The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
to exchange
information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
level.
My father was an alcoholic, and growing up I didnt know any better, it was what it was, everyone lived like this.......or so I thought. My mother was a "bit off" or so I thought, and I didnt understand why she acted the way she did. Now I know, because MY husband became an alcoholic, and I started to act as she did. My father began to annoy me as I became older and started to realize that actually, other families did not live as we did. 20 years after my father's death, and speaking to a family friend, about my father's part in world war 11, I started to understand how many others chose alcohol to ease the pain of the horrors of war. The family friend saw my anger, and said "Dont be angry at your father, he was in great pain from his years taking part in the war, and the horrors he witnessed, echoed in his mind repeatedly". As I began to attend alanon because of my husband's drinking, I too began to understand my father , and my mother's behaviour (she did not drink),because we too had become "that famly". Thank goodness my children had already left home at this point, but the echoes of my past repeated itself, and I had become my mother who I thought was "bit off", and my husband had become my father. Alanon has stopped the behaviour in its tracks, and I wasnt about to walk in my parents footprints involving alcohol. I stood my ground, kept attending alanon, and I was not going to live as my mother did, in the grips of my father's alcoholism. Many years after my father's death, I forgave him, and I also forgave my mother, as I understand now more about this horrendous disease called alcholism, how it affects the loved ones around them, and how it mames, destroys, and breaks apart families.
I understand, I too come from an A family member. I am one of 10 children and didn't understand why my mother was so mad, angry and yelled at my father all of the time, we thought that is the way she was. We all knew that my dad had a drinking problem but we didn't know the extend of it.
We had the first family reunion last year and everyone came. My mother didn't know and she was so grateful and surprized to see everyone. Thru the process of getting things together for the reunion my brother and I came across some of dad's war information. In world war 2, he was in the front lines and became a war hero...WOW. We also came across some letters that my dad wrote to mom. Touching..he reallly did love her....
We understand the way dad was and that hold on him thru Alchol. Everyone tells me I am like my dad except I don't drink. I am the easy going, helping everyone, don't make waves with a great heart for forgiving kind of gal.
Today I am married to an A for 37 years and I feel like my mom who stayed thru thick and thin. It is tough sometimes getting thru the day, but with my God, I can do all things he who strenghtens me.
What's to forgive? My parents, as most, did the best they could. They weren't perfect, but I have yet to hear about any who were...or are! I did not have alcoholism in my family; nor did I have to deal with any other form of addiction. (Well, wait a minute. I may be in denial. *sigh* Mom smoked). Childhood circumstances do not require forgiveness; they require acceptance. And if circumstances were less than ideal, one moves on, fueled by the desire to have a better life.
We can live our entire lives blaming our parents for all of our short-comings, sadnesses, and missed opportunities, or we can take responsiblity ourselves for the way our lives turned out. Good or bad. Holding another person responsible is ludicrous.
What we might do instead of blaming and later attempting to forgive, is put into perspective and vow not to repeat what we consider the "mistakes" of our parents. What a novel idea!!!!
Diva
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"Speak your truth quietly and clearly..." Desiderata
*is really feeling like a round peg in a square hole* Yes and no. Yes I have accepted the past and made peace with it. No I haven't forgotten it. Yes, I've come to accept what was my fault, what wasn't my fault, where I can make amends and where amends are due, and, yes, I have come to see that the painful and tragic reality is that my parents may never get sober nor give me the amends that are due to me, even though I have made my amends. Yes, I have "forgiven and accepted" my parents as they are at this moment for who they are. But no, that doesn't mean I have given them a "get out of jail free card." Example: any children I have in the future will never be left alone with my father. Good god no! And as for my mother? hmmmm. Well, for right now, it may be well to say that I believe a superficial relationship with her, or if nothing else, may be existent. I feel at least at this point, I will be fairly constricting of whatever time and space my children would spend with her. God forbid something happen to my children that happen to me, I have no doubts my mother would blame my children. I also have no doubts that my mother would beat my children, and as their mother it would be my responsibility to prevent what happened to me from happening to my chilren. As for blaming others? I have heard that "blame is based in malicious intent." So I try not to "blame" but lay accountability where it is. I did not molest myself. And abuse is not a mistake, but a decision.
I love Tiger's post. If we can't forgive mistakes, we need to reread our Alanon literature. Mistakes don't happen from choice. They usually happen from ignorance.
Bad choices cause bad results, and usually not only for the person who makes them. As a matter of fact, sometimes the person making the bad decision is the one who suffers least. Accountability and responsibility - abuse might be a sickness, I don't know, but I don't think that abusing a child for years is a mistake. It is a choice.
My stepdad was an alcoholic, and my mother an enabler (I come by it honestly), but at that time, they made the best decisions they could with what they had. For the rest of her life, my mother felt guilty about marrying him. He was actually a good guy, just an alcoholic, with all of the behaviors that go along with that. Not a pleasant environment for many years, but there was really nothing to forgive. It was just who they were, and I've accepted that. My mother was my best friend, and one of the strongest women I've ever known. Who is to say that without the adversity of living with an alcoholic for so many years, our relationship might not have been as good as it was. Shoulda, woulda, coulda...
Take care, Marion
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Vocatus atque non vocatus, Deus aderit ("Bidden or not bidden, God is present") - Erasmus
I always enjoy your posts. You show lots of recovery. For me I have never understood the word forgive. My immaturity I suppose. My father was an A in his later years and died an alcoholic death. He did the fadeaway when it came to the family. My mom was always angry and harassed me in particular. It has taken over 20 years since my father's death for truths to come out. It is hard to forgive when you don't even know what the facts are. In the last year my mother has said to me (not me sibs) that she would quit being my mother, that I was the problem, I must be an alcoholic, and that I must be mentally ill.
I am blank on both of them. I don't want my mother to die with us having this strained relationship. But I am clueless about what to do. Maybe that is forgiveness. I know that I became the parent that I resented. My sons will be in that position to forgive me.
I'm with Diva on this one. I was blessed not to have grown up in an addictive household. There were certainly issues between my parents. Yes, it impacted me. But they did the best they could at that given time. Funny, it's been 25 years since my Mom past (Aug 1) and Dad has been gone 9 years, it seems like yesterday. They were who they were, and left me with many gifts. Too many people hold on to resentments, anger and forget to live. I'd rather let the negative fly away, and move on.
Love and blessings to you and your family.
Live strong, Karilynn & Pipers Kitty
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It's your life. Take no prisoners. You will have it your way.
I have just recently begun to understand how alcoholism has affected me. The alcoholism in my family (grandfather, uncle, cousin) is never discussed and is usually made somewhat of a joke by my parents. I never knew what alcoholism was until I got into a relationship with my boyfriend. As I started talking to my mom about it, alot came out about my grandfather and how it affected my father.
My dad has a very hard time showing affection, or emotion of any kind. For a long time I wondered why he was like this, and even found myself wondering if he did love me at all. He always provided for me financially but we dont have a very close relationship. He has also always been a perfectionist and held us to VERY high standards, and been somewhat hard on us. Now that I know that he grew up in an alcoholic home, this all makes more sense to me and helps me relate to my dad. I got the book "adult children of alcoholics" and I hope that maybe he will read it someday.
I guess from all this I feel that I need to be more understanding of why people behave the way they do, and that usually there is a reason. I think I have started to react to my dad in a different way now, and last week he called me just to talk! :)
Well, my father is an alcoholic, he was cruel and physically abusive. He probably has a personality or character disorder, people USUALLY don't say or do the things he did even if they are plain old alcoholic.
Forgiving him is more like understanding him, seeing his limitations, and seeing what he did do as products of what an incredibly sick man he was. Since he is still actively using (after years of sobriety), I have no communication with him. Even when sober, he was a rageaholic, prone to temper tantrums and manipulation/lies. It was just better to avoid him. How can you forgive a bear who attacks you? Well, bears do what they do . . . my father does what he does. Kind of a dangerous man . . . and very uncomfortable to be around.
I do forgive him because I understand more why he's the way he is. My mom was "off" too :D, in response, and ooh yes, I became her too.
I always imagined forgiving someone as being all close to them again, but it hasn't been that way for me. It's more like letting go of the burden of memory.
I appreciate now how hard it is to be an adult, a parent and raise children. I frequently feel that my mom had it easy as dad worked and she got to stay home with one child but I can't resent her for making good choices and compare them to my bad ones. I love all my children, granted one would have been easier but I love them all just the same even if it is more complicated and hopefully they will be there for eachother as adults. I feel a little resentful of the fact that she never supports me, I feel completely on my own as I WAS an only child. I do feel that she would rescue me if I absolutely needed it but I would rather turn to prostitution than ask. What does that mean? I don't know. Maybe it's good that I feel I would rather do that than live with her and her obsessively controlling rules, keeps me working hard and independent. Isn't that a parent's goal? As for dad, he's bipolar and nuts and I realized a while ago that I don't HAVE to talk to him. Most of the time he's paranoid and I feel like I just waste my breath and time with him so I figured why bother? So I don't anymore. I guess I don't feel there's anything to forgive, I sometimes think I wish I could make mom understand, make her SEE ME, support me in what I do. But that is just the same as wishing an alcoholic would get clean. A futile effort. I guess selfish people are selfish people and the don't really change much thru time. I remember thinking my mom was perfect, now I think she's selfish. Age changes our view on these things because it changes the way we view the world and relationships and how we all fit into it. I could give examples but this is long enough!
The older I get, the longer I'm in recovery - the more I understand that my parents were affected by the disease of alcoholism.
I also know that my parents were not able to access the resources to help them deal with the disease - the support, therapy and treatment was not as easily accessable to them as it is today. The public awareness and acceptance of people seeking treatment and help was not there either.
Both of my parents have talked about how you just didn't talk about it.
As an adult, I also see, the parents that raised my parents. I see how that affected them.
I know that everyone is doing the best that they could with what they had.
I am blessed - for I know that both my mom, my dad and later my step-dad - love me. They truly tried to do they best they could. They wanted the best for their children and tried to do a better job than their parents - their prayer is that their children would do better than they did and my children would do better than I - so as each generation passes - parents would improve and children would be healthier emotionally, physically and spiritually.
That is our prayer.
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No matter what me and my God are going to be ok, even better than OK -
My father is an A. My mom always kept it from us kids. They divorced about 25 years ago after I was grown. To this day she thinks he wouldn't drink so much if they were together. And talk about your life turning out like theirs. My dad lives in a motor home and travels the states. He can only drive about half a day and then has to stop and get plastered. He never tells anyone when he will be showing up because there's no telling when. His wife takes care of his entire universe and gets his beer so he doesn't have to get out of his chair (she's A also). My A husband thinks it would be wonderful to live the vagabond lifestyle. Talks about selling the house and hitting the road. I told him hell no. I can barely stand him living in our 4 bedroom house. I know that I couldn't live with him confined into a motor home. I love my Dad, I'm happy to see his drunken self when he shows up. I've been luckier than my brothers who have had to clean up after drunken escapades and rants. I've only a couple incidents under my belt. I hold no ill feelings for him. I mostly just feel sorry for him. He's kinda like a little kid. When we were kids we liked Dad better because Mom was the disciplinarian. He let us run amok and played with us. I know better now that Mom was our saving grace. But I guess I keep that fun Dad as my perception of how he is, instead of how he really is. Plus it helps that I only see him a couple of times a year.
