I’ve lived with the effects of alcoholism for what feels like my entire life. There was a 13 year gap when both my parents decided to come clean and leave alcohol behind for religion. Those 13 years were the best of my life and then the roller coaster reached the top of the hill and everything good disappeared. As the years passed and the kids grew up and moved out to start their own families, alcohol became a bigger part of my parents` lives. Eventually, alcohol was too much and my mother took her own life to escape the world she had created with my dad. Today, my dad is an alcoholic and I can’t live with the late night calls filled with slurred speech and idle threats. How can I forgive my alcoholic parent?
Understanding That Alcoholism is a Disease
Alcoholism is a disease; an addiction. I understand the medicine behind the disease, but my dad’s alcoholism is more than that. He’s quit drinking for months, even years, and lived life with the brightest aura of any person I’ve ever met. He chooses to drink because he doesn’t want to feel the pain of life without his wife; a pain that no one but he can come to terms with. Behind that drinking is a set of personal demons that the hard headed man I call dad will never talk about. He was the last person with my mother the night she died. The suicide note did not mention his name and he is left searching for a reason; a why, that will never appear. Alcoholism is a disease, but my dad doesn’t drink because he has to.
Working With My Personal Demons
Personal demons can often get in the way of looking at a situation with objectivity. As a parent, I must understand that forgiving my alcoholic parent is crucial to the relationships my children have with their grandfather, but my personal demons continue to step in front of that logical thought. I fear my children living the life I knew as normal with late night binges and a house full of strangers drinking until early in the morning. I fear my children learning the words drunk and alcoholic and connecting those with their grandfather. I want my children to remember their grandfather as the cool guy who took them for rides on the 4-wheeler each summer, not a shell of the former man.
Laying Down the Ground Rules With Consequences
I’ve still not come to terms with how I will forgive my father for being an alcoholic, but I know I have to forgive him somehow. When I finally take that step to talk with him once again, I will have note cards outlining the rules of our relationship, including leaving the phone on the hook when he’s been drinking and never asking me again for my forgiveness in regards to my mother’s death. These are my rules; yours will differ. If the rules cannot be met, your parent needs to understand there will be consequences. My consequences are simple – call drunk asking to speak to me or my children again and all connection will be cut-off.
Alcoholism robs a parent of the ability to support their children the way children need to be supported throughout life. Just because my dad is a certain age doesn’t give him the right to push his pain onto everyone around him. Just because my dad feels hurts and letdown by my mother’s suicide doesn’t give him the right to make everyone around him feel guilty for his pain. Forgiving an alcoholic parent is extremely hard, but I hope working through the problems and talking about the effects of alcoholism on our relationship will provide a clear path we both can walk together for the rest of our lives.
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