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Hi Everyone: I have recently started Alanon and have a sponsor. I know that I am supposed to be able to forgive the alcoholic(my father) but I don't ever see that happening. A part of me loves him because he is my father, but another part hates him with every ounce in me. He thought it was funny to watch me in terror as he held me under the water in a pool. He tried to kill my mother in front of me. He beat her. He beat my brother and me. Everyone in the house had to tiptoe around him for fear of losing your life. He slept with other women and contracted Hepatitis C, and now has cirrhosis of the liver. He expects me to take care of him when he becomes really sick. He expects me to do well in life because it would reflect poorly on him. He distorted my reality by lying about his raging and violence. How in the world does God or anyone else expect me to forgive someone who did those horrible things? He knew exactly what he was doing and would laugh about making us afraid. I can't even stand to look at him when I see him. And anytime I see him, he puts me down. I think the only way I can forgive him is when he dies because he won't ruin the feelings of forgiveness I start to have when he puts me down or tells me stories where he is cruel to people and thinks it is funny. What happened to him in his childhood is not my problem. It was done to me and I don't go do it to my children. Does anyone have a problem like this?
Hi Kissers.... welcome, and your post strikes a nerve in a lot of what you had to say.... I can't fully relate, other than the anger that I had against my A, who was my wife...
As I learned more in this program, it hit home that the act of forgiveness, is for ME, and not for the other person... I hear, in your words, that you couldn't possibly forgive your father for all the crap he put you through..... but I am wondering if you think YOU are worth saving.... In my opinion, you will need to forgive your father, to free YOU from the bondage that all his unacceptable behavior has caused you....
You are worth having a good life..... the act of forgiveness, may, in fact, be critical to your recovery.
Just my opinion
Tom
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"He is either gonna drink, or he won't.... what are YOU gonna do?"
"What you think of me is none of my business"
"If you knew the answer to what you are worrying about, would it REALLY change anything?"
(((kisses))) Thank you for sharing. I'm so sorry you had to go thru what you went thru..and are still going thru.
As far as forgiveness...I wouldn't even worry about it right now. Forgiveness isn't anything that we can force ourselves to do. Best is to keep working the Program and keep the focus on yourself. Set those concerns about forgiving this man aside for now and hand it over to your HP.
One thing that I learned in all my years in the Program is to acknowledge my feelings, feel them, accept them and then let them go. Your HP will take care of the rest.
Congrats on working your program. Getting a sponsor is one of the biggest steps. Good for you.
Remember Easy Does It - it may be too soon for you to forgive AND THAT'S OK. Just know that when the time comes, the forgiveness that you give will be for you. That's why we forgive so that the bitterness doesn't eat us up alive. When we forgive, we are able to forge on in our own lives. When we don't, the perpetrator holds us hostage without even knowing it. Just some food for thought.
Keep coming and keep posting. We do have a chat room also if you need to talk.
Maria123
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If I am not for me, who will be? If I am only for myself, then who am I? If not now, when?
My A was abused by both his mother and his exwife. Somehow he has forgiven them. I don't know how, and really don't underdstand it. It was his decision, not mine. But he's a peace with it. That's what counts. I was lucky, I never had that experience.
But I do agree with Tom about forgiving yourself. That's the first step. Forgive yourself for the feelings you have. They're to be expected. Forgiveness for your Dad may take more time. I had to learn to forgive myself last year when I made mistakes with my recovering A and he relapsed. Out of shear fear that I would lose him all over again if he stopped drinking, I gave him money to do it. He nearly died the first time he stopped. But you know what when he went into detox the second time, he didn't die. But trust me I beat myself up pretty badly. I was doing the best I could at that moment.
This recovery has to be all about you and your feelings. Good for you for getting a sponsor. You might even want to look at mental health counceling if you think that would help you. Healing takes time. Nobody says there's a time table to this. Whether or not you forgive your father time will tell. This might sound harsh, but if seeing your father causes you so much pain, why do it? Why put yourself in that negative situation? It's something that you might want to think on.
Welcome home to your new family. Here you are safe. Nobody will judge you and have expectations of you. You can just be you. There is great love and support here. Keep coming back.
Live strong, Karilynn
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It's your life. Take no prisoners. You will have it your way.
My father is an A as well, not abuse to this extent. I think with me, since I have a child, if someone, regardless of who it is, was being that destructive to me emotionally, I would probably tell him "Your my dad, and I love you, but I have indurred this abuse my whole life, and now that I am an adult, I dont have to anymore"...What good is he bringing to your life? I know this sounds harsh, but seriously. How long is this going to go on?
My story is not as violent as yours, but I was equally adament when I came into Al-Anon over two years ago that I was not going to forgive my alcoholic dad for his past and present hurtful actions. I do not know when the change happened, but by attending lots and lots of face to face Al-Anon and Open AA meetings, choosing a sponsor, working the 12 Steps, staying in touch with Al-Anon friends and visiting this website between meetings, and developing an understanding of the principles of this program, my perspective changed.
What I came to realize is that in every other area of my life, I have the wisdom, intelligence, and self-protective instincts to drop what I am holding if it is hurting me (hot iron, biting snake, razor and lemon juice) but because of my alcoholic upbringing and my warped perceptions related to this disease, in my relationship with my father I held tighter and tighter to the harmful things and refused to put them down because I thought that would "show him." I thought to give up my resentments, bitterness, anger and pain would be to admit that his actions were right, to invite more actions of the same type, to demonstrate weakness. My life had been defined by those feelings for so long, I also had a deep fear that if I gave them up, I would have nothing, and be nothing.
The truth is, Kissers, that when we carry those feelings within ourselves and refuse to let them go, we are only hurting ourselves. It is MY life, not my father's, that stopped because I was too angry to look around and enjoy what was going on around me. It was MY relationships that suffered because I brought these toxic memories and feelings with me everywhere I went, and insisted on living from a perspective in the past, instead of choosing to learn from it, let go, and move forward with grace and growth. It was MY life that became unmanageable because my rage, bitterness, and fear colored every thought in my head and every experience in each and every day. Most importantly, I willingly gave up control of the only thing I actually had control over--myself-- and desperately tried to drive my father's thinking and behavior in the direction I thought that it should go...and failed. I was an unhappy person, unpleasant to be around, and unwilling to change myself for fear that by doing that I would be giving up up all I had left. Looking back, I know that what I had was not worth keeping anyway. What I know today is that if I give something up in any area of my life, the space it occupied does not have to be kept open and gaping and bleeding... I can fill it with something better, something beautiful, and something that will heal the rest of me, not hurt me worse.
Hanging on to the destructive emotions you described in your post is something many people have the tendency to do until they get to Al-Anon and discover a better way. You are definitely far from alone. But keeping that bitterness as a message to your dad that his actions were and are unacceptable is like drinking poison and then waiting for him to die from it. Your anger and bitterness is not hurting him, it is only hurting you. Something I never considered before I got here is that hatred and other strong negative emotions bind us to another person just tightly as love does, so by unraveling the painful cords that connect us to them, we are not actually doing anything to excuse that other person, we are just freeing ourselves from something that is dragging us down, and hurting us terribly. Break the anchor chain, and you can come to the surface again, and breathe something other than the suffocating pain. Save yourself. What the anchor does is not your concern.
The things you describe in your post are dreadful experiences no one deserves, especially at the hand of a parent who is supposed to nurture and protect.The healing from something like that takes time and work, and the timeframe is different for every individual. But give yourself that time, give yourself the treatment you deserve instead of more of what your dad gave you--by keeping those feelings alive, you are actually abusing yourself all over again. Don't let your dad have that power over you-- My suggestion is to give the energy to this program that you have devoted to holding onto these past experiences, letting a power outside you and greater than yourself (NOT YOUR FATHER ) shape your life instead. My life is not perfect, but it is more beautiful, full, and peaceful than I would ever have been able to imagine. I have that life today because of a choice I made. My only options were remaining the same, or being willing to change what I can control: myself.
None of this may make sense to you right now and if that is the case, please don't worry. If any of it sounds even vaguely familiar, take that as a sign that you at the beginning of a path to a much better place, and pray for the courage and the willingness to try the new path. If you take nothing else away from this message, know that somewhere a stranger is thinking happy thoughts on your behalf, and that she is living proof that there is hope to be found here.
