So I just got off the phone with my sister

[treeskin]

Yeah, it's that bad, she's in tears calling me from work.

I got this from her in stream-of-thought, oh-gods-I'm-pissed mode. I'll try to put it in order.

Starting with Saturday, when she went with our father to help him look for houses to buy. He would not let her drive, even though he starting drinking at 10:30 that morning, and drank the whole time he was driving around, and yelled at her for trying to get the keys away from him. Furthermore, Sis says that he was drunk enough on Saturday that he doesn't remember that she was with him in the truck, and he argued with her about that fact on Sunday.

He invited himself to her place for dinner Sunday, complained about the food and got more drunk in front of her kids. Somewhere between leaving her place that evening and 9:30 that night, he totalled his truck, taking out a telephone pole in the process. Sis says he flipped the truck end-over-end.

He was arrested and charged with a DUI and driving with an open container. He asked the bondsman to call Sis to bail him out, which she refused (three times!). He finally called Crazy Aunt Kathy to bail him out, and she did.

He's now stuck in Salina until his court date on May 20. So I'm obviously not headed that direction for a few weeks.

Now, to the really prime part...

Sis got called by our father and Crazy Aunt Kathy last night (separately), both to berate her for not helping him. Which should have, in their eyes, involved getting him out of the pokey, letting him stay at her place until his court date, and driving him to Texas to pick up his other vehicle. (The cops won't let him go unless Sis or Aunt Kathy take him. Kathy can't drive that far, and has the farm, and thinks Sis ought to.)

Sis started *today* with a 7:30 call from Aunt Kathy, who's berating her *again* for not helping her father. Sis told Kathy where to stick it (colorfully, because Sis doesn't take that sort of thing well at any hour). She was crying when she called me, because Kathy started in on all the things Kathy thinks is wrong with Sis.


Sis knows of at least one instance, locally, where he ran someone off the road and left the scene of the accident. (Because her bf saw it happen, and stopped to help the girl. It wasn't a bad accident, so he helped her get her car back on the road and didn't call the cops. He should have, though.)

Kathy seems to have a plan of "saving" our father, and she's already enlisted one of his old friends to help. Problem is, this friend has a big a drinking problem as Dad, and has done as little about it. I'm thinking the only thing this plan will help him with is drinking himself to death that much faster.




So, let me state, in public and for the record:

My father is an alcoholic who refuses to admit he has a problem. In his eyes, any effects his behavior have on his life, or the lives of the people around him, are not his fault. He is misunderstood and put upon, and has been all his life.

I am an adult, and can choose to remove myself from unhealthy situations and people. I am no longer a child trapped in those circumstances.

I owe him nothing. I owe his sister nothing. If she chooses to try to help him, that is her decision and the consequences are hers to deal with. I will not allow her to use filial loyalty to blackmail me into helping an unrepentant alcoholic who's just going to drown his rescuer.

I choose to not allow this man back into my life. I choose to not allow this man into the lives of my children. They will be much healthier without him.

I will not permit him on my property, or in my home.

I will support any family member who also chooses to remove him from their life. I will maintain minimal contact with those that support him, because I don't have the energy to fix them when he's dragging them down. And he will.

Anyone who wants to argue with me on that one can take a flying leap off a tall bridge.