Forgiveness
I often find myself battling with how to forgive my parent for their alcholism. I lost my father to it a few years ago now and it was really sudden, despite his relationship with alcohol and it left me with many questions, so much hate and anger and so much sadness for both his loss and all that this disease put him and myself through. Does anybody else find that they are unable to forgive people for not listening? Because my father often did not remember how bad he was whilst drunk the day after and just went about life as if nothing happened. I can’t seem to let go of that because if he had, maybe it wouldn’t have killed him.
Hi jdavies19 - so sorry to hear that you are feeling this way. Everything you are feeling is completely normal and are all part of the grieving process, have you been able to speak to anyone about how you are feeling?
My dad passed away suddenly too and its such a mix of emotions. One thing that helped me is that I wrote my Dad a letter which got all the things I wanted to say and how I was feeling and then tore it up and put it in the bin.
Please do remember that you are not alone and if you do feel like you need to talk to someone, Nacoa have a free helpline (0800 358 3456)
Hi jdavies19, you aren’t alone in feeling this way, it’s so difficult to move forwards when you can’t help thinking things might have been different. For me, the important thing to remember is alcohol distorts the truth, makes people forget and act out of character. Letting go is so hard and you have every right to feel everything you are feeling right now. Try to remember you did everything you could. I also comfort myself knowing that it’s Ok to have lots of conflicting feelings at the same time. You can love someone, miss someone and be angry or frustrated by their behaviour.
Hi jdavies19, I'm sorry to hear that you are feeling this way - it must be awful.
My alcoholic parent is still alive, but I've been told by so many people that when they do pass away much of the pain brought about by alcoholism tends to come rushing back all over again. While I don't have solutions (although fazza20's letter idea sounds like a good one), I just want to let you know that what you are feeling is normal, and is shared by many COAs. It may not feel like it now, but it will get better.
jdavies19 I’m so sorry for what you are going through, I have an alcoholic dad who does the same thing gets wasted and says or does horrible things but never remembers the next day and acts like nothing happened.
For years I felt so much anger and hatred towards my dad but the last couple of years I started to meditate ( I know sounds silly) and I started to try to see things from his perspective and realized he would drink to try to cover up his overwhelming sadness and regret and soon enough my anger and hatred for him somewhat died down and ended up turning into pity, there are some things I still find hard to forgive but what I do know is that this is my life and I will take those hard painful times as a lesson I’ve learned and instead of focusing on the anger turn it into something beautiful like love I know it sounds a lot easier said and done but if you face the things that have been bothering you one at a time and release it you will find the all the weight that has been collecting on your shoulders to lighten up this is something I found that has helped me out a lot, there are somethings that I still struggle with and at times it can seem hopeless but at the end of the day I continue to tell myself that this is my life and I can do with it what I want, sorry I know this is long and I know that this is something that helps me and might not be something that works for you but remember that some of these things take time and sometimes only you can answer these internal conflicts but also know that this is also your life and you have endless possibilities on what you can do with it, also you sharing this also shows that you are already taking the right steps in facing this conflict, thank you for sharing your story and I hope this helps in someway.