Hi, I was considering going to an Al-Anon meeting, but can't find any close enough, soon enough, so I found this board instead.

I recently graduated college, and work full time now. I've been out of my parent's house for about 6 years. I myself am very familiar with 12-step programs, as I attended one during a two-year battle with anorexia, and I've been recovered about 4 years now.

It came to everyone's attention about two years ago (maybe more? It's hard to tell) just how often my father drinks. I never knew it was a problem, but he started becoming more and more reclusive as the years went by, retreating to his television room after dinner, and no one would see him until the next day when he came home from work.

My mother opened a business about 4 years ago, and it keeps her really busy. Since they both work a lot now, they both end up spending a reasonable amount of time at home alone, as her store stays open later in the evenings. I think being alone more often perpetuates some of his drinking, but that's not incredibly relevant right now.

What IS relevant is that my father's job often involves alcohol. He's what I'd call a corporate alcoholic, as most business deals are over tons and tons of drinks. In fact, a new employee recently observed everyone smoking, and half-joking asked if it was ok that he didn't smoke. My dad laughed, and told him the only requirement was that he drinks.

He told me it's been that way for about 15 years. The 1st major business trip he went on was at a huge beach resort, and one of his bosses there told him that all the drinks were on the company, and that if he was so intoxicated that he couldn't stand up, no one there would bat an eye. He told me he drank so much that he woke up in his hotel room, no memory of returning there, and he had wet his pants. It was the 1st time that had ever happened. His roommate in the hotel had to catch another flight back, because no one could find him - it turns out he had been wasted and couldn't make it back to his room, let alone to the airport.

And so it began. His company wouid buy out another company, he'd go and discuss the deal with them, and it would all involve drinks. The annual company meetings, nothing but drinks. If he showed up and told them he wasn't going to partake in any alchohol with them, they'd think he was joking, or worse, it could even hurt his reputation or standing with his bosses.

He told me all of this over a rare moment of brutal honesty. With my experiences with eating disorders, I ended up opening up to him more than anyone else in my family about what it was like and how bad things were. On a universal level, eating disorders and alcoholism have a lot in common, and for awhile we were being very open with each other.

Going back to a few years ago... I'm pretty sure he was out of line with my mother one night (as in, argumentative - he's never been violent or abusive and never would be), and then had no memory of it. This has since happened quite a few times. It coincided with a diagnosis of diabetes, which is a very bad combination for alcoholism. His moderate, seemingly innoncent 1 or 2 drinks in the evening have become a vice which is literally killing him a little every time. He grew more concerned about his health and decided he needed to cut down or stop.

And that was about 2 years ago. He told me that the more time passes, the worse it gets, and the harder it is to quit, and he doesn't understand (and is unwilling to accept) that he can't kick the habit on his own. Like anyone else who drinks, he acts differently after he's been drinking. He's a little more forward, maybe a little more confrontational. Blunter. Generally pleasant but not himself.

He and I have never been as close as I'd like. Between work and school over the years, sometimes I'd go 2-3 weeks without seeing him (or the rest of my family, for that matter, but my mother and I talk a few times a week). If he did call me, it would be for help fixing the computer. 3 weeks of no contact and he waits until the computer breaks to call and talk to me.

That, or I see him at home, and he's already intoxicated, so the majority of my interaction with him is when he needs something (tech support) or if he's already been drinking. It's harder to talk to him when he isn't sober, because he can be more reactionary to things (and we've never seen eye to eye) and even when I haven't been home in 3 weeks, I'll come home for dinner, we'll barely speak in depth, and he'll disappear upstairs alone shortly afterwards. It's as if he doesn't have any interest in spending time with us, my mother's told me sometimes she feels like she lives in the house alone.

More than anything, I'm afraid that he's so stubborn that by the time he realizes what he needs to do to get better, it'll be too late and his health will be too compromised. I know no one but him can make him get better, and it has to be his desire. At the rate he's going, though, he could be dead in 10 years (about 55 years old, and also a smoker). I want to have a family someday, and I want my kids to have a grandfather - he loves kids. But, he's drinking himself to death, and doesn't seem to care. Most of the time I can't even think about it in depth because I just become a wreck and start crying, it doesn't matter where I am or what I'm doing.

Last week, mom and dad went out to dinner for her store manager's birthday (let's call her Linda), and all of Linda's family, including her grandkids, were there. Mom asked my dad not to drink that night because Linda can be very impressionable, and didn't want Linda's grandkids to see him if he drank a lot.

Instead of honoring her request, he pregames at home and has a drink before they even leave. He drinks at the bar in the restaurant during the 20 minutes before they eat, and with no food in his system and the low blood sugar from his diabetes, by the time they sit down he's practically drunk. He interrupts Linda repeatedly during dinner, and when my mom tries to tell him to quiet down he gets mad at her, raising his voice and telling her to leave him alone. She tried to remind him about his blood sugar, but he wouldn't listen. She said he even 'swatted' at her - I know my father and he isn't violent, so I know it wasn't anything aggressive, I imagine it was more like shooing her when she didn't leave him alone. He even dozed in and out at the table, and would shoot his head up and ask if the food had come yet. Needless to say, she was embarrassed and incredibly hurt. He even asked for the keys and said he was going to go home, I guess because he was getting annoyed. When she got home she just cried, and he probably disappeared upstairs.

He has no memory of the entire evening. He doesn't know what he ordered for dinner, or anything he said. She told him she wants him to go into detox, and he said he would in about a month - the time in between including a golf trip where he knows he's going to want to drink with his friends.

She's telling me all this and I started bawling on the phone. She didn't notice at 1st, and before I know it I'm telling her all these things I haven't really expressed to anyone in my family. I told her how much I hate being around him when he's drinking (which is something he doesn't understand, since he's never harmed us or done anything violent), she tries to tell me she knows and I just shouted at her, No, you don't know. And I tell her about times when I wanted to go home and visit, and I'd get in the car and be ready to go, and then just start crying, take the key out and go back inside. 

I know she's probably going to bring it up to him, to try and give him perspective. Part of me wants it out in the open, the other part of me just doesn't want to deal with it. I can't deal with it right now. Every time I try I become a wreck, because it feels so hopeless. He's killing himself every time he drinks, and I feel like being there and watching him do it and not saying or doing anything, I may as well be pouring the drinks myself. But I don't feel like I can can talk about it because he either doesn't understand, or I almost reach him and then he just seems to feel awful and it makes the situation worse.

Sometimes it feels like drinking is more important to him than we are, or else he'd listen to us when we tell him how it makes us feel. If he doesn't understand why we don't like it, then as far as he's concerned it doesn't matter. If it doesn't fit into his logic, then he dismisses it. And it's so hard to work up the courage to talk to him and be open and vulnerable, knowing there's a chance he might not even try to understand if I don't word it just right. And the last few times I've tried to talk to him I thought I DID word it well, and nothing good came out of it.

I spoke to my mother again last night. She told me my reaction when we had been talking has given her new perspective, and she's making arrangements for an intake with a doctor to get him evaluated for possible recommendation for a detox clinic. She puts up with it so much and so often that it's good to see her being proactive (and he's agreed to go) but if it's not 100% his decision I don't know how effective it can be. I don't know he's capable of making such a decision on his own, though, or at least to follow through with it. She's certainly the only one who could get away with it.

I'm also not sure how I feel about being the poster child for this new-found motivation she has. She's the kind of person who'll endure a lot, but if it starts to effect someone else she takes action. Really, I don't know how she's lasted as long as she has. Maybe this is all a good thing. But it doesn't feel good. All of this feels incredibly awful, all of the time. I'm tired of feeling so fragile and having such a hot-button issue that can break me down so easily.

It's also difficult not to feel like I have an obligation to help him get better, having been through a similar problem before and successfully recovered. I know it's not my responsibility, but I can't shake the feeling. I keep having thoughts about him eventually dying, and if I don't exercise every idea I have or share everything I've learned, I'll always wonder if I could have changed things.

What a mess. Thanks to anyone who even attempted to read this novel of mine... and feedback is certainy welcome.