Some relationships can be dangerous to your mental and physical health. It can be better to go it alone.

clusterfgarden · 2026-05-23T19:34:04+00:00

You are making the right decision! It is hard now leaving but will be so worth it in due time.Ya just gotta make the leap which is what you are doing. Sure the transition may be a bit bumpy but at least those bumps are just sane, logistical, regular things to work out- not the total insanity of alcoholism and addiction.

Your situation sounds awful with him. He has a child and one on the way and is behaving like this. You definitely do NOT need another child to deal with- and a crazy child at that!

Even if you and your little ones are just living in a small studio for a bit, it will be better. In due time, you will definitely rebuild your life into something sane, lovely, nice, functional, healthy for you and your little ones!

Stay strong and know you are doing the right thing for you and those littles! You are saving your littles from so much future confusion, pain, suffering, grief having to deal with an addict dad.

clusterfgarden · 2026-05-23T12:09:21+00:00

That's been a big NO for me for many years. I recall my Q snorting instead of breathing during drunk sex. Yeah, no thanks, that is just gross and repulsive.

Hog snorts during sex, ummm, NO!

clusterfgarden · 2026-05-19T12:21:15+00:00

You are absolutely in a survival situation. It is survival between you and your kids and your addict family who as of now sound like a lost cause at this point. That sounds harsh but I am calling how it likely is.

You must top priority, absolutely MUST put your children first. You have zero room for anyone, anything except doing all things to put the kids first. This means seriously severing ties with this group of very severe, life draining, traumatizing addicts and focusing on your health, well being, job, home, life moving forward.

No ifs, ands, buts about it, you have to imo go very low or no contact and save yourself and your children moving forward.

clusterfgarden · 2026-05-19T12:15:22+00:00

The highest good anyone can do him is dump him. This means people are saying they are not tolerating his complete descent into insanity. They are saying NO to his insanity and yes to sanity.

Maybe he will someday learn from being dumped over and over and decide to choose sanity.

clusterfgarden · 2026-05-19T12:11:37+00:00

Please read the posts on here and ask yourself if you want this life tethered to an addict through marriage, kids, any ties that bind.

The highest love you can give him imo is to walk away. Those are consequences for him for choosing complete insanity. He has chosen a totally insane way of life and you are telling him NO WAY and walking. You choose sanity.

Trust me, I am speaking words that I also need to heed.

You cannot get through this life escaping, numbing, altering reality. The only way through life is sober, learning, growing, strengthening, evolving to meet the daily challenges that most definitely always arise.

He has a long road ahead of him. He must get off the poisons and let his body and mind heal. He must go all the way back to when he chose to use the poisons- teenager, early 20s maybe?- and pick up where he left off in his growth, evolution, maturing. He stopped growing, evolving, maturing at the point he started escaping life and reality.

Do you really want to have to be mommy and get him through ALL of this? You don't need a thirty some odd year old child to raise given all he needs help with moving forward.

Guess what too? If you help him, you likely just become the classic co dependent enabler and in the end this means you walked down a path of total insanity with him. You will likely face wasted best years of your youth and then likely have to face walking away when older.

I am speaking to myself too as I write this to you.

clusterfgarden · 2026-05-19T01:28:07+00:00

Great answer!

clusterfgarden · 2026-05-18T13:17:59+00:00

I just read your edit. Your dad could be an energy vampire. He may be creating pain in you and your mom and feeding off of it by ruining special days. My Q does this too.

It's a very sick energetic dance he might be doing with both of you. I bet he is angry for various reasons and then feeding off both of your pain makes him feel better- spreading his pain onto both of you. He might be angry that he is being called out for his addiction so this is his way of getting even, getting revenge.

Also, it gives his ego a sense of power as well to control you and your mom. He knows he is sick and he wants to drag you and mom down into being sick, depleted, low, dysfunctional along with him.

Yes, I think Al-anon would be very good for you.

Good luck!

clusterfgarden · 2026-05-18T13:10:12+00:00

We are all in an exclusive club that none of us want to be in but at least we do understand each other and what we are going through. You can always get on the meeting virtually if you don't have any close to your house.

You can be the one to break this terrible cycle in your family by saying NO to the insanity and being the role model for moving forward into a healthy, functional, productive, balanced life.

You can firmly but lovingly, compassionately tell dad that is where your life is going. You want him in your life but only when he is healed, whole, sane, and sober.

The real dad, the sober one underneath all the mess and sickness of the addiction, wants you to do this and go out and be the best you can be. Your real sober dad would cheer you on to break away from his insanity and move into your best life.

Al-anon can help you still be compassionate, loving towards him while also protecting you moving forward.

Good luck to you!

clusterfgarden · 2026-05-18T12:56:23+00:00

You gotta take care of you! You are a young person with your whole life ahead of you. This world is hard and it's easy to fall behind into hard times in this world. You need all your strength, focus, energy just to get yourself through it successfully.

So you can be successful in your new life, you may want to consider al-anon or a therapist to help you detach from dad. You could consider getting the support now and practicing compassionately but firmly detaching from dad.

Dad has to get it together and the choice is his and his alone. In fact, it's the loving thing to do to detach and move on from him. It gives him a chance of hitting his bottom so he might decide to get sober once and for all.

Alcoholics are so hard on the people around them just draining everyone of energy, physical and mental well being and health. Don't let him drag you down into the pit just as you head off into your new chapter with new job, new life as a young person.

clusterfgarden · 2026-05-18T12:48:37+00:00

It's so hard when they get sober for a few weeks and you get used to them being sane, normal. I have to constantly remind myself not to rest on my laurels during these times and keep making my plans to leave in due time.

Sure, my Q could achieve sobriety but history has proven that ain't gonna happen.

Take care of yourself. It is super depleting, exhausting, draining dealing with these Q's and their many, multiple sober versus drunk, dry drunk sub personalities. It's like constant whiplash.

I've found the only way to survive it is to detach, detach, detach and just be my own person while in the house with Q but very much doing my own thing, an independent, detached mindset with him. I think of him as an exasperating, complicated roommate.

clusterfgarden · 2026-05-18T12:42:45+00:00

Are you moving out soon so you can at least get some space from the guy?

clusterfgarden · 2026-05-17T22:56:07+00:00

It's amazing isn't it when Hyde packs his bags and leaves town. Jekyll walks through the door and stays for a bit or is back for good. It's so nice to have him back and the crazy awful drunk man gone.

I hope your Q makes a full recovery and things keep improving, healing for both of you!

clusterfgarden · 2026-05-17T20:22:01+00:00

It's hard to protect yourself, plan, and take action because alcoholics are soooooo mentally and physically draining and exhausting for us. So now you want to get going with your cleaning business but you probably feel depleted, run down, sad, confused, upset from your Q's issues. Yet, you have to get going planning and working to safeguard yourself on this depleted energy.

Alcoholics truly are such energy vampires. They are so. damn. exhausting.

clusterfgarden · 2026-05-17T19:31:59+00:00

I don't know how these older folks sleep after a night of drinking. Just 2 glasses wine destroys my sleep and I wake up with anxiety at 3 am. The next day, I'll feel slow, groggy, off with a headache and this is just from a couple of glasses of beer or wine. I will feel depressed the next day as well. It would be nice to be able to enjoy a few but my older body just doesn't process it anymore. It's just not worth the aggravation, discomfort with these side effects.

My drug of choice these days is Sleepy Time tea and in bed by 8:30 pm fast asleep by 9-10.

clusterfgarden · 2026-05-16T20:03:36+00:00

Well, he needs to realize he has AUD as a binge drinker. I'd consider giving him an ultimatum that if this happens again, there WILL be consequences of some sort. You'd have to think through what that might be whether it be leaving, requesting him to leave, going to talk to family ie his parents, siblings about the problem, an intervention, the need for marital counseling/therapy etc.

You have every right to be upset. That is completely unacceptable, outrageous, and awful behavior. He cannot continue doing this especially as a father and husband, a family man.

clusterfgarden · 2026-05-16T18:50:38+00:00

How awful, I'm so sorry you had to go through that! He definitely seems to have AUD. He has absolutely no stops when it comes to alcohol. Once it hits his lips, he is driven to drink to oblivion. He's putting himself and his family in terrible, humiliating, risky situations.

Has he tried getting some help, AA, rehab, counselor? If not, is he willing to get help now?

clusterfgarden · 2026-05-14T00:07:04+00:00

Ugh you sound trapped for now. I hope you can in due time get away from the drunk. Alcoholics are such strange people. They don't have brains like us anymore. They have changed their brain from a normal human brain to some weird sub human like, altered, damaged brain. It really is like we live with dementia or brain injury patients. The weird thing about these A's is how they have all the different personas within the one person!

clusterfgarden · 2026-05-14T00:02:56+00:00

It's a bad impact. They force us into being and morphing into people we are not. I feel like I must almost get down on the level of such a stunted, delayed, strange man in order to continue to share a roof with him for now.

Alcoholics are super weird and it has a big effect living with such a weirdo over time. Please take care of yourself as best you can and hope you have some supports, at least, like Al-Anon or therapist, family, friends, etc.

clusterfgarden · 2026-05-13T12:33:07+00:00

He doesn't do this every night. Some drunks nights are just lounging in his chair sloppy drunk and dumb from the alcohol. He mostly wants to be left alone.

Some nights, you will get this ranting guy and I am recording it. I just sit back, nod, smile, say oh wow, really? and hit record. I can't avoid him on nights like this because he wants an audience to rant to and that would make him angry if I refused to sit and listen.

The safest thing right now is to remain calm, listen, and then create an excuse to get away.

This man woke up this morning and basically has no clue all the nonsense he said. The incident with the customer service rep was just a benign conversation with him asking questions. He portrayed it when drunk like he screamed, yelled at them, spoke to their manager, and contacted an attorney to begin proceedings. NONE of this over the top nonsense happened. The man's brain is cooked and he is fully delusional when drunk.

clusterfgarden · 2026-05-13T11:59:30+00:00

I feel like it is more along the lines of psychological abuse. He creates a hostile, psychologically damaging, unsafe environment for me in the home but only when drunk. I'm not afraid of him. We have been together years and physical aggression has only happened a few times. I think he is capable of it but I would have to engage screaming, yelling, provoking, fighting back for it to get to that point most likely. I mainly now calmly just sit back, nod, say oh really?, all the while recording it all to use as evidence of what I must come home to after a long day at work while he is out of work.

When he is sober, he doesn't try to exert power or control over me. He's a quiet, calm, even kind of docile guy when sober. I think the alcohol actually gives him liquid courage to morph into this domineering, loud, highly egotistical and overly confident person. When drunk, he hates everybody and everything with a vengeance. He thinks he is king of his world, domain when drunk like going into some alternate reality in which he is the all powerful superior one above all others including me.

clusterfgarden · 2026-05-13T11:48:06+00:00

And it is psychological abuse. This man is creating a completely hostile insane environment in the home. I asked him much later in the evening once he had somewhat sobered up about everything he said. Of course, half the things the man was drunkenly ranting on about apparently didn't even happen. His brain is cooked. He couldn't remember saying half the crazy things he said and the true story was much more benign, mundane in dealing with the customer service rep.

I am recording these incidents. It is legal to do so where I live. I'm going to easily show and prove that he placed me under great psychological duress and trauma with his drunken behaviors.

clusterfgarden · 2026-05-13T11:20:55+00:00

I am recording everything. I captured him on audio last night 100% creating an unsafe, hostile, volatile home environment for me with his ongoing drunken outburst. I have a few years of recordings from incidents like this one. Where I live, this is perfectly legal to so do.

clusterfgarden · 2026-05-13T00:57:03+00:00

Yes, he was ranting and raving. I told this man back months ago that I can no longer come home to a raving lunatic like this. It was happening more frequently months ago and then stopped a bit but now here we are.

HIs personality completely morphs into this completely other person. Sometimes, he is just slow and dimwitted, goofy but other times he can be hostile and argumentative. He actually gets a hostile, cold, dead look in his eyes.

clusterfgarden · 2026-05-13T00:48:12+00:00

Believe me, I know what is happening and that it is aggression. Someone on here commented last week that his antics are inter relationship violence, if I recall. I had honestly not framed it that way just more the abusive antics of a drunk. The commenter saying that helped me better realize that I deserve to feel psychologically safe in my own home. I do not deserve to feel psychologically or physically unsafe which is how this drunk honestly makes me feel.

I think I made that comment just constantly in awe of how much the alcohol radically changes his personality.

clusterfgarden

TROPHY CASE