33 minutes late.
Last Friday, it was 33 minutes after when I normally start the commute to the office.
It needs to be Saturday.
I tightened the lid on my travel mug, patted Rocco goodbye and hurried to my car – computer bag, lunch bag, purse and coat all swinging from my arm.
Normally by this time of the workday, I am in serious work mode. To-do list recaps. Mental prep for meetings.
Instead, that day, I drove down the road thinking only of two people: Mom and Dad.
Over the last several months, I’ve had time to consider the resentment I feel for what my parents did and didn’t do that had a negative impact on me.
See, on this adult child of an alcoholic journey, one of my biggest challenges is resentment. I’ve long held onto resentment toward my mother and my father.
I was about 14 when it arrived so it’s been with me for 20 years now. I’ve always been resentful that my mother chooses not to get help. I resented how much joy I sacrificed to clean up her messes. I resented that she treated my sister and me the way she did. I resented that my father never got help for all of us and that he allowed Mom’s alcoholism-induced abuse to occur. I resented that I was the adult of the household by age 10. I resented that my 20s were as stressful and un-free as they were because of the continued chaos that flowed from Mom’s alcoholism when my sister was still so young.
Most of this resentment was directed to my mother. But after my dad died suddenly three years ago, I have since often wondered if he’d still be alive today if he’d acted to work on his co-dependency and help all us of get educated about Mom’s alcoholism decades ago. I resented his way of dealing. I think I resented his death, too. I miss him every day.
For a while now, I’ve been realizing that I need to let go and forgive.
But I wondered, how do you forgive an alcoholic parent? Is it even possible for a child of an alcoholic to forgive an alcoholic mother or father?
Over the last several months in my ACOA journey, I’ve realized that Dad – extraordinarily good-hearted man he was – was ill, too. Only now can I see that he was co-dependent to an extreme degree and completely uneducated about the effects of alcoholism. He absolutely did the best he knew how to cope.
As for Mom, she is extremely ill. While various emotions remain, I no longer feel resentment toward her.
I never actively worked on this resentment emotion specifically. I guess it has just slowly dissipated as I’ve focused on me and my life. Forgiveness is not for Mom or Dad, it’s for me. I realized I needed to give forgiveness so that I may move forward.
Eight years ago (the peak of my resentment) – heck, even two years ago, I couldn’t have imagined a time when I could wholeheartedly forgive Mom and Dad for the effects of Mom’s alcoholism on all of us.
But that morning, it was all very clear. I had already forgiven Mom and Dad.
So I called Mom.
Mom: “Hello?”
Me: “Hi. Don’t read into this because I’m not having a premonition about anything happening to anyone. I know life is unpredictable and uncertain and there is something I’ve realized that you need to know. The life you’ve had – it’s been very hard. I know the battles you face. For all the negative impact this has had on me, I forgive you.”
Silence.
Mom: “Okay.”
Me: “Okay. I need to hang up now.”
Mom: “Okay.”
You know how you can tell when someone is smiling when they speak – even only one word. She was smiling.
I was not. I was on the verge of vomiting .
Yesterday, I visited Dad’s grave and declared the same message.
I wish I could report that officially forgiving my parents felt like zillions of pounds were lifted from my shoulders. But it felt more like finishing a race. I was glad to reach the milestone but I felt completely fried. It feels draining, foreign and strangely, melancholy.
Forgiving them doesn’t change the fact that Mom and Dad were dealt these rotten cards in life, which dealt me and my sister similar, rotten cards. It doesn’t change the fact that I spent my whole life wrapped up in my mother’s addiction and tirelessly trying to fix her – fix everything!
This is sad.
But recognizing forgiveness frees up energy that can now be allocated to positive energy.
It’s already happening.
Today, I realized that there is another person who deserves forgiveness: me.
I need to forgive myself for everything I’ve done and not done that has negatively impacted my life – the guilt, the endless pursuit of satisfaction, the shame, the inability to care for myself , the pain I’ve endured. I am a victim of an illness, too – a 100% normal response to the world I entered.
This is a new, exciting, challenging part of the journey. It’s a long road, my friends.
I hope you are well.
This is SO powerful, Jody. Thank you for sharing – truly – you are making a huge difference for adult children of alcoholics and the young children still in the throws of it.
Thank you, Lisa. Thank you for your incredible commitment to the work you do. A gift to the world you are!
I am an alcoholic Mom in recovery for 7 years now. I read your story because I hope my daughter can one day forgive me. Thank you for sharing.
Congrats on your 7 years in recovery! Best wishes to you in your journey.
Thanks for sharing Jody. I am an ACOA also. I am seeking out learning how to forgive my alcoholic mother. I don’t know my dad, so that’s another story, another layer.
Anyway, I can’t help but feel like by forgiving her, I am giving her a pass. Like I’m saying it’s ok, what she did. Everything I’ve read says it’s for me, but I can’t wrap my head around that theory. Can you share any insight on this hurdle?
Thank you,
Hi, Sean. I struggle with these feelings often but as I continue on this journey and the more I’ve focused on taking good care of myself, forgiveness isn’t as hard. Best wishes to you in your journey.
Hi Jody! I grew up with an alcoholic father and co-dependent mother. Both have had treatment for their diseases over the years, starting in 1982. We as children (there are 4 of us kids) have been through children of alcoholic therapy programs. Sadly, some of the therapy helped but none of this treatment actually worked or stuck long-term for any of us (there’s a reason for this I’ll explain ahead). My dad had two periods in his life of sobriety, one lasting 4 yrs and one lasting 6. Back in 1999 (3 of the 4 of us kids were grown and out of the house) my dad drank himself into a coma. He came out of it but then had a stroke before he left the hospital that left him disabled. Mom took him back (she had started divorce proceedings prior to this happening) and has been his caretaker ever since. All of us kids have or have had very strained relationships with our parents over the years (no surprise there). I THOUGHT over the past years that I had forgiven dad. Last year however, I had a moment with my dad that made me realize I had never, truly and authentically forgiven him. I was visiting my parents and dad actually said some really sweet and kind things about mom, in front of me. He told her what a great job she did raising all of us kids, how proud he was of all of us and how he never had to worry one bit about us because he knew she was a great mom. This somehow threw my world upside down (in a good way). All my childhood, I had laid in bed, listening to dad verbally bash mom when he came home drunk. Suddenly, I saw dad in a whole new light. I truly felt compassion for him and most importantly deep love for him. I had truly forgiven him. Before this happened, whenever I would see a picture of him, think about him or see him in person, I would feel sadness and pity for him with a bit of bitterness thrown in that I didn’t have a “normal” childhood and that my children would never have the grandfather that I had. The reason I think this affected me so, was two fold. Prior to this visit, I had been studying the book of Isaiah in the Bible which gives graphic, prophetic detail of what Christ would endure on the cross. I really think this played a key role in truly forgiving my father. Learning about the torture Christ went through even though he did absolutely nothing wrong coupled with the realization that my father could actually be authentically sweet and sensitive really humbled me. I realized I had ranked my father’s sins and shortcomings as worse than my own. God doesn’t see sin as rankings. It’s all the same. We SHOULD see sin that way too but it’s very difficult to do. Anyway, I feel that really digging into Scripture and getting closer to God and realizing why Jesus was sent for us and what He did on the cross is THE key for not only forgiving the alcoholic but for the alcoholic, co-dependent and children of the alcoholic to forgive themselves invsins related to alcoholism but also for everything else, as well. The other reason I think dad’s kind words had such an impact on me was that my primary love language is “words of affirmation”. Whenever dad verbally bashed my mom, he might as well have been bashing me. One of the difficulties in loving others is that there are 5 different ways in which people feel most loved: “words of affirmation”, “quality time”, “acts of service”, gifts” and “physical touch”. We often try to show love to others the way WE feel most loved and then wonder why it’s not received or accepted as well as we think it should be. Contrastly, when someone withholds or abuses our primary love languages (either intentionally or unintentionally) it cuts us the deepest. So in summary, what I have found through my experience is 1. It is possible to unauthenticated forgive someone 2. When you truly and authentically forgive someone (or yourself) you will feel chains that you never even realized were there broken and a weight that you didn’t know you were carrying lifting 3.) A close relationship with Jesus Christ is key to ALL this happening. We are NOT capable of forgiveness long-term or sobriety long-term without staying connected to “The Vine”. Apart from Him we will continue too flounder and live in bondage and it will affect all of our relationships both present and future. That’s just my two, long cents worth. And to Catherine, I hope you realize that even if your daughter doesn’t forgive you (I will pray that she does!) God does and will! Prayers for all going up!
Thanks for sharing Jody. This is true of a lot of life situations. I have a very close friend who drinks a lot and easy to get angry after drinking. Have persuaded him to not drink too much but useless. He has a child and I tried to find ways to help. Finally, I find there are cartoon books in the world about addiction for the child to know his family in their point of view.
I am so tired of trying to get over my past and so sad that I went on and did the same thing to my own (adopted) son. His resentment set in about the same time yours did or even earlier. I could see it happening, watched it growing and had no control over the disease that had its claws deep in me. – a disease that went down through the generation and that only I carried on. Now I sit alone, wishing with everything I have that my son loved me but why would he? I destroyed his childhood. I guess I didn’t learn from my own.
This has hit me more than any other literature I have read thus far, as I sit in the living room at 30 years old, watching my withering father come back and forth from his room to where he hid the stash, it is as real as it gets. All the way around. You are an excellent writer and have the ability to reach the most sensitive and true feelings of how deep addiction, codependency, and the continuing cycles they produce truly are.
Wow. Amazing story! Such a tricky slope and poor decisions beginning to change your whole life. I know we’ve all done bad choices. So glad you can get help and now help others thru this kind of way, thanks for blogging this very helpful!