Sons and Daughters of Alcoholics

What a great post. I grew up with an alcoholic mother and found my own ways to cope. Back then, I had no internet nor any friends with whom I could relate. My family turned a blind eye. So it was me my mom and her 'dark secret'. I used to give my friends at school hell sometimes and always wished I could tell them why I was being such a dick. But I see it as an experience that I learned alot from. Yeah, I had to grow up alot faster than most, but that only prepared me for the pitfalls of life. I always tried to see it as a disease (which I guess it is kinda) and seperated, in my mind, the mom who cared, and was sober, from the sickly and pitiful one.

 

I didn't really want to post here, but I think I will. From another perspective, that of an alcoholic/addict. It isn't an easy path to get out of, in fact it usually takes a lot of pain before people become willing to go to any extent to change. I knew who I was hurting, maybe not exactly how badly or how much, but I knew. This created a ridiculous amount of shame and guilt. The worse it got the less I knew how to handle it and the more I had to drink and use to get over it. Its not the easiest thing to accept, that I have no control over any of it. Trying to stop so many times and not being able to is very frustrating. So many people try to displace it onto other people or things.

It's an ugly disease, and people active in addiction usually cannot do it alone, but those who are not alcoholics around them can only do so much. I won't continue on much more, but for anyone with questions about addiction or living with an addict, feel free to pm me. I'd be happy to talk.

 

thanks for posting this my dad is an alcoholic and this really helped me

 

Thank you for posting this :') It'll come in handy next time my dad gets drunk because I never know what to do...

 

I grew up with my dad suffering from depression and a drink problem, he took control but the damage was done and slowly he died of liver faliure. But his death started my begining to become a nurse to help people. I saw his suffering and did as much as I could to help. So I view his problem not as a bad thing, but as a thing that made me realise what the danger of alcohol is and what I want to do with my life

 

My father was an alcoholic for years and damaged all of us (my whole family) mentally and emotionally as a result of his drunken abuse. It took him almost dying before he finally snapped out of it. He is a much better father today.

I do think I am more prone to becoming an alcoholic myself as I find myself enjoying beer and other liquors much more than the average joe, but I think I will be okay since I have first hand experience of what alcoholism can do to a person.

 

my mother was an alocholic. my mom and sister would always get into these violet fights , hit , kick , punch eachother. it scared the hell out of me
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My parents drink like fish. They are emotionally, verbally, and sometimes physically abusive towards me. It really gets me down, and I avoid contact with them as much as possible. It takes a heavy toll on me, and I know that I do not want to drink, ever, because I would hate myself, even more, for ending up like them.

 

Thanks for posting this. It really helps; my mom is an alcoholic and gets out of control when she gets drunk. Just hearing that it's not my fault and that I don't have to be that way too is comforting.

 

What a great post. Helpful and informative. A wealth of information for those of us with alcoholic parents...and I am in my 40's. It never goes away even as you age you must deal with it. Thanks

 

My entire family are all Alcoholics. Yes, Mom (who died 25 years sober last Aug.), Dad, sister, and my brother. All drunks to some degree or another. Is that sad or what?

 

AloneOutHere- Go on line and find a Alateen/Al-Anon group. Its not your fault. I was once told "If you can't buy alcohol then what good are you. Worthless." Any logic or truth in that sentence?Nope it was said by someone who chose addiction over parenting.
TrannyDude: Um 1 fire incident is enough. You need to find a safe place. please.
All: Wish I could give you all hugs. Been where you are. It sucks. Have hope. Reach out for help. Sending love.

---------- Post added 15th Mar 2013 at 05:07 AM ----------

Just noticed couple of my comments were to very old comments. Alcoholism still sensitve topic. Still sending love and hug. Hope you all are safe amd getting support.

 

I have broken the cycle of drinking. I simply do not enjoy being drunk. And drink beers, but only 3 to 4 times per year.

But I have suffered dysfunctional, and the erratic behaviors, and been conditioned to repeat the destructive behaviors. Last summer my Mom died. I was there and trying to spend quality time, and planning for the end. My sister was at me non-stop arguing and harrasing me until I thought I would break. It is bad enough when you lose your Mother, but to have a sibling going at you screaming and fighting right at that time is really brutal.

Thankfully I live across the country from all of them, and they are not big factors in my current daily life. It's still sad that all of them drink and nobody (except me) side-stepped this, even with education, and seeing what can happen first hand.

 

Hi, everyone. Sorry to post at an old thread, but I kind of need to open up about this.
My mom has drunk beer, lots and lots of it, ever since I can remember. Until I was 10, she called it "mommy's milk". Until I was in college, I didn't realize her destructive behavior wasn't my fault.
When sober and in good mood, she's the best mother in the world. However, she has some serious issues about her family and childhood, which make her emotionally unstable. The drinking (and I'm talking from 3 to 36 beer cans/day, everyday) makes it worse. She's always been heavily emotionally, verbally and mentally abusive to my brother, my father and I. When my brother and I were still children, she'd use discipline as an excuse to hit us, even for things as eating too slowly or reading a magazine while getting dressed after shower. She did things I'll never forget, but she probably doesn't remember them. I feel that, once we - brother and I - past the age of "need" for physical discipline, the verbal abuse got worse, as in a way to compensate.
I think you would know it, but most of my friends don't know what it is to be ten years old and completely responsible for the emotional stability of a alcoholic person in her late thirties. They don't know what it's like to take an hour-log shower to don't let anyone hear you cry and to get the tears stains away from your face, they don't know what it's like to hopelessly cry yourself to sleep alone in your bedroom, everyday, every night, from the age of mid 10 to late 13. They don't know how much it hurts on the inside to have to hold a facade to the outer world because your drunk mother doesn't want anyone to know of the family's problems - and because she yells that you're playing victim when you cry in front of anyone. When I told my best friend I was seriously thinking of suicide, she thought I was joking. I tried, failed because I didn't have much knowledge on it, hid it and never even told anyone in my family about it.
Despite of everything, I still trusted my mom, so I went out to her when I first fell in love with a girl. By then, I hadn't yet associated her nasty behavior to alcohol, and I made the mistake of telling her after she had had a few beers - not that things would've been much different, I guess. Her reaction was horrible, and the emotional, verbal and mental abuse got way worse than ever before. For a year and a half, I had to put up with her calling me the worst thing a human being can call another, saying I was disgusting, a child of the Devil, that I'd brought deep sorrow to my father by being such an aberration. It was all so bad I went back in the closet and did whatever she told me to, trying to dismiss her anger. In the process, I got really hurt on the inside and I'm sure I hurt other people, like the girl who I had a mutual crush on - and then I only felt worse. I gained almost 30kg (about 60lbs) in two years, I had no friends who I trusted deeply, and I hated school, but I hated even more being home.
Now I'm ok. I have a job, so I know I'll be fine if I ever have to leave home. I got over my guilt about both my mom and my sexuality. I lost half of the weight I got in this bad phase. I know who I am and I know I'll be able to stand on my own two feet. But I won't tell my mom I'm actually gay again, not for now, at least. Not because of fear, but because, despite of the monster alcohol turns her into, she tries the best she can to be a good mom and I love her a lot, and she's going through a though phase - suspect of cancer, her parents are ill and living with my unbearable aunt, anemia.
If I were to make a point here is that it gets better when you understand that it's not your fault and that you can't take to your heart what the alcoholic person says. But no, it never hurts less, the pain doesn't go away and the depression crisis may always return. It just gets easier to keep on going.
I'm sorry for this huge post, but I just had to put it out of my chest. I don't talk about it to people other than my dad and my brother (to whom I don't talk about being gay). I don't like bothering people with my problems.
Thanks for being here.