Adult child of an alcoholic: It really isn’t your fault

I am an adult child of an alcoholic. If you are too, please know it really isn’t your fault.

My experience is pretty weird to me and even more weird to people I tell. I lived with my parents until they finally split up when I was 9, me always believing I had a normal childhood. 

We were not rich not poor. My dad had 4 businesses. We went on holidays, celebrated Xmas, all the normal things you do when you’re a child. 

As a child, I thought my dad drank like any normal person, a few beers every night but nothing out of the ordinary. 

I will always remember one holiday when I was 13, my dad decided he wasn’t coming out of the apartment. He was staying in drinking and being really nasty to everyone. He was generally not very nice to me, so it affected others more than me within the family.

“Your dad is an alcoholic”

Then there was the fateful day after college. I got a phone call from my step mum saying, “Don’t come home, you need to go to your mum’s. Your dad is an alcoholic, he has a problem.”

I couldn’t believe it. I never even thought he was an alcoholic. I went home and there he was on the sofa hiding bottles behind the cushions and pretty out of his face.

I stayed, gave him a sandwich and thought, “I’ve got this, I can stop him”. I found the booze and hid it around my own room.

He woke up and went wild, he punched me and fought with me over a bottle he found. I managed to get down the stairs but he cornered me. He was so drunk I managed to push him over and run for the back door and got out.

That night I stayed with my step mum at her parents and then I moved in reluctantly with my mum. I say reluctantly because my mum blamed me for my dad leaving her when I was 9.

I do think she was pretty messed up due to the toxic relationship and environment she was in with my dad. I had already moved out of living with my mum when I was 13 because she was very irrational.

My dad binge drinks

I found out that my dad binge drinks so can appear as a normal drinker, then every so many years he goes off the rails, unable to control his drinking.

This was for years covered up by mum. She would say he was away on business, keep him in the bedroom and allow him to drink himself stupid. I always found it weird I could never go in my parents’ bedroom!

I also found out his parents were alcoholics. They also took Mogadon and Diazepam, so not only was it drink, it was drugs too.

Over the years, from the age of 18 to 30, my dad would binge drink every so many years, apologise, then go into the drink cycle again.

Unhealthy relationships

He would send me abusive messages, threaten me, call me fat. I always remember a time when he called and I said I had friends at my house, and he said “Why are McDonald’s giving out friends’ receipts?”. 

He always favoured my sister over me. He belittled me to the point where I had unhealthy relationships with men because I hated myself.

Mine and my sister’s relationship is still toxic. I have learnt an alcoholic parent has a confidant and then there was me, the black sheep.

She went to private school, I was told I didn’t have that option.

I don’t believe the relationship with my dad and my sister was healthy. She would side with my dad and be really vile to me.

She still tries to put me down now and leave me out of family occasions. Last Christmas, she invited all my stepfamily and brothers and didn’t invite me and my family.

I finally got so low in 2014 that I spoke to the doctor and got counselling through Healthy Minds.

It helped me process my dad’s actions and understand it wasn’t my fault. He couldn’t make me feel worthless anymore.

Happy ending for a child of an alcoholic

I stopped contact with my dad. I met my husband and now I have my own family. I am in such a better place than I was.

I do believe it is all about setting boundaries. I no longer allow people in my life if they don’t respect me or make me happy. And I will always ensure that my children have the one thing that I always wanted which was to be loved by a parent. 

I hope by telling my story, people can see that there can be a happy ending for a child of an alcoholic. Counselling can really work, without it I don’t know where I would be. 

But most of all it really isn’t your fault

Suzanne

To read more experience stories, go to Support & Advice.