my life started out like most living with my mum and dad and my 2 sisters. We done all the normal things. We went fishing on the weekends bike riding other weekends. My dad went to work 6 sometimes 7 days a week but he still managed to find time to do things with us. It wasnt until i was about 5 that i remeber my mum loading us into the car and picking my dad up drunk from the pub. I remember my mum crying most nights when my dad would come home in a rage call her horrible names smashing plates. I remember being scared and wondering why dad was doing these things… after a few years of mum getting back together with dad then splitting up again a month later mum finally moved from the coast to rural australia.
However the drunken abuse didnt stop there even though we moved 8.5hrs away. My dad drove up there and was intimidating and threatening my mum over the phone… police got involved even though they didnt do much other than an avo (aprehended violence order) me and my middle sister still kept in regular contact with him he would drive up and take us out for the day this was when i was about ten years old. I was too young to understand what was happening my dad was filling my head with crap. He would promise he was going to get this and that for me and my sisters but we soon learnt that that was a lie. He would often forget to ring for our birthdays etc. all the while he would say that when i turned 12 i could come and live with him, i looked forward to this for so long…
when my twelfth birthday came up i packed my belongings and caught a coach to my dads. I was so excited to finally be living with dad. All went well for the first month then i started to find out first hand what it was like to live with an alcoholic that comes home at 8-9pm every night and would call me a fat little grub and that i needed to loose weight. He back handed me a few times, even grabbed me by the throat once threatining to punch me. I was confused thinking that i had done something wrong not sure what but i must have done it or why else would he be carrying on this way… i ended up and moved back to my mothers when i was 13…
even years later i still get abusive phone calls every once in a while although now i dont take his shit like i used to… i have always wondered how life would have been if my dad didnt drink and my parents stayed together maybe another day i might delve a little deaper into this but for now thats all thanks
dontstarttoday 
You deserve so much better
Xoxo DaiseyDropper
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must have been real tough to experience that as a kid. My own father was never abusive, nor an alcohol but he was always pretty absent so I have thought about what that meant for me, growing up without a male role-model.
But from my years of therapy I’ve learned that dwelling on the ‘what ifs’ isn’t very helpful. What is important is the present, and what we can do now to shape our future.
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That must have been very difficult as a child and having no idea that he was acting the way he was acting because he was drunk. You surely had no idea that alcoholism is a disease. Not to give him any free passes by any means, but it is an illness and a nasty one at that. I’m glad he didn’t hurt you any more than he did. Had you stayed living with him, you never know what might have happened, because as you know, alcoholics drink a lot and often. They do things they would otherwise never do while sober, but the problem is staying sober. Of course, as with anything else, he has to acknowledge he has a problem and he has to want to get help. No amount of loved one’s caring words of encouragement is enough. Nothing can improve until he wants it to be better. I hope that perhaps he’s straightened himself up by now, possibly?? My dad was killed by a drink driver when I was only 8. The one thing I did hear is that he usually called for a ride home, rather than drinking and driving. I don’t know, maybe he did sometimes, but that’s really great if he never gets behind the wheel because should he happen to kill someone, he would feel so bad. He might not be able to live with himself. The man that killed my dad, died in that accident. It took me til sometime after I started blogging, it’s been almost 4 years blogging, to forgive that man. Carrying that hate around all my life did not help matters. I forgave him, for me. It set me free. There’s nothing I can do to make that any different, but like you, I often wonder how different my life would have been, had that not happened and I had a dad, growing up. My therapist’s both tell me the exact same thing that yours told you. I’m all about mindfulness and trying to be mindful. I’ve started meditating, too. That was another one of her (one of them, I have 2) bright ideas. It helps tremendously. It takes a lot of patience and practice, but if you stick with it, it will be so worth it. It’s where I go when I would usually flip out or whatever. It’s a calming thing for me. It keeps me grounded, pretty grounded. I still have many bad days, but I don’t have all bad days anymore. Peace out! 🙂
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