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I was told by the Nurse in the hospital the day I lost my Dad, that it would be good for me to share my story... So here I am, openly speaking about my pain for the first time.
On May 5, 2014 my father lost his battle with Alcoholism.
In 2006, when I was 17, my parents divorced, this was the start of everything falling apart, the events that followed my parents divorce shattered my life in every aspect imaginable. My dad moved to Sin City, also known as Las Vegas and his life long fascination with the city and all that goes along with it took hold of him and ultimately killed him. They say truth is stranger than fiction and for those of you reading this, if you stick in there with me through this story, you will see what I am talking about. I am taking this opportunity to write about everything, to let it all out... the secrets, the shame, the chaos, the struggle.... and most of all the pain.
Here it begins....
Not long before my mom started cheating on my dad he got laid off from his job of 30 years, he was only two years away from retirement and the devastation from losing his job sent him into a depression, then a few months later my mom breaks the news of her infidelity to him and then divorces him, thus resulting in him losing his wife, his job and his home... So he moves to Las Vegas where he starts hanging around strip clubs, gambling... and drinking... At first I thought this was normal, my father needs to blow off some steam... He has been through a lot and "Good for you Dad!!! Have some FUN!"
About six months passes by, this is when I started getting drunken calls from him, usually late into the night, and eventually into the early morning hours. I started getting angry with him, its one thing to have fun, its another thing when you start calling your daughter blitzed out of your mind. Pretty soon a years passes, my dad hasn't found a job, he is now dating a stripper and his sober calls are almost non-existent.... I finally told him one night "Dad... I think you have a drinking problem... You need to pull yourself together, I refuse to talk to you when you are drunk and angry." This was the first drunken denial argument we had, from that point on over the next several months my relationship with him consisted of answering his calls, hearing him slurring and me hanging up the phone refusing to talk to him when he was drunk... he was always drunk.. it didn't matter if it was 3am or 3pm... he was drunk. He never remembered our conversations later on. This kept going on, and finally Heather enters the picture... the Stripper "girlfriend".
Heather... Heather.. Heather.. I never thought I could hate someone with such passion, or that one person would effect my life so entirely... There is a special place in hell for people like her. Heather moves into my fathers house along with her two kids and her cousin, billy... Billy is a whole other story, I am not sure who is more evil, Billy... or Heather, but I guess that doesn't matter. The next 2 years consists of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, Domestic Violence, restraining orders, and Eviction Notices... oh, lets not forget Attempted Murder charges and full blown Drug and Alcohol abuse.... See, my father loved Heather... Heather was a pill addict and my father an Alcoholic with money to spare... Heather used my father as a baby sitter, a taxi service and a Sugar Daddy... He took her to "work" took her kids to school and picked them up.... spent about 500+ a week on her pills, meanwhile she was f***** her cousin in my dads house, who he so kindly let them both live there, with her kids... Yes, you heard me right, Heather the stripper was legitimately in a sexual relationship with her cousin who was 18, she was 27 at the time. My dad did not know of this at the time, but non-the-less he hated Billy. Billy and his family are one of the most notorious drug dealers in Las Vegas, and a few years ago were even on the News when the Police department raided his family home... and found thousands of dollars in Pot plants in their house... if you would like I am sure you can find this with a Google search... Billy beat heather all the time... choking her, threw her through the stair railings in a rage.... pulling her around by her hair... even beating up my father.. So my father was afraid of him, and by law he could not just kick them out, he would have to evict them... but my father was too afraid to do this, because once that is done, for the next 30 days he would have to live under the same roof with crazy billy...
Ultimatly, this situation just drove my dad to drink, he was consuming about a liter or two of vodka a day.... No one in my family knew just how severe his drinking had gotten, we were all in different states, we just got to hear of this chaos over the phone. So I decide I needed to visit him in 2010. I got to witness all of this, those three days will forever be imprinted in my memory... My family and I spent the next year, everyday convincing him to evict them all, my uncle went down there to help my dad through this so he wouldn't be alone, and once Heather and Billy saw my uncle getting involved they finally left. We thought my dad would stop drinking without all the chaos... that wasn't the case, he loved heather and finding out she was screwing her cousin, wasn't enough to make him hate her, it broke his heart... On his birthday late in 2010 I didn't hear from him, three days passed and no one could get a hold of him. So I called the Police for a Legal 2000, also known as a wellness check. When they finally got inside his house my dad was drunk out of mind walking around his soiled underwear... there was broken glass everywhere, blood and vomit all over the place. He was hallucinating and clearly not in the right state of mind so they took him to the hospital and he was held there. Once we was detoxed and in a stable condition, instead of staying and receiving treatment for his addiction, he checked himself refusing to admit he had a problem... We found out then that he already had severe liver damage.
By 2011 Heather moves back in, without Billy this time. But... She would constantly sneak him in the house... or he would break in. So in 2011, that entire year was spent with my uncle making frequent trips to Vegas to get him through a beer tapper program, all of us begging him to at least try AA or NA.... to PLEASE SEEK HELP.... crying to him, begging him... Countless hours spent listening to him talk about suicide while drunk... MY father never forgave me for that Wellness check... He was angry with me because I "needed top butt out of his life", he "didn't have a problem". In 2013 I moved in with him for 3 months. In that time, heather got release from prison, and she moved back in... (that was fun) my father pulled a gun on me twice, which i had to disarm him, because he was drunk i was able to.. thank God I never got shot in the process. He tried to hit me and several times I had to defend myself, once even having to kick him into a wall. My dad loved to throw things when he was drunk... his favorite were knives.. I cant tell you how many knifes have been stabbed into the walls. My dad at the end was consuming two full liters a Day of Vodka. The doctors did not know how he was alive.
Growing up, my father was the best dad ever... We were as close as could be, he was my best friend and he rarely drank. He taught me everything, and I cherished that man and loved him more than anything... What he turned into....he was no longer my dad. Sometimes, briefly, the man I remembered from my childhood would appear and I always had hope... but my old dad would disappear faster than a smile could form on my face... I felt like I grieved the death of him many times before he died. After three months of this, everyone told me I had to leave... that i was in an extremely dangerous environment... I fought everyone telling them that my dad needs me... I cant just leave him because he will die, it wasn't until he pulled the loaded AK-47 on me while he was hallucinating... he thought i was an intruder... A year went by before I saw him again. My dad had hit someone with car and didnt even know it while he was drunk. The person was ok, and called the police. My dad had a hit and run charge. He lost all his money, and Heather ended up having two babies with Billy... Heather would not go away and she played with my dads head... she destroyed him. My father is not innocent by any means... but heather... she was his true addiction, the booze was the way he coped with her madness. There is no way to fully describe this Alfred Hitchcock story, or to fully make anyone understand just how extreme or crazy this mess was. It was like the twilight zone...
Finally in december of last year I moved back in with him because we honestly thought my dad was trying to be murdered. At this point in time my dad had signed a lease with Heather, her dad and his wife. He was renting out his spare rooms to them. They knew he had a drinking problem. By now my dad rarely left his room.... he stayed in his bed and just drank. They supplied him with all the booze he wanted. They also got him to sign legal documents... They wanted his house and everything else... So I moved in... I am the sober one who does nothing at all... in a house full of addicts and crazy people. Long story short I was aware of their intentions, I was a threat... and no joke, they were trying to get rid of me... permanently. The cops said there was nothing they could do... and I could not just leave my dad. His addiction was so severe that a half hour without booze set him into extreme withdrawals. His liver was almost not functioning and he refused to go to the hospital. One night things got so dangerous for me there that my mom literally evacuated me from the house...
six weeks later I got the call that we was in the ICU.... two weeks later I had to make the hardest decision of my life. I am the only child, and his life laid in my hands....
I walked into the room and saw him gasping for air on life support. Time stopped... I stood a few feet away from his bed and tears were pouring from my eyes... I told him I loved him and the nurse walked in and I whispered to her to end his suffering... An hour later he Passed away... I watched my dad suffocate... He was yellow, his eyes were milky and his skin was covered in Liver spots... I never got to say good-bye....not truly.. His brain was so toxic from the liver damage that he was basically brain dead... He never got hear me say I love you... He never got to hear me say good-bye... Those last images of him are seared into my mind.. I see him like that when I close my eyes.. it Haunts me everyday.
More so... what hurts the most.. is how ANGRY i am at him for the last six years!!! the hell we all went through and the fact he NEVER even tried to recieve help. HE WAS MY HERO!!! HE WAS EVERYTHING TO ME!!! What I went through because of him... HEATHER stole his car after he died... she tried to stab me while he was in the ICU... and she completely destroyed his house... because he left no will... because she got nothing... I lost my Father... I lost my world. I suffer from PTSD because of this, because of the multiple times Heather and her Family literally tried to kill me.. because of what I saw that day in the hospital... the accumulated events have damaged me. I left a lot of events out, but if any one reads this story... if there is one thing you can take away from it... if you have a child, and they beg you to just TRY to SEEK HELP.. PLEASE! just try..... even if you dont think you have a problem... just...try... That is all I wanted.. I never expected him to stop drinking, but if he would have made an effort, that would have meant everything. Instead, i had to make the decision to End my Fathers suffering.. I had to plan a funeral and make end of life arrangements at 24 years old... I had to watch my father die for an hour... I lost my world.... I will never be the same....
-- Edited by hotrod on Friday 29th of August 2014 06:51:06 AM
-- Edited by hotrod on Friday 29th of August 2014 07:20:34 AM
Dear Fallen Angel Thank you for sharing your painful, difficult story with us. I so understand and can identify with much of your experience and do recognize the painful feelings that you describe.
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You are a great daughter and did all you could to help in an untenable situation I do wish you had found alanon during the years your father struggled as It might have helped you process this terrible pain as you experienced it.
Alcoholism is a dreadful, progressive, fatal disease that we are powerless over it. The alcoholic does extremely dangerous and insane actions and like you, I tried to save him (MY Son) to no avail.
In alanon I received the support and understanding from members who lived with this terrible disease. Alanon was founded to help the families of alcoholics . AA is for the person who has the drinking problem and alanon is for members of the family who spend all there time trying desperately to save the drinking person.
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Face to face meetings are held in most communities and I urge you to attend. The hot line number is in the white pages. Here you will receive the support and understanding you need.
Breaking the isolation caused by the disease, connecting with others who understand helped to restore me to my true self. I was finally able to let go of the anger resentment , self pity and fear that I felt and then the powerful love and sweet memories of my precious son buried deep within, could surface.
Your dad was a good man with a terrible disease, He did his best for his family and then was overtaken by a disease that he could not conquer Please seek help for yourself You deserve it.
Hugs, fallenangel, although it does not appear to me that you are a fallen angel at all....you are an angel, period I agree with the others responses. You will continue to be adversely affected by this disease unless you reach for recovery options, al non is a way to make some sense of what has and is happening and to help ward off creating another relationship with an alcoholic. Take good care of your precious life.
-- Edited by PP on Friday 29th of August 2014 08:48:48 AM
I literally have not had a moment to live normally since he passed away. I have bounced between Las Vegas and Florida, flying back and forth every couple of weeks dealing with the mess he left behind. His house is in Probate.... Heather is still an issue, and to top it all off my uncle is causing me legal strife. I would love to eventually try going to an Ala-non support group. While my father was alive the last few years, I went to AA and NA meetings just to listen to other addicts, trying to gain some understanding from those suffering in the same position as my father, I am an avid supporter and believer of these programs.
-- Edited by FallenAngel on Friday 29th of August 2014 12:09:30 PM
Dear fallenangel, I urge you to attend a face to face Alanon meeting if you are able to. When I found the MIP forum I started my recovery journey. It is a difficult path you have travelled. Please keep coming back and sharing. You are not alone, and within the arms of Alanon there is an understanding like no other. The tools and the experiences, shares and hopes that others share here are life changing and life saving. I suffered along with those that suffered in their addictions. I became addicted to them. In doing so, I forgot to take care of my mind, body and spirit. Today I am grateful for all of those I have met here and along the way. I have found more peace in my life and continue to enjoy life more and more everyday. My heart goes out to you as you have been grieving such a loss for so long. Take care.
You have come to the right place for help during this difficult time. You loss is great the your story sad. As you move forward keep Al-anon and MIP close because we know what your going through more than most people. Come here with you updates because the ESH is your biggest support.
Take care and remember you are not alone....Al-anon can be with you through this journey.
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Lord, put your arm around my shoulder and your hand over my mouth
Speak only when you feel that your words are better than your silence.
Thank you for trusting us with your thoughts, feelings and pain. Sending you lots of support and understanding. I do hope you attend Al-Anon meetings and perhaps a grief support group for adults who have experienced the loss of a parent, child or significant other.
When I read to the end of your story Fallen Angel I thought that yes, there was a time when your father was your hero and no amount of chaos need ever take that away from you. I also thought that you did a wonderful thing in stepping up and taking the opportunity to, in turn, be a hero for your father. Despite all of the insanity it sounds as though you treated him with respect at the end and you helped him to reach a peaceful place.
That is a very generous gift that you bestowed.
The trauma of those crazy years will have taken a huge toll on you. I hope that sharing your story with us (thank you) has helped, we are here all hours of the day and you can post as much as you want. I appreciate this community and also the people that I've connected with at Alanon. Apart from their understanding and acceptance I have learnt from their stories and stepped onto a road where I can start finding and valuing restorative enjoyment in my life. Focusing on enjoying small pleasures helps me to diffuse some of my anger as well!
I agree with the others responses. You will continue to be adversely affected by this disease unless you reach for recovery options, al non is a way to make some sense of what has and is happening and to help ward off creating another relationship with an alcoholic. Take good care of your precious life.