Wow. Reading all this brought back memories of my dad. He was an alcoholic. Never abusive, just drank a lot. All the time. My mom apparently tried for years to get him to stop. Eventually she told him to choose, and he chose drinking. Not that he didn't go through the motions of recovery. For him, it was always just a short term fix, and soon he was back at it. I did the groups, and therapy to help me try to understand what all went on. We did an intervention, and I got all of the advice along the lines of having to let him hit bottom, etc. Really tough for a 16-18 year old kid to realize all of this and find himself in the position of having to try to help his dad, who was always someone he had looked up to and respected. It was all so confusing because he was such a high functioning drunk, and my relationship with him (and what I saw of his relationship with my mother and sister) seemed fine up until he moved out.
He eventaully moved from St. Louis, to San Diego, under the guise of trying to start his own business. I was home from school for winter break, and talked to him on the phoe one night. I could tell he was in bad shape. We knew he had quit taking his blood pressure medicine, because all of his money went to vodka. I knew he was in real trouble. We talked for a very long time, and, I know this sounds silly, but he professed to me what I beleived to be a hearfelt desire to clean up. He was on a list to get into the VA hospital.
My mother was a school principal, and they had put on a holiday benefit at her school. She had brought the money home- about $1500, and I seriously considered stealing the money and her car and driving to San Diego with the hope of at least getting him to a hospital. I knew I could repay the money, and any other consequenses seemed minor compared to the prosepct of losing him. For some reason, I stayed up all night by myself, dressed, packed, with keys in my hand, but talked myself out of it. 2 days later, 2 days before Christmas at 19 years old, I got a call from the SDPD, who had found him dead. He literally drank until his body chemisry was so screwed up that his heart stopped. He died naked on the floor of some fleabag motel, alone.
I have a couple of things from this experience that I will always carry with me-beyond the sense of loss and hurt that anyone would feel losing their father so needlessly. First, a couple of weeks before that conversation, I had made a point to call both of my parents to thank them both for who I was and what I had become. I had a year and a half of college under my belt, and I had seen some kids come to school and literally self destruct, either from the pressure of school, or from issues at home, or just from the fact that they had been turned loose on their own for the first time, and did not know how to take care of themselves. Despite my dad's drinking, I turned out pretty good, and I at least got to tell my dad that I was so very appreciative of what he and my mom had given me. While I didn't think about it at the time, in some way that was probably me saying goodbye.
Second, I will never get over the fact that I had the last chance to possibly save him, and I pussed out. I know all the programs and experts would say that is not true, that he had the chance to save himself, that even if I had gone, chances are he would just have fallen back. But the reality is that at least he would have had one more chance. He was my dad, and no matter what else, I feel I owed him that if it was in any way within my power. I'm 35 now, and that still haunts me. Luckily for me, that manifests itself I believe in that I cherish everything and everyone in my life so much that I would never let something like that happen to me.
Obviously you are in a much different situation, and I would never ever think to try to give someone advice on what to do in any such situation as there are just so many variables. My problem was probably that I never got to the point where I felt I had done everything I could, and so there is guilt. Luckily, I guess, I had/have my head on straight enough that I use that to make sure that I will never do anything similar, nor will I ever allow anyone I love to start down that path without making sure that I have lifted heaven and earth to stop it. Whatever path you choose, just be sure to try to find peace with yourself with the actions you do or do not take.
