Denial
Wahey!!! I’m back!!!
Still haven’t made my return to the gym, but will do soon! My mother has gone off on her travels so I am left with my father in the evenings. To most people this wouldn’t be too bad, but my father is an alcoholic who hasn’t so much as looked my way for the past three years when my mothers around but now she’s gone he is literally following me around. If there’s a mess anywhere "that wasn’t me!", if he does the dishes I have to redo them because he’s so filthy there’s dirt left on them! After a mini breakdown last night (about 4 hours after she had left the country), I spent the night in the kitchen while he smoked in the sitting room. Not just normal cigarettes, feckin rollys because he’s too tight to spend drinking money on normal fags! I spent half an hour spraying the sitting room to get rid of the smell.
I also had to hide whatever food I bought that he might eat because he has a fondness for eating whatever is in plain sight to him. I mean this with the utmost honesty, think of the town wino and my father is basically just like him except he slinks back into the house at night time because he has nowhere else to go.
My brother hasn’t spoken to him in about 10 years, my Little Sister isn’t bothered seeing him, Oldest Sister has to put up with him calling to her moaning about me and Mum and the Middle Sister comes home once a month so doesn’t have to put up with him.
There are days when I feel bad for just wishing he’d go and leave us to pick up the rest of our lives, and then there are days when I know he made this happen himself. He chose drink over his family every single day of my life, my sisters lives, and my brothers life. He has made so many promises when drunk that have been broken but he doesn’t remember them the next morning.
We spent years "hiding" the secret from his family. They all knew. There was no secret to hide and in a way I am so angry with them for making us think that we had to pretend he wasn’t in the pub, that the reason he wasn’t at his mothers on Christmas day wasn’t because he fell the night before and had cut his face open. That Oldest Sister hasn’t had to collect him from the side of the road. I’m angry with myself more though for trying to hide it. That he has collapsed in front of my nephew countless times. Only a handful of my friends know how bad the situation is.
Partner in Crime keeps making excuses for his behaviour (following me around, not cleaning anything properly, eating all the food) and while she might be trying to make me feel better its just frustrating having to repeatedly say "no its not because of that, its because he’s too lazy to wash himself / he thinks that by following me and pretending to have an interest in me it will wipe out the last 3 years / he thinks that by putting whatever food is in the fridge in his pocket that we won’t know it is him eating it all because he doesn’t want to waste his money that he could be spending on drink on food".
People tell me they’ve seen him sitting at a busstop around 9 in the morning. The busstop is across the road from the pub.
I am wary of drinking now. I do go out on nights out and I do get too drunk sometimes but now if I’m on holidays, or a weekend away and someone wants a drink early to get into the holiday spirit, I won’t do it. I am terrified that if I drink early its one step closer to becoming him. I don’t even like to drink at home. Some friends have said I’m a dry-arse, "what’s wrong with ya, just have a drink stop being such a dryshite".
I’m not a dryshite, I’m terrified.
