How to help somebody who can't see they have a problem

[Ginny07]

I've never done this before but myself and my whole family feel pushed to the brink at the moment.

My father has always had a drinking problem, even as a child I can remember he'd have a few cans of beer every night after work. In the past few years though this has definitely escalated, he put a tv in the garage and would sit out there every night, isolated from the family, most times not even coming in to eat dinner with us, he'd just hide away in the shed and drink while watching tv. This became the norm, and even though we all knew he probably drunk more than he should we sort of just accepted it... Occasionally he would have a blow up over stupid, irrelevant things like the dishes not being done & a messy kitchen when he finally comes in from the garage into the house. These blow ups would become more frequent, always after he'd had especially too much to drink, and although they were never physical, i'm very aware they would classify as emotional and mental abuse, particularly towards my mother and I. I can't help but feel a loathing towards him and his drinking, even though the vast majority of the time he was a kind and loving father. Many times my mother has threatened to leave him, but feels trapped with what would happen to the house and how she could possibly support herself and her two children on her own. After these confrontations and discussion him drinking too much he would slow down on the drinking for a couple of days and be really loving and overly happy, but it would all end up back in the same place again with another blow up in a few weeks or months. About 6 months ago he was made redundant, and since then has only been helping out a friend with a painting business and earning less wage than myself as a 20 year old employee at a supermarket. The drinking has upped even more since then and on saturday he had a confrontation with the neighbours over loud music at their party, he went over highly intoxicated and got assaulted violently. It was absolutely horrific seeing him battered like that. My family is just at a whits end, he's admitted that alcohol is the only 'vice' he has and I just don't know what to do as it is clear to all of us he is depressed. I just don't see him ever admitting to that and getting help, or letting us help him as he shuts us out so dismissively. My heart breaks as I can see the toll the strain has on my mother and sister as well as myself, but I just dont know what I can do to make the situation better.

[Neil_1]

Dear ginny

Welcome to Beyond Blue and thank you for providing your post and providing good detail as well, as it helps the readers to get a good overall understanding of the situation, which by the way, isn’t an overly good one, as you’ve described.

The super hard part about this will be to get your Dad to get some help.  However, I felt a glimmer of hope when I read that he’s admitted that alcohol is his only vice.  Hopefully that can be something to use/work on, in order for him to seek some help?

Before I do go on though, that sounded awful about what the neighbours did to him, to batter him like you mentioned.  I guess he was highly drunk and may not have perhaps asked for them to lower the volume in a very polite manner, but still for them to beat him up – that’s almost a call for police involvement, but that’s just my thought on that.

When he’s sober, I’m gathering that he’s a happy and loving father.  Is it not possible to try and have a chat with him at one of those times and to let him know how very worried you are about him and very concerned.  Then to try and see if he’d be willing to have an appointment with a gp?   You could say that (if you were willing to do this) that you would go with him and be a support – and just be there in the waiting room.  As an option.   Just a thought.

Ginny, I’m sure there’ll be others who’ll come along and post to you on this, so between a few of us, I hope we can try to give you some different and hopefully useful options.

I do hope you can post back also.

Neil