How did you learn to forgive your addict parent?

I didn't.

Why would I? did yours make genuine amends and change their behavior? no? Then, why would you?

DL is not your therapist, OP.

They die — you live. The end.

Both my parents were addicts. Unsurprisingly, I became one, too. I looked around at the mess my life had become, took myself in hand with help from AA and psychotherapy, and got clean. Forgiving my parents was part of my recovery. All but one of my siblings ended up addicted to alcohol or drugs or both. It was fascinating in a bizarre way to watch them all make the recovery journey. We are more bonded now than when we ever were in the family home.

Both my parents were caught in cycles of family addiction. I and my sibs broke that cycle.

R3 Touche but, I’m just curious to hear other people’s experiences.

R5 Glad you didn’t fall into the same trap as your parents.

R2 He doesn’t want to get help.

I wouldn't say I have, OP. My childhood doesn't torment me like it used to, but I'm old now and give fewer fucks.

Work on living happily as the adult you now.

I forgave him because he died before he was 40, alone and in pain.When you have an addiction, your friends are there as long as you can get high together. When shit goes sideways, your friends are MIA. Your family is there for you and mourn you. Your friends have forgotten about you already.

Fortunately my half siblings were born, and he took the brunt of his anger out on them (I was already out of the house). I was also the favorite. My brother has never forgiven him, and my sister is in a facility for mentally ill people (she's paranoid schizophrenic) and not speaking to any family. He died 6.5 years ago, and the little money that we inherited (the most that my brother has ever had) is assuaging my brother's feelings.

We're just waiting for her death. Next time we'll know better than to go for the Narcan.

You can move on with your life without forgiving or forgetting. You just have to decide to do it. Addicts do the things they do because they are addicts not because they want to hurt you or be an asshole, although mine was also an asshole. Not just my opinion my friends from school were constantly asking "why is your dad such an asshole".

I’m not sure if I have. I’ve accepted it

My dad finally quit drinking when I was a junior in high school which was a relief to all. He was a great guy and didn't need booze to drive us all crazy, but he was a dutiful and fun dad most days.

My mom was misdiagnosed as having fatal cancer 55+ years ago and sent home after some bizarre surgery with a truckload of painkillers to die...she's still alive. We finally threatened every doctor supplying her with opiates and now she's on Suboxone, which she abuses, or tries to. She refuses to admit she has ever had any problem at all after decades of staggering around in a stupor and ODing a thousand times. She somehow will likely turn 86 in January, but my siblings and I barely speak to her because of our frustration...and rage. Aside from all that she's a wonderful person, but the addiction is killing us all.

Forgiveness is probably years away if it happens at all.

I placed a copy of my applauded fictitious novel featuring her on her grave as a present.

“ .. How did you learn to forgive your addict parent? .. “

I didn’t.

"Forgive" means different things to different people.

I think it's better to focus on not becoming dysfunctional with them (e.g., being co-dependent, in a rescuing cycle).

Also, don't try to get revenge on them.

In other words, your actions are maybe more important than how you think about it.

I will share this again-

Father was an alcoholic, also had mental issues likely caused by drinking since his teens and was bipolar. Died in a VA hospital of kidney failure. Growing up, he was never around, running the streets and always helping others but never there for our family, I resented this very deeply as a child. Tormented for a very long time.

About 20 year after he died, I was clearing old documents from my dementia riddled mom’s apartment because scammers kept calling her and I didn’t want any banking or real estate info they could ask and trick her to reveal over the phone.

I came across a cheap old wallet in a plastic hospital bag, it was my father’s. Inside was a white chip from AA and several appointment cards for doctor appts and a script for lithum. There was also an envelope with my name on it, (not my brother or mom). All of this had sat in that bag for over 20 years waiting for me to find it, like some sort of frigging time capsule.

I realized my father tried. He tried and tried, and that made all the difference- that he recognized he had a problem, and had tried to better himself. It was like a giant weight of a lifetime of resentment had lifted from me. For a moment I could FEEL my father sitting right alongside me on that bed, touching my shoulder.

When I opened the envelope, there was a small paper inside, and all it said was, “ALL IS LOVE, LOVE IS ALL”

Addiction and alcoholism are genetic, I had issues myself, but am 15 years sober the end of this month. Find a way to ease and process your resentment, and realize the issue is with YOU and the way you’re processing it, not especially the other person. Praying helps, if you don’t pray, ASK. This resentment can eat you alive and ruin your life if left unresolved, may you find the peace you deserve.

I am the person I am becuase of my parents, if you like who you are, realize it’s because of this crucible of parenting you’ve been put into.

By having the last laugh……

ElderSage / R19, I'm glad you found that time capsule, but not everybody finds something like that time capsule with the AA chip and the envelope. Some people had pieces of shit parents who didn't really "do their best."

Some people end up good, not because of their "crucible" parents, but because they took their own path in life.

R21, yes, I understand this- but there are tragedies, circumstances and situations FAR worse that we have dealt with. One thing I learned in sobriety is that life is like a light switch- Either you are sitting in a problem, or seeking a solution. There is NO grey area. It is a process, not just coping or getting along, but to appreciate both side of the coin we are handed with inhabiting this life.

Every struggle has opportunity poised on the other side of it, and only through further perspective are we able to understand this. I also believe when we die, we are shown the entire reason and purpose of WHY.

My mom was agonizing and an absolute shrew of a woman, almost drove me and my brother to bankruptcy again and again with her finances and poor decisions. I always say, “I love my mother, but I tolerate her too.” Several years ago, I began to understand that I was feeding and focusing my own energy into the equation, and perpetuating the agony- like being plugged into a giant mechanism that was eating me alive.

There are ways and methods to sever this connection- so that you may create others that better serve your purpose, because if left unsought, these connections tend to sour and strain all your other relationships. Here’s the deal though- you must find it for yourself, and you are the only one that can do so, and it has NOTHING to do with your parents acceptance, rejection, or understanding.

Louise Hay’s books are a great resource to do so.

It took her death (she was 78, I was 38) and then a few decades of middle aged life to forgive the alcoholism (which was mild compared to some I’ve read about here). She was widowed at 65 and never moved forward. At 66, with an older husband who is saying “the long goodbye,” (Alzheimer’s), I now understand the impulse to simply stay stuck in anticipatory grief.

I never resented my dad for being an alcoholic. He had a shit life and the culture where I grew up was that most parents drank every night. He wasn’t abusive (to me) or a mean drunk. From what I saw, my friends with bipolar parents had it WAY worse.

I joined her in heaven.

[quote]Louise Hay’s books are a great resource to do so.

To do what, rot your brain on her dolled-up "metaphysical" gibberish?

Don't question the Elder SAGE.

They didn’t talk to me when I was a kid because they were drunk. Now I don’t talk to them. Turnabout is fair play.

They died before I could. I was still mad.

I left home very young, here’s the thing-

Unless your parents are still housing, clothing and feeding you on their own dime, YOU are ultimately responsible for yourself, for your thoughts, and for your own consequences once you’ve left the nest. Don’t be a dirty diaper Donald.

The thoughts, feelings and emotions your parents etched into your memory are NOT your reality years or decades later, unless you leave them festering inside your soul. Any other excuse, avoidance, or distractions we make, (no matter how pretty or well endowed) are still “sitting in the problem”, not applying solutions.

Velvet Rage is another great book to read, I’m not 100% behind Louise Hay but she has helped many. I fully understand why people aren’t ready or willing to forgive their parents, I wore that crown of thorns for a very long time myself.

An aside, I came across this video and is very much a parental/ relationship eye opener for all you jaded bitches!

You forgive people not for their sake, but for your own, OP.

Forgiving doesn't mean that all is well and forgotten, water under the bridge. It means you accept what happened and are willing to move on.

Forgiving also doesn't oblige you to maintain a (good) relationship with the person(s) you forgive. It's about freeing yourself from the burden of resentment, which will eat away at you.

Bull R30. The excuse manufactured by some self-help 12 step stuff. The first thing I learned in college abnormal psych was how responsible your parents (or primary caregivers) are for the way you turn out because of the first three years of your life. I know my parents did not do the best they could. They knew better. They chose themselves. My own strength, intrinsic self-worth, and dogged determination helped me. I like myself. I would wish all troubled souls could feel this for themselves.

I feel like creating a thread titled:

How did you learn to forgive parents whose relationship was like a dysfunctional soap opera and thus made you self medicate with drugs producing an addict?

To R32 and all the other people that have bashed 12 Step Programs-

These programs are some of the very last places people that struggle nowadays can get help anymore without refinancing their homes, bankrupting their families, or siphoning money from parent’s inheritance because they do not have adequate insurance that will pay for recovery.

They are also the last stop for gays, and those that were already cast out from family.

Also, many medically overseen cessation programs encourage taking other drugs the rest of your life or long durations to ameliorate or suppress the urges, rather than identify or clear the underlying reasons and to unfold or solve them.

There’s plenty about 12 Step Programs to criticize about, but the fact that they have saved so many and continue to provide these services free or almost free to millions of people every day is admirable. There really isn’t anything else out there anymore that works long term.

12 step programs work for some, not others. Just like rehab. Iknow a mom who emptied her savings and retirement sending her kid to rehab three times. Her daughter ended up ODing and dying before 30.

I never forgave my father for one reason: I was adopted. That means that when my parents adopted me- thanks to the clearly well done vetting process they went though in 1965- my father was a drunk. I believe in many ways I was adopted to save him from that. That was a way of thinking back then. But his meanness, cruelty, hate, and lack of self- respect all lead me to believe that no matter what sort of person he may have wanted to be he wasn't smart enough, or self- aware enough to see the great harm he was doing to me. Nor did my mother- who enabled him. Thank God I have never had to battle addiction but that doesn't mean that all through my life there were not addicts. I resent them for that alone. No, forgiveness is only given to those who can be redeemed. That was not my father.

The quickest way to become your parents is to misunderstand what forgiveness is (Dutchie's got it right) and let that shit go unresolved. Nobody gets away without some sort of parental template, and you don't get to work on the consequences of that template relationship unless you let the resentment go and accept it.

And smugly saying you know for sure they didn't do the best they could and have every right to not forgive them is still just a fucking form of whining and excuse-making, no matter how correct your are.

Unfortunately, I did it too late after they died. I now realize they were addicts and didn't want to be alcoholics and act that way. Growing up in that fear of not knowing how the parent might react next affects you for life but you have to move on and at least understand if not forgive. They were addicts and did not want it to be that way either.