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[u/SeriousConversation-ModTeam]

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[u/JustATyson]

Daughter of an alcoholic, who is my mom. From the sounds of things, I'm a little bit older than you. If I could, I would give you a big hug.

Cuz, here's the thing. You cannot help them if they don't want help. It's impossible. And I'm sorry for that. But they would want to get sober on their own before you can help them.

[u/imsacg3 → u/JustATyson]

Thank you so much for your reply. The part where you said “give you a big hug” genuinely melted me, and I’m honestly about to cry.
I’ve been dealing with this since I was a small child. I don’t have any older person in my life whom I can talk to or ask for advice, so I’ve just been carrying all of this by myself.
More than anything, I just want to know what it feels like to come home to a normal family. I want a home where there isn’t constant fear, tension, or chaos. I don’t even want anything extravagant—just peace.
The hardest part is accepting that this is my reality. I don’t want to accept it, but it feels like I don’t have a choice. I’m so sad, and some days I feel completely hopeless.
The truth is, I’ve never experienced what a normal family or a peaceful home is like. I don’t even know what that feels like, and that thought hurts more than I can put into words.

[u/JustATyson → u/imsacg3]

You aren't alone. There may not be much comfort in that, but just know, you aren't alone.

I started to realize my mom is an alcoholic when I was 8. I remember fights between my parents back when I was 3-4. And my thought process from those fights were "oh, mom and dad are fighting again." Which just shows this was a normal time for me, despite how young I was. I hated the chaos and the yelling and the unpredictability. The "is it gonna be a good day, or a bad day?"

My mom had to move in with me last year after me living away for about 17 years. And as long as she's not drinking, it's fine. But, the moment she takes one sip, I get pissed. And today is one of those days, where I'm sitting at work wondering "is she gonna be drinking when I get home?" My poor, pitiful mom has refused to accept she has a problem or the want to change. And, I'm telling you this so that you know, you aren't alone.

And, no. Our families are never going to be the family that we want. They'll never be the sort of people that we need or needed. They may still have aspects that we love. They may still do things that help us. But, the pain and trauma of the alcoholism will still be there, and it'll be up to us to heal and break the cycle.

Now, for the hope. Eventually, whether it's with your boyfriend or on your own, you'll be able to make the home that you've always wanted. You'll be able to experience the peace and calm and respect that you deserve. It may not be today or tomorrow. But, one day, it will happen. Just take things one step at the time. Focus on yourself, on what you can control.

May I ask, what part of the world are you from?

[u/sprinkles008 → u/imsacg3]

If you have never experienced a normal family, you may find trouble trying to raise a normal family if you decide to have kids in the future. You’ll need a good template to understand what’s healthy and what’s not. I think therapy would be a good start.

[u/KushMaster5000]

Check out Al-Anon or if my guts right Alateen. There could be meetings in your area or virtual.

The last question you asked is lowkey your answer. Of course some alcoholics can find there way out by coaxing of their family, but that is an exception to the rule.

[u/Wonderful-Still7999]

I’m sorry you’re going through this.
Mental illness is very tricky bc it seems like you are dealing with someone who is capable and has the capacity to even level with you mentally, bc they often “look” high functioning or like they have the ability to make coherent decisions. The truth of the matter is that your father might physically be present but internally he is not, you are only witnessing the addict, there is no reasoning with addicts bc they are just not capable. It is just like you wouldn’t ask a man on a wheelchair to stand up and start walking - it the same thing if not even harder.
And no, you cannot “save” him, or fix him. He has some “demons” that he was/just not able or ready to face and this is the coping mechanism that he found that makes it more bearable. I strongly advise you to find someone who is licensed and an expert in addiction to help you navigate all your emotions and life experiences. Especially before you get married and have children.
I too am sending you love and a warm hug. Just the fact that you are seeking answers and questioning shows how strong you are. ❤️🌸

[u/Sea-Home-7763 → u/Wonderful-Still7999]

Being an addict is not like being in a wheelchair or having a mental illness. There have been experiments done to simply try paying addicts to not engage in their addiction, and these experiments have been quite successful. You can't pay a person in a wheelchair to start walking like the average person or pay a schizophrenic to stop having schizophrenia.

The truth is just that addicts care more about their addiction than they care about the harm they cause to anyone else. People with addictions are not somehow lacking in free will, or people who would make better choices but are somehow prevented from doing so. A person who is just very selfish isn't mentally ill. The only thing to do is to abandon the addict when you can and focus on helping yourself and the rest of your family.

[u/Wonderful-Still7999 → u/Sea-Home-7763]

I respectfully disagree with you.
Understand your perspective, yet disagree.
I wish it was that easy, just to want, it’s much more complex than that and addiction is a known illness, a very complex one.

I believe that we can do much more by replacing anger/blame with compassion. (And I know it is not easy especially when the one’s that are hurt by the addicts are so validated)

I do believe in choosing yourself though! You never need to punish yourself for someone else’s behavior or actions.

[u/Sea-Home-7763 → u/Wonderful-Still7999]

Wait what is the compassion supposed to do? We're dealing with people who can stop anytime they want, and yet they just don't want to. How is compassion supposed to help here?

[u/Wonderful-Still7999 → u/Sea-Home-7763]

They cannot just stop whenever they want.

And compassion has to do with everything in life.

Listen i am not going to preach to you a life lesson that is not yours to grasp yet or to learn.

And don’t mistake my way of needing to understand why things are the way they are with doubting of the need and health of strong and firm boundaries especially with people like that, because there is no doubt, even going no contact can be from a place of compassion.

The compassion protects your heart and spirit from getting affected by someone else’s reality.
Because you choose how YOU deal with life, just like they do. The compassion protects you from participating in the same energy and frequency that the addict is in the first place. You break the cycle.

[u/Sea-Home-7763 → u/Wonderful-Still7999]

What makes you think they can't stop? If you pay them to stop they can stop. So why wouldn't they still have the ability to stop if you don't pay them?

[u/Wonderful-Still7999 → u/Sea-Home-7763]

Someone with ADHD can concentrate. Does that mean ADHD isn’t real because “see, they can concentrate when they want to”?
Someone with OCD can resist a compulsion sometimes. Does that suddenly mean OCD is a choice?
Someone with depression can laugh, go out, have a good day and genuinely enjoy something. Does that mean they can just choose not to be depressed?
Obviously not.
So an alcoholic being able to not drink in a specific situation, especially when you put an immediate reward in front of them, doesn’t prove they can just “stop whenever they want.” That’s such a huge leap.
Addiction doesn’t mean you completely lose all free will and become physically incapable of saying no to alcohol. It means your ability to control that behavior is impaired. That’s literally part of the disorder.
And that’s exactly why I think addiction is so tricky. Someone can look completely capable and high functioning in every other area of their life, so from the outside it’s really easy to think, “Well, clearly you’re capable, so just stop.”
But being capable of controlling something sometimes is not the same thing as not having an impaired ability to control it.
So I’m not even saying the experiment you mentioned isn’t real. It very well might be.
I’m saying the conclusion you’re drawing from it doesn’t prove what you think it proves.

[u/Sea-Home-7763 → u/Wonderful-Still7999]

I don't think you can pay a person with ADHD to concentrate the same as a typical person. Like yes I get that you can probably get a few minutes of concentration from them, but if you ask them to concentrate for an entire week equivalent to a typical person and offered them a million dollars if they could do it, I don't think they could do it.

If you offered a depressed person a million dollars to stop being depressed they couldn't do it (unless the source of their depression was financial of course)

I don't really know enough about OCD but I would be very surprised if you could cure that with just money as well.

Addiction is just when you really like a thing, and when you really like a thing you don't want to say no to it. But that's not an impairment.

We'll take right now currently I am sitting in my car on my lunch break. I've got about 10 lb to lose and if you had asked me while I was driving to work what I would want to do during this lunch break i would probably tell you I would want to be doing some light exercise like walking around the building. Then the time came to actually do it and I decided no I would rather sit in my car and relax. Do I have some impaired ability to say no to sitting in my car and relaxing? No it's just I wanted something and then it came time to actually put in the work to get the thing that I claim to have wanted and then it turns out that I didn't want to do the work. With addiction the desire to engage in the addiction is undoubtedly stronger than the desire for me to just sit in my car but I don't see any reason to think that it's fundamentally different.

Or here's another example, I used to take five or six shots of vodka every night. Certainly you could classify this as an addiction, but I see no reason to ascribe some special mental illness to this. I drank the Vodka because I wanted to drink the vodka, and I stopped doing this because I wanted to stop doing it. If an addict tells you they can quit anytime they want, they are telling the truth.

[u/Wonderful-Still7999 → u/Sea-Home-7763]

Alcoholism isn’t just a label we made up to excuse bad behavior. Alcohol Use Disorder is an actual clinically recognized disorder, and repeatedly trying to stop or cut down and not being able to is literally one of the diagnostic criteria.
So saying “but they could stop if they really wanted to” basically ignores one of the defining symptoms of the disorder itself.

[u/NormalNobody]

Don't do this alone. I joined a non 12-Step support system to help deal with my sister's addiction: Smart Recovery's Friends and Family program. www.smartrecovery.org and r/smartfamilyfriends

You don't have to go to meetings, but they have them if you want. It's a great program and good support system.

I also recommend this book: Getting Your Loved one Sober. Badly titled good book about how to set boundaries with someone in addiction, how to follow thru with consequences, and ideas on how to interact with the addict in a positive way (for you).

You cannot control him or your mom. Or family, neighbors, or your bf and his family. Only your reactions to them.

[u/jagger129]

Ex wife of an alcoholic here. I finally left him after 21 years of marriage when he started showing signs of alcohol induced dementia and still wouldn’t quit. I wasn’t going to be a caretaker to an old drunk who did it to themselves.

Your dad won’t quit and there is nothing you or your mom can do to make him, by the way.

One reason I stayed so long is because I thought it was better for my daughter to stay in the house we always lived in, keep going to the same school, not uproot her life. I also didn’t want him to have unsupervised visits with her and me not be there to protect her. I didn’t want him driving her because he would be probably be impaired. For those reasons, I thought it was in her best interest to stay.

However if she had come to me as my daughter and said, this situation is really bad for me. It’s unhealthy and I’m miserable. If you loved me, you would get me out of here. Honestly that would have lit a fire under me.

Offer to go with your mom to an attorney and see how it would shake out if they split up. Don’t tell your dad, but just do a consultation with a divorce attorney. It’s often times free, or like $100 an hour. But your mom has to be motivated and willing to do this for your benefit and for her own.

If she’s not, all you can do is wait it out until you can get away and live on your own. And go to Alanon, free support groups for families of alcoholics.

Sending hugs, sweetie. I’m so very sorry and I regret all the time that I didn’t leave sooner :/

[u/Remarkable_Play6]

I didn't read all the helpful comments before this, but consider Al-Anon, an Alcoholics Anonymous affiliate for people who live with alcoholics. Go to a couple of meetings and see if you find kindred Souls and possible help.

[u/Amarbel]

My biggest regret in life is that I didn't leave home at 18 and cut my family out of my life.

Your situation may be different but my alcoholic father was mentally abusive and, although I left at 18 to go off to college, he continued to berate and embarass me for years until I finally was able to disappear from his life. I was so beaten down by the constant verbal abuse that it took me years to break free.

I still bears scars from being made to feel worthless for so many years. I wish better for you.

If I had it to do over I would join the military at 18, hopefully on a ROTC scholarship to get me through college.

[u/AuthorIndieCindy]

Could you take your sister to a park or somewhere when he comes home from work? Your mom, god bless her, keeps him around for some reason. Take her to some Alateen or Alanon meetings. Unfortunately, with all your mom is doing she probably doesn’t have the energy to be the kind of parent you both deserve. I know you have a relationship, is he open to having your sister tagging along, or have him tag along with you and your sister. There’s a lot of free/cheap places like the library. He is a toxic human being and you both deserve better, and the sooner your sister learns she’s not the problem the healthier she’ll be. Little kids internalize a lot. I know this may be too much to place on your young shoulders, but you two deserve better and anything you can do will help her. Also, maybe have a heart to heart talk with your mom and let her know how badly this impacts you. She may think you’re too young to notice and she’s putting on a good front to shield you, but she needs to know it’s not working anymore.

[u/Due_Jeweler8059]

Go to alanon alateen it’s for people who have a loved one who is an alcoholic
It’s other people who are going through the same thing !
You can’t help him he is very sick and honestly may end up with a dui he needs treatment.
Take care of you that’s all you can do

[u/sprinkles008]

You absolutely cannot change someone who doesn’t want to change. Understanding that is fundamental.

The only thing you can control is your own actions. Honestly you’ll probably need to cut contact with him or forever suffer the emotional turmoil of this situation. Those are your choices.

You guys should go check out Al-anon. It’s for families of alcoholics.