am I turning into my father??

[lightstar]

honestly I have accepted his drink problem and I chose a long time ago not to let it affect me or my family anymore. I used to stress like mad over him but I am now at that point where I am like "hes a grown man, he is responsible for him and I cannot let him control my life or hurt me anymore" I have made my feelings clear to him and my mother. I have told her to leave or he will never stop. But its their lives. They are adults. I am their child and I am sick of always having to be the grown up. Now I am focusing on my own kids, my husband, my family.

I have no desire to create interventions or call the police on him. I think he will only stop if he wants to and he has to do it for himself-not for me or anyone else. I just don't ever want to be like him and I wont be as I only allow myself to drink occasionally and I never drink before 8pm. It is a rule I have. I always eat first and if I am hungover, I punish myself by making sure we take the kids out for the day which is difficult when you feel like shit lol 😂 it then makes me not drink again for ages

[Wakeup]

As long as Op and her mother (and any other family members) keep enabling him to be the irresponsible drunk that he is by not doing anything out of fear of being without, then he will NEVER change and lets hope if he ever has a drunk driving accident that it only involves himself.

You people really need to stop being the enablers that you are and kick his ass out of your lives and not allow him back until he is sober for at least a year and attending either personal therapy or AA.

Y'all should be in Al-anon to help you with your enabling tendencies.

[lightstar]

That is easier said then done. When it is a parent-child relationship, it is not easy to just kick somebody out of your life.

And I am done emotionally, mentally.. I have already accepted that he is probably going to kill himself and drink himself into an early grave.

The drink driving bothers me but other than that, I just don't care anymore. I am numb to it.

[TheEvilJester]

I think we can all definitely understand that him being your father makes it extremely difficult for you to kick him out of your life. The thing is, he is making that inevitable anyway. If he keeps up his abuse of alcohol it WILL eventually lead to some kind of problem. He may cause an accident and hurt himself and/or hurt others. God forbid, if he were to lose his life in some way as result of his drinking problem, that would remove him from your life permanently in a way that can never be changed.

If you and your family kick him out of your life unless he agrees to get help, then that leaves open the possibility that he gets the help he needs and is welcomed back into your lives. That is removing him from your life in a way that CAN possibly some day be fixed.

Believe me, I understand, as I think we all do, how hard that would be for you to do. None of us mean to imply that it is so easy to do that to any loved one, much less somebody as close as your father. The problem is, as far as he is concerned right now, there are no consequences to his drinking problem. At least none about which he cares enough. Maybe that would change if he started losing people who could no longer sit by and watch him self-destruct. That is the whole point of an intervention. It is to show them what they can and will lose if they do not get help in hopes of that being the motivation they need.

You are right that you cannot make somebody do anything. You are right that he won't stop unless he wants to stop. The point, though, is that he may well want to stop if he sees that it will cost him consequences he could not live with facing. That could include losing his loved ones. You say that you've accepted that he isn't going to change and that you don't let it bother you..... but he's still in your life. So, no matter how much you may think you've moved on from any hope of him changing, you won't realize how deeply it will truly affect you unless something terrible happens. So, if he's still in your life, you've not really accepted the situation and moved on appropriately.

Again, please don't misunderstand as I know I certainly don't and I don't think anybody else here intends to blame you or your family for having a hard time with the idea of removing him from your lives. You are enabling him to continue his bad habits, but I get that this is not your intention.

I certainly understand if you are unwilling to do anything, but I just hope you can at least consider what we have said here. He's not going to change if he never feels like there are consequences for his poor behavior. God willing, hopefully those consequences don't have to cost him and/or anybody else their lives.

[Wakeup]

^^^ What he said...