we have relatives over and he drinks even more because he thinks they need to all drink to have a good time. It's the first thing he offers when his brother or sister comes by. Luckily my grandparents (his parents) aren't aware of how bad it's gotten. They do know he drinks, but I don't think they have any idea how bad it is. But they finally saw it last Thanksgiving. Usually at get-togethers he's fine until the later hours after my grandparents have left, but last Thanksgiving he had too much and started getting weird like he always does. He becomes nearly impossible to talk to because he can't remember anything, his mind slows way down,he wobbles when he stands in place, his eyes become tired looking and almost glazed over as if he can't see clearly, and he starts repeating himself. My grandparents asked my mom what was wrong with him and she had to explain that he had had a bit too much.I'm worried for my mom. I know she struggles having to deal with his drinking habits. 1.) she can't go out and do much because he refuses to go with her because he just wants to stay home and watch TV and drink and there's not much fun you can do by yourself. They never socialize with other couples, no dinners out, or if they do go out it absolutely HAS to be somewhere he can get a beer.2.) Things like the Thanksgiving incident embarrasses her. Half the time he does similar stuff that just embarrasses her to no end. Example, when family's over, he'll reach his overly-drunk stage and repeat himself. We'll be staying up late talking and he'll finally say he's going to bed and we'll walk him to the bedroom because we know if he falls asleep he won't drink anymore, but he'll go in the bedroom and eventually come back out and say all his goodnights all over again and it becomes annoying and bothersome. The next day it seems like he can't remember anything from after supper. (around 5:00pm). 3.) He's a danger to himself and my mom feels like she has to babysit him. One night at our aunt and uncles house/grandparents house (they live across the street from each other), my dad fell down in the bathroom just trying to stand to go to the bathroom and he ended up cracking his head opened because he fell backward into the bathtub. Lately my mom explained that now he'll start cooking something who knows what time of the night, while she's downstairs watching TV. And she's hard of hearing, so sometimes she won't hear like the beep of the oven or the clatter of pans and such, so she has no idea he's cooking. Then he'll come downstairs or she'll find him sleeping on the couch and suddenly she'll smell something burning. What scares me is that she has a hard time staying up late and sometimes falls asleep around 7:00pm, and if she falls asleep and he's cooking and forgets about the oven, the house could start on fire and they could lose everything if not their own lives.4.) Many times my mom has to do stuff she's not 100% comfortable doing but has to because he's too drunk to do anything. Most of the time it involves driving. Like just the other night. I had come home from college to visit and on Sunday night she had to drive me over to a friends house (no car with me at college), at 9:30pm to catch a train leaving at 11:00pm. And that was just a 10-15 min drive. Luckily before we left we were able to get him to lay down in bed. If she had actually driven me to the train station an hour or so away, things could have gotten really bad if he decided to get out of bed. But when she got home I asked her if he had done anything, and she said he had locked their bedroom door from the inside and there's no keyhole, just a single circular hole that you need a special tool to pop the lock. My dad had shown her earlier how to unlock it with a toothpick and she spent nearly 10 mins trying to get it unlocked.5.) The cost. He buys one or two bottles of Bacardi nearly every week and their bill goes up and up. Not to mention how fast he goes through these bottles. The way my mom put up with it is by convincing him to pay for these bottles with cash instead of using their credit card. 6.) Because he gets drunk so early and seems to always be home really soon, if something happens to her on her way home or if she goes out late for something, she's worried she can't call him for help cuz he'll already be out of it. It happened when I begged my mom to go to a outdoor concert at a fair in a town about an hour away that we weren't all that familiar with. She begged my dad to go because she doesn't like driving at night and he's good at finding his way around and remembering roads. She finally gave in anyways and we went. Unfortunately the show started late, (around 9:00-9:30 pm) and still wasn't over by 11:30pm. It got to the point where it was close to midnight and I knew my mom had gotten uninterested in the concert and wanted to go home so I told her let's just go and I had to drive since she had only a few drinks at the outdoor event. She was still fully aware of everything but just wanted to be on the safe side by having me drive, even though we were both worried because it was dark out and we had to drive on country roads which all look the same at night. We reached the point where we were lost and I was kinda scared and she didn't know where to go. She tried calling him to ask for help because he would know how to direct us to the right road, but he was drunk and completely out of it and no help at all!! She got so pissed and hung up the phone. We were full of mixed feelings because we were lost, it was dark, and we just wanted to get home. So that showed her, she couldn't rely on him to be there for her in case of an emergency. Basically while all this is infuriating and just getting incredibly hard to deal with, the worst part is, that we have tried repeatedly to talk him out of drinking. Not like quitting, we just ask him to cut back just a little at a time. Just so he doesn't get drunk so quick and so often. But he refuses! I've often told him bluntly outright that I don't like it, I'm afraid he's going to die before even seeing my kids when I get older or heck even that he won't be there on my wedding day.His problem is that he's selfish. Yea he says he cares about us, but not enough to stop drinking even for just a day. The doctor tells him to just cut to a glass of wine a day yet he refuses because he wants to live his life the way he wants. In his mind yea he might die early but at least he's getting to eat and drink the way he wants with no one telling him what to do. My uncle (dad's younger brother) sees it the most outside of my mom, older brother, and I, and he knows how we feel about it, but he really just wants to stay out of it. He intervenes when he feels it's necessary but other than that, he doesn't really have it in him to be strict or aggressive towards my dad. And I feel like he'd be the only other one who could help us since he's family. But my dad doesn't want to change his ways at all. I understand wanting to live your life the way you want and that it IS his life, but even if you want to shouldn't the decision to marry and have kids make you put your wants aside and care for them more? I feel so helpless and worry so much about my mom now, especially since my brother and I are out of the house. I feel like we're just putting up with him until the fateful day where he just has a heart attack, gets liver cancer, or something else equally awful, and he just dies right then and there. I've gotten to the point where I understand what's going through my mom's head and that if she did divorce my dad after 21 years of marriage, that honestly I wouldn't blame her. I actually think it would be a wise decision on her part, but I feel that if it did happen, my dad's drinking would be worse or that he'd kill himself (his younger sister did). I'm worried for my mom and I don't know what to do. How do you get help for someone who doesn't want it?
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Fancy yourself as an agony aunt? Add your answer to this question! A
male
reader, anonymous, writes (6 November 2012): "I'm worried for my mom and I don't know what to do. How do you get help for someone who doesn't want it?"
You can't get help for someone who doesn't want it, you can only get help for yourself and your family in coping with the drinking problem that your father refuses to admit he has.
Google Al-Anon (for families of problem drinkers) and Alateen (from young persons affected by parents' drinking) for information on meetings in your area.
Best wishes.
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