Since my dad is a shitty alcoholic, I just wanna take time to appreciate those of you turning your lives around.

I love this post. This is my first time in this sub. I'm very cautious of my drinking because of my father. He's an absolute man child of a human who just drowns himself out in alcohol. He never learned how to filter or express his emotions. Apart from being at work, he has two settings- buzzed, drunk and ignorantly content, or quick, unpredictable blind rage.

I want to sincerely and deeply say thank you to anyone reading this comment who is taking this challenging path to sobriety. Maybe you're a parent, maybe not. Maybe you're a brother or a sister to someone, maybe a friend. I grew up in a home where my first memories were me sitting on the stairs watching my drunk parents toss furniture on top of each other. My mom ended up going cold turkey because I broke down crying one time at like 7 years old saying "mom, I don't like the drink", went to therapy and came out as a lesbian. Left my dad when I was in 4th grade. I stayed with him.

He regularly pissed the couch drunk. In those first 4 years following the divorce, I had to call the cops on him multiple times. He would go ballastic. Just me and this huge, solid 6ft tall 255lb drunken ox of a man in the house alone. He'd beat on my door and threaten me, blaming me for all of his problems. He'd scram for hours in such a frightening rage. He'd regularly talk down on me and call me stupid and retarded for little things like accidentally leaving a few grains of salt or some shit on the counter. He beat the shit out of one of my moms female friends who was helping her deal with everything post divorce. He thought they were hooking up.

He never had a decent childhood and his parents never raised him really, so I can't really blame him for how he is. He learned to use drinking as a crutch when he was about 14, and he just ran with it. He's uneducated, doesn't see the doctor often.. couldn't help me with my math homework after like 3rd grade... never showed up to any of my football games. I'd come home ecstatic over our win, I'd open the door to the reek of fresh piss, see him on the couch snoring like a bear with his pants all wet. I didn't step foot in that family room for years, until he only recently got new couches.

And that my friends, is a light synopsis of how alcoholism can affect "loved ones." I use the quotes because I'm not quite sure my father even knows what love is. I'm sure he doesn't think I've had it half bad. As someone who graduated HS with a GPA of 3.74 without ever trying or studying, honors classes and AP's... and then coming home to my drunken brute of a father who can't even express the slightest emotion besides rage and anger... it's been sad. I have no foundation. No one ever built me up as a human. No one ever nurtured me, they just nurtured their buzz. I was never anyone's priority. Filling the fridge with boozes was always priority number 1. Drinking it was number 2.

Now I feel like I'm left with the same neglect that drew him into his addiction/dependence during his adolescence, and I'm scared I'll end up stopping into his same path. And to think of me ever having kids and potentially sharing the same image as him.... it's soul shakingly frightening.

Idk why anyone would read this but seeing this post touched me and made me cry. I just had such an empty, loveless upbringing/familial life because of drinking. It's effects on my family and my soul are profound. Thank you for cleansing yourself. It will have deeply resounding ripple effects in your life, I promise you this.

/r/stopdrinking Thread