I caught up with my father for lunch recently. He looked like

>>18178598
He's an alcoholic. Alcoholics will use any excuse to blame anyone or anything for their alcohol abuse, except themselves.

What could help is to visit him unanounced, at random moments. So if he cares he has to get his shit together all the time and not only on the moment you said you would come.

You dont need to have strong emotions about this btw. It is absurd.

>>18178628

It was really confronting seeing this in action, he spent the whole time jumping from excuse to excuse. At one stage he actually lashed out at me with "You don't even have a girlfriend!". Thanks Dad

I thought I had gotten through to him at the end, because he kinda seemed like he had internalized it and was in the process of making peace.

That's why I think he had a mental breakdown, I think he was forced to acknowledge himself and responded by creating huge drama so he could feel safe in self-pity

Alcoholics in my experience are like anybody in the grip of addiction. They've got this intense shame and guilt related to weakness and failure and letting others down combined with the problems caused by specific addiction itself alongside whatever issues nurtured the addiction in the first place, usually an avoidant personality unwilling or unable to come to terms with the situation hoping that the addiction will either mask, act as a cry for help, or absolve them of having the responsibility of having to deal with the issues themselves or without support.

I mean, it all comes down to the same shit in the end. You sustain and support a habit and empower it to the point where you feel that it is too powerful to confront. While addictive substances can pose physical and mental problems upon withdrawal people drag themselves out of the wilderness after breaking both legs because they really want to get out alive. You've got to repaint yourself as someone who is going to deal with this, rather than continue to wallow in the weakness and empowering the addiction to the point where you are somebody who cannot deal with this.

Sounds like what you said made your father think and he went off into 'I'm powerless against this, everybody needs to pay attention to my problems, I can't face up to this or process the guilt I feel right now".

So yeah, you don't need to feel a great deal here. Addicts going to seek enabling for their problematic behaviour until they want to change it.

>>18178789
Don't get me wrong, I'm not all 'fuck addicts, either quit or die', but putting yourself back in control of your choices rather than empowering an addiction is very important because it is so helpful. Rather than I drink because I cannot control myself around drink because it is so much more powerful than me it is I drink because I've chosen to. Drink is the only thing left in my life because I chose to make it so important at the exclusion of so much else. I feel so weak and powerless around it because I've made myself weak and powerless to justify my decision to continue drinking because to stop, would require reversing this viewpoint and coming to terms with the fact I was always making the decisions and now I'm aware of that I have to take ownership of that. Am I bored yet of being an addict? Am I willing to find another way to pass the time or am I going to have to come to terms with the fact that this is who I am. I'm not a powerless victim who was destined to be a brain surgeon before a chance encounter with alcohol left me forever changed, I'm just a guy who chooses to drink all the time instead of dismantling this fantasy.

I've been addicted to so many things man. I've known LOTS of addicts. I've had so many troubling encounters. What do you do when an addict gets thrown out by his wife and comes to you drunk and crying because he can't see his daughters and when he sobers up turns out he wants to live with you and continue to drink while trying to wear down his wife to take him back still drinking and you take her side and tell him to quit drinking and go back to his family sober and he accuses you of killing him and betraying him and being just like all the others in end despite all the bullshit and he wanders off into the night drunk with nowhere to go?

Or the veteran with PTSD slumped on the floor weeping at the birthday party of a 3 year old after drinking a whole bottle of vodka at 10am. Crying about how nobody cares. Cry for help.