Ball State

» alcohol rehab

By China at 4:01 PM

My father has been and always will be an alcoholic. I realize that this statement sounds really negative and uncaring, but I have spent a lifetime, waiting, hoping and praying for this man to change, and to this point there hasn't been an alcohol rehab program that has made a lick of difference. This man is just on a path of self destruction and all the addiction treatment programs in the whole wide world, can't help you if you won't help yourself.

I don't know if any of you have grown up with an alcoholic parent, it can be really tough. When I was a kid I would blame myself for all the things that my dad would do. I always thought that if I were a better kid he would be nicer. Or if I were better at baseball, he would come to my game instead sleeping it off again. Once you get older and get the counseling you need you begin to accept that they own the problem and not you. You are just innocent and helpless and they are the ones who are supposed to be helping model good behavior for you and taking care of you, not the other way around.

In the beginning you believe that it is all your fault, but once you get over that, the anger and resentment set in. It is not only anger at the alcoholic in your life, but also at the alcohol rehab that didn't help, your other parent for allowing things to be this bad, the teachers at school for not hearing your cries and sensing your pain, and even your friends who have seemingly normal parents, while everyone is talking and whispering about your dad, behind your back. Or so they believe, because if they had been truly doing it behind my back, then I guess I wouldn't have known about it…right?

As a kid it is hard not to be able to have friends come over, or to wake in the night and hear your father beating your mother when he gets in at 4am. I swear those sounds and memories will be permanently imprinted on my mind, forever etched in the section called things to never do. I will never do these things to my kids and I will never drink alcohol or use drugs. Of these things I am very sure. This pattern of addiction and abuse, stops with me.