Having thoughts after a conversation I had with my older brother yesterday after he talked about my father and his drinking and getting so drunk he fell in the bathroom and hit his head bad on the toilet. He would go out with my mother, drink and ignore her and she would drink because she felt so hurt. My brother told me this story three times and each time he said "I was so frightened". My brother has anger about the things he saw when my father drank. I don't say he already told me what he witnessed either, I already know he just needs to tell me and I need to comfort him. My father denied he had a problem and never admitted he had a problem, not even after he fell down the stairs so drunk and broke some ribs. He even decided that if he drank wine it was not the same as drinking hard alcohol. Well, a person just gets drunk faster with wine because it's absorbed in the esphogus instead of how hard liquor has to go through the digestive track.

I have seen people that have addiction problems and have relationship problems say "he/she made me drink, smoke pot, and do cocaine" came across that YEARS ago with friends that had partners that had issues. I have seen the fights about the money it costs too. I have seen people blame their drinking addiction on their partner many times. Sorry but, that's JUST AN EXCUSE. I actually live where I live to distance from that and have only come to realize even moving doesn't mean you won't see/experience it.

DO YOU KNOW that alcohol and drug addiction has MANY narcissistic traits to it? Watching two alcoholics/addicts fight is like watching two narcissists fight. I saw that with an old friend of mine where both her and her husband had problems, they are divorced now. She was one that was one angry drunk.

I experience cognitive dissonance when I talk about this disease. I have had TOO MANY people that I have cared about struggle with alcoholism. I have had DRUNKS talk to me and USE me for a shoulder to cry on and then TREAT ME SO BADLY. Oh, my friend, my friend, my friend UNTIL I have a boundary, then it's she is bad, she is bad, she is bad IGNORE her. Alcholism also has LOVE BOMBING in it too. The fake Aww you are SO NICE condescension that is uttered along with the level of high. I know the mood shifts and have seen it so many times in my life. I was a bartender many years ago and how wonderful I am when I serve them that drink. Aww, thank you so much, I appreciate that so much. Then later when it's busy that same person after drinking for a while forgets that and it's "where is my drink!".

The interesting part is when the alcohol is at the level where it acts like a truth serum. I always felt that if I could sit with THAT part and possibly comfort THAT part that's under the curtain showing the part the person keeps hidden, MAYBE, that may help. What reminds me of that is when I read about narcissists and how under that personality disorder is a very troubled child. I never really thought about the science behind how alcohol affects the brain when I waited for this stage to surface.

When I sat with my dad while he drank his wine, that's when he would talk about things he experienced when he was younger. Just before Christmas I opened a box full of pictures from my parents home and I came across some very early pictures of my father. I came across a picture of him when he was maybe a year and a half and he was such a cute little boy. Then I came across a picture of him in his Navy uniform and he was JUST A KID STILL. When I saw that picture of him, I remember our talks as we sat by the fire in the kitchen and he had his wine and shared about the things he saw and experienced in WWII when he served. He sat across from me as an older man, seemingly more experienced than me. Yet, when I saw that picture and recalled the last time I talked to him about that time in his life, I realized he really was just still a boy when he experienced all he shared.

The last time I sat in front of a fire with my dad was at my older sister's house. It was at one of her gatherings and she had a fire going and I noticed him sitting alone and in his own little world thinking, as he did all his life. And I went over and sat with him and asked him some questions because I knew where he was, and he opened up and talked about the War again. And after I listened (this time he was sober) I looked at him and said, "That must have been hard Dad, because at that age you were still really just a boy, still so very, very young yet to witness all that". And for the first time he looked at me AS THAT BOY, that boy that had always needed a presence to comfort that very young teenager who had joined before he even graduated from high school. All his life, inside him was that young boy that experienced things that most can't even imagine. He was sober because he simply got too old to drink. And that one time I got to comfort that very young boy in him and I knew it because when he looked at me, he looked at me as that young teen always trying to find his way past that stage of his life.

There was another time when I went to visit him when my mother was in the hospital. He was alone in his office in the barn and he had been mentally declining and my sister had angrily ordered him to find something and when I saw him he was soaked in sweat as it was like an oven in that office and I talked him out of that dilemma and asked him if he would like to take a break and take a ride to the beach that he loved because it was full of good memories when he was a boy before the war. My sister had already taken his car away so he felt lost and abandoned and dependent without his car. So when I offered to take him for that ride he answered with a quiet lift and sigh of relief and said "ok, that sounds great".

When I took him to this beach and we stood on the boardwalk looking out at the island and this place he experienced so many good things (before the war), he talked about how he wanted half his ashes spread there and half his ashes put on the ship he spent time on where all his shipmates got killed when their compartment was hit by a bomb. He did not go on that tour with his ship mates, and yet that day he let me know how half of him never got over losing all his ship mate friends.

I came across this article where Anthony Hopkins shares his many years of sobriety. He talks about learning to not be afraid, and ironically my father looked a lot like Anthony Hopkins, especially as they both aged. My dad never found sobriety until the last years of his life. And when I think about alcoholism, as I see the suffering it caused my mother, myself, and listening to my older brother who is always angry. I also think about this young teen that struggled all his life with all the things he saw and experienced much too young in that War. And when I went to visit my parent's home where my sister would not leave me alone and was so incredibly intrusive and mean, I walked around and could see stacks and stacks of books about WWII. I tried to find the one book my father asked me to buy him where I sat and listened to the author talk and my father said it was the best written book he ever read and it turned out to be the last book he ever read too. I had it signed by the author too and it was one thing I had asked for but my sister hid it with her creepy way of aluding but denying she said she kept the signed books aside and that was the only signed book my dad had and it had value as the author passed away. I wanted to read this book my father liked so much. And I have my father's war box that my brother asked for, and sadly my sister made it a point to take out anything of value in it proving she did not even care about desecrating something about my father that deserved to stay intact.

This has been a challenging thread for me in that I try to respect the disease and yet at the same time it destroys relationships and leaves some deep hurts and resentments. I do hear that when my brother vents his anger about "dad was an alcoholic selfish man". Yes, there is that aspect that comes with alcoholism, I have most definitely experienced this first hand.

So here is the link I came across that reminded me of my dad and the effort to stop running away by turning to alcohol that reminded me of my dad and this disease this morning and how it has affected my life.

Anthony Hopkins celebrates 45 years of sobriety after nearly 'drinking myself to death'