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Hi All, Just had Christmas dinner with my A-father at a hotel, and feel sad. The dinner was ok bar the nasty couple of comments that I had from my father. He was talking about how he drinks at home because of the danger of drinking and driving, sound stuff you would think, until you realise just how much he drinks at home and how it has removed his capacity to go out and about. Imprisoned by a bottle of whisky is more like it. Dinner was rushed enough, though very nice but I'd sooner have been at home with the dogs and cat. A boiled egg and a bit of peace is worth a lot. I'm glad I made the effort though the guilt trip he tries to lay on meaning it or not is a pain in the A. I pretty much hate being around the negativity of alcoholism though I am a double winner myself. I hate the negativity. It is so boring and tedious and it is not really living more like a living death with no joy and serenity. Sorry for venting but I need to.
Thank you maire rua for your vent. I get the feeling of hating being around negativity too and not only around situations concerning alcohol or alcoholism but all kinds of negativity or people who do not have the tools I have to stop and look at a situation before reacting. I feel like i am watching out of control ping pongs and all I can do is duck or swat my paddle at 'em until I get the chance to find my peace again. I am glad I am not alone in this struggle. Home and a boiled egg and my dog and cat are my plan for today, told the family that after finals plus work plus moving the business next week I need today to find my peace. Thankfully whether they understand or not they accept me or at least know once I decide what is best for me I stick to it LOL Warm wishes to you, enjoy the holiday!
None of my family drink but negative feelings , especially around the holidays can come out over a supposedly friendly game of Trivial Pursuit.
Its interesting to see the buried feelings, resentments and remarks come out when playing an innocent game, not so innocent.
You seemed to recoginize the manipulations and guilt trips he tried to lay on you. Parents seem to do that sometimes, even when they don't drink. Maybe you could explain to your Dad, you don't enjoy it, maybe by being direct about it, he will stop.
Isnt it great we have our own homes to come home to, where we can put our guard down and be ourselves and reflect or come here and vent.
On Christmas day our family played Trivia Pursuit, I was a little angry that on the trivia pursuit game they asked where Lake Titicaca was and I said Peru, and my brother ridiculed me and said, I didnt even know where Peru was, I really took offense. The answer said "Bolivia", but I was sure it was Peru. Googled it today and it is on the boarder of Peru and Bolivia, much to my delite. I just had to forward the google and get my one up!! I told them they had to forfeit their win. I was joking of course. I think our resentments are all in how we approach them. We need more Alananon and more journeys into ourself and why we respond the way we do. Everytime I get resentful and over react, I need to take a look at myself. Its not about the alcoholic, its about us.
Wishing you a very Happy New year of great discoveries, about ourselves. Bettina
-- Edited by Bettina on Sunday 26th of December 2010 03:59:08 PM
Your comment on this disease being a "living death" just hit me right between the eyes. You are so right on with that. I've not heard it described that way but it is so true. When my son was actively using he just looked to me like the walking dead...no emotion, no feelings nothing. I looked into his eyes one day very very early in my own recovery and I was screaming at him. He's a foot taller than me and he just stood there and took it, his facial expression never changed once no matter how brutal I was being. I looked in his eyes and saw the most incredible pain I have ever witnessed. i stopped yelling and had to remove myself from the room and try and process what i had just seen. My beautiful, loving, smart, talented, athletic son was in so much pain he had to drowned it out with drugs. Me his own mother who should be able to help him, fix him was absolutly powerless over him and his pain. Honestly, I racked my brain re-living his child/teenagehood trying to figure out what it was that happened to cause him such pain and lose all belief in himself and basically give up on life at such a young age. I have no answer...but that day I learned compassion for him and the disease he allowed to control him. I learned to separate my son from the disease. I could love my son and hate the disease. I think that day my recovery truly began. Your dinner with your dad may have been the only good thing he has done for himself in a long time. And your compassion by not talking the bait he set out for you to argue speaks well of your recovery. The upside I would see of it was you didn't have to do any clean up after dinner lol That would have gone on my graitude list Blessings
Funny, my active A father and I had much the same conversation about drinking and driving on Christmas Eve. He was coming over to my house for Christmas dinner, and jokingly made the comment that "I guess there's no point bringing a bottle of wine" as he knows that none of the other guests would be drinking. Then said he wouldn't drive after drinking anyway.
Don't know how alcohol could appeal to anyone but an alcoholic after watching my mother die of cirrhosis a year ago. But it's a measure of my own detachment that we can talk about drinking lightheartedly now -- nothing I say is going to make one bit of difference to his behaviour, so there's no point in being hostile. We are the only family that each of us has left now, all the rest are dead, so we have a truce.
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Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could... Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense. - Emerson
One of the people I work with has put his truck aside for months because he does not want to get a dui. That decision is part of his denial.
My sister's alcoholism was and can be the source of a lot of grief for me. I have had to give up all the notions of what I would like for Christmas. Family gatherings is not one of them for me. I held onto the vestige that I could have a decent family Christmas for decades. Somehow I still wanted to believe it was possible.
