Expert: Druideck - 12/27/2008

Question
My parents had me when they were only teenagers, but gave me everything. They were both around seventeen when I was born, and bought a house at nineteen. I have three younger siblings who have also been spoiled with nothing but the best, private schools, lap tops at 12 years old, best cell phones, cars, you name it. I used to think I was so lucky to have such young and loving parents who took care of their responsibilities. My Mother never worked outside the house and was more of a full time house Wife\Mom. The most she did was run my Fathers business accounts from home for a few years. Dad put food on the table and Mom was loving.
As far back as I can remember my Dad smoked pot, which never was an issue for our family. He was the same Dad high or not, you cant even tell at times. Then one addiction was lead to another like Domino effect. I caught him injecting himself with a friend in our bathroom and later learned it was steroids, which made sense because at one time he was obsessed with working out, he was in his mid 20s. Then this lead to Meth/or Cocaine, which would explain some of those crazy fuzzy childhood memories where he blew up randomly on my Mom or cousin, but even then I was around the 8th grade and so caught up in my own world.
Problems didnt really occur until after high school. I was 19 when I moved out into a 2bdrm/2 bath by myself. I was young and making good money. Even though I literally lived down the street from my parents house, my Dad had a hard time letting go. But even then I was caught up in my own world. Three years later I was forced to move back in with my parents, because I was laid off, and now I am in school and will be graduating next year.
I discovered my Dads new addiction is alcohol, for about a year and a half now. This is the worst one in my opinion. Pot mad him easy going, steriods was a phase, meth/cocaine got old. Throughout all those addictions he was still a functioning worker, which never really affected us. My Dad is all about his finances and thinks the more money you make the better person you are, and the less money you make means your lazy. For a man who runs 2 businesses he is very iliterate, he cant even spell "clothes", but he is very street smarts and a people person.
His drinking got worse throughout the past year. Verbal abuse and some physical abuse towards my Mom and my Little brother who interfened on more then one occasion, and I called the police on him which only made matters worse. The physcal abuse stopped but the verbal abuse towards me increased, which in my eyes is a small price to pay to get him to stop. Flicking ashes on my Mom, telling us we are mistakes, threatening to kill himself one bottle at a time, spits alcohol in my eyes, talks real nasty and not afraid to let us older kids know the status of his love life with our Mom. He makes up stories about my husband, or my sisters boyfriend. He even accusses us for flirting with eachothers men. Out of his children, hands down I get it the worst and my Mother is always in the wrong, and always being accussed of cheating on hiim with family members and even my husband. He is so paranoid he even made my Mom take a lie detector ... twice! My Mom threatens to leave and tried but my Dad cuts her off financially, and makes more drama stalks her, harasses her, even threatens her. She claims she stays because of my little brother, 14, will become the victim because he is so used to getting everything she knows she cannot afford to do that. My Dad claims he dont care about us and will cut us all off financially and even sign over the business to his brother just to make certain she wont see a dime. Lately with our economy things have been tight and now my Dad is in deep with the IRS and might lose both our houses which caused his drinking to increase. 6mos ago my sister had a baby which made things more stressful financially, but my Dad is a GREAT grandpa. He is very good with her and tries to spoil her as much as possible. But now whenever my Dad has an off day he yells and picks on us, and lately thats been my sister because he supports her and her baby and sorry to say has a deadbeat boyfriend as a father to her baby. My sister threatens to leave with the baby whenever they get into it. My Dad always has the same come back which is, "I may be a drunk, but I always put food on the table, a roof over your heads and clothes on your back plus more."  
Im afraid my Mom has been drinking too but not as obvious as my Dad, I think she does it to get away from my Dad. My parents are good hearted people. My father wasnt always so mean. He comes from a tough family who all use my father to get ahead in life. Even his Mother, my grandma, who teams up with her daughter, my Dads little sister and steals money from him. They also have addiction issues with vicodins, credit cards and only God knows what else. I love my Dad, so much which makes it even more hard to see him abusing his body. He throws up blood, swears to quit, then dissapoints me only a few days later. Im scared for my Mom to follow in his path, because she is getting weaker as time progresses. My Dad is only 40,and my mom is 38, Im 22 and I think they look at me still as a little girl and dont value my opinion nor concern. Im worried for my little brother who is only a freshman in highschool, will pick up bad habits. I try to stay on top of him with his school work, help my sister with her baby, and my other brother who is 18 smokes pot like a chimney to realize how damaging it is for his lungs, at the same time of focusing on my studies and dealing with my husband whom I neglect often. I know I cant save everyone but I care so much about them we used to be so close as a family, I feel if I dont help them, I abandoned them and failed to take on the responsibility as the eldest child. I have researched and learned about Al Anon but I just dont see how than can be helpful, it seems more depressing to hear others hurting just like me. I have so much hope for my family I just want it to go back to how it used to be. Can I grab my fathers attention? Get him help? He snapped out of all the other addictions why cant he beat this one? I feel I cant get on with my life unless my brothers and sister is safe at home with my parents. Others would tell me its not my responsibility but in my eyes its just selfish to continue my life as if nothing is wrong. Funney thing is only family knows about this issue everyone else just sees my smile. I am very good at hiding my inner emotions but it seems to be getting more hard as time goes on.

Answer
Nestle,

this whole situation with your family
has been building up since you
were born. The living patterns you have all developed
by living with an addict/alcoholic are many
and I am not really sure where to start.
First here are some basic truths about addictions.
Addicts/Alcoholics can change addictions
but have never really started any recovery unless they
abstain from all their addictive substances
and seek help.
Your father has always been practising one
addiction or another in my opinion.

Your family has developed characteristics
or behaviour patterns in response to your
father. You have become an "adult child of
an alcoholic" with many of the feelings
aquired by playing this role. I will try
not to go into the roles your mother
and others are playing in this disfunctional
drama right now. Let's focus on you.
Due to your father being busy with work
etc. I think you have become overresponsible
for others. You believe you can take care
of everyone because who else will do it?
Also you always try to look okay to others,
you don't lose control or need help yourself.
You probably have issues with trusting
people and feel the need to control
many uncontrollable things in your life.
You can look at the "adult children"
characteristics here:
http://acainnerpeace.ncf.ca/charac.htm
http://www.adultchildren.org/
http://alcoholism.about.com/od/adult/a/quiz_adult.htm

All this information doesn't make things
much easier in the beginning.
You understandably want your family
to get better.
Remember that your father is projecting
his paranoia, fears and self-hatred
onto his family. He is very ill after
all these years of wrong thinking
and drug abuses. You must not
believe any his problems are because
of you. You did not make him sick.
He and drugs did that.
Sometimes a good alcohol counsellor
can talk to the family and arrange
a controlled event to challenge
the alcoholic with his problem
and offer him a solution.
This is an intervention but
he will not like it at first.
Later if it helped he may be very
grateful.
The aim is to get him into treatment
and hopefully extended help
for his addictive illness.
Some alcoholics are not ready and
will not cooperate. They often lose
their families and sometimes their life
as a result.
Our society often makes helping look
like a good thing. Unfortunately
it can also make people helpless.
As long as everybody keeps helping
soften things for the alcoholic
they will continue to use/drink.
When things get really bad all around
or hit bottom that is what
sometimes wakes the alcoholic
up, it breaks his strong defences
of denial. This is when they
break their false pride enough
to get help or attend AA meetings.
The big ego that comes from drug abuse
stands in the way of the humility needed
for recovery.
I see this is a barrier likely
to be a problem with your father.
He has failed to learn that money
can't buy the truest things of
value such as trust, love, loyalty
and other things learned in recovery.

I suggest you look into Al-Anon
as a source of support for yourself.
Also "ACOA" or "Adult Children of Alcoholics"
You must start healing yourself to be of
any real help to the rest of the family
otherwise this drinking game will continue.
You can break this cycle and others will
see that happen.
Recovery is possible but love has no power
to make your father recover, he has
to make these tough choices for himself.
You must let go and heal so you can be
of help when the time is right.
You cannot help by letting yourself
be treated badly by anyone.

Take care, be open to new ideas and thoughts
about all this.