My parents just left after a three day visit. It was the first time I've seen them in almost a year. DH, LO, and I have been gradually moving further and further across the states for various reasons, one of which is to get further away from them.
So, for at least as long as I have been alive, my dad has always been a "secret" alcoholic... that is to say, every night he would make multiple absurd excuses to "go to the garage" over and over, and everyone would pretend not to notice that he was getting wasted. There were isolated incidents I remember when I was a child when people attempted "interventions," but any progress that was made was short lived and everyone gradually went back to ignoring and enabling.
My dad is a bizarre drunk, but he gets away with it because he's at least a "happy" drunk. But he is bizarre and embarrassing and almost always verging on inappropriate.
Also he's a drug addict. A "prescription" drug addict, but a drug addict nonetheless IMO. His coctail of choice is Adderall, Tramadol (pain killers), and whiskey ...a deadly combination according to my Internet searches. He is currently between jobs (though starting a new one in about a month) so he has no reason to be taking his Adderall. He's just addicted to it. It's freaking speed, amphetamines. I understand, I used to take it too in my teen and college years, not surprising considering the influence I grew up with. But I got clean eventually and became a health nut.
Most of the time he has a mild vibration going from the Adderall. His hands vibrate softly, he has weird twitches, and he makes overly exaggerated intense facial expressions that make him look like a methed up cartoon character. His energy is really hard to be around. His eyes are always popping out of his head, and his mouth is almost always open in some caricatural version of whatever emotion he is attempting to express. Not to mention his face is a deep purply red from the years of alcohol abuse. He kind of looks like he's about to explode from the neck up.
Back to the vibration thing... that's important because on the first day they were here, I noticed that he wasn't just vibrating like he used too, he was having almost violent tremors, and could barely get his glass of water to his mouth to take his "medicine." *eyeroll* I even mentioned it to him, "Dad, why are you earthquaking?" He brushed it off by claiming he'd been looking into possible medical causes and changed the subject. I strongly suspected it was alcohol withdrawals, which is important to note because for a long while now my dad has been claiming (over the phone) that he doesn't drink any more except for the occasional beer.
Somewhere in the middle of the first day, my dad asked me all coyly, "Hey, DD, could you or would you be able to have a rice beer?" He asked that specifically because I can't do gluten. He knows that neither I nor DH drink and that we don't really want people (especially him) drinking around our child, but he always likes to push it to see if things have changed. I said, "No, I'm still breastfeeding, Dad," but I really wish I'd laid into him a little about the fact that he knows we don't drink. He apparently also tried to offer to buy DH a beer at some point when I was out of the room.
Unfortunately I wasn't paying close attention on the first day so I can't rightly accuse him of anything for that day.
Day 2 - He'd been generally getting on my nerves for a number of reasons. He's a total Narc, and makes everything about him. I don't feel like getting into all that right now. It's irrelevant anyway. The point is, I was already on edge with him.
Outside of his really bad addictions, he is also obsessed with food. He thinks about food constantly, he's overweight, a compulsive and emotional eater, and if he sees ANYONE eating he HAS to ask them if he can have some of what they're eating, even if it's wildly inappropriate. I have funny stories I could tell, but maybe later.
So I was feeding LO the special beans and rice that I always buy/make especially for him (which my dad knows), and my dad comes up and asks me in the jokingly pouty voice he always uses in these instances, "Can iiii have some beans?" And makes a silly pouty face, while still being completely serious. Aside from already being annoyed with him, this further pissed me off because I had told him prior to their arrival that we can in no way afford to feed them while they're here. Like literally, we are on a very strict food budget and the money simply does not exist. He had claimed to understand completely.
Later on we were about to watch a movie while LO napped. My parents had JUST gotten back from eating lunch and my dad had JUST gotten through gushing over how full he was. I hadn't eaten in a while so I grabbed a single carrot to snack on. I knew it was going to happen before it did, and right on cue my dad asked, "Can iiii have a carrot?" So I overreact to this and snap at him, "Jesus, Dad, is that all you ever think about? Just, food, food, food! Consume, consume, consume! Me, stimulation, now!!"
My dad doesn't "do" confrontation (unless it's passive aggressive in nature), so he clammed up. He pouted through the whole movie. Did not laugh at any of the funny parts, things that I know he would normally laugh at. It was very tense and awkward. At some point I went back to the bedroom to tend to LO and the second I left my dad made some bogus excuse to go to their rental car for a moment. This was the point after which I started paying close attention.
Clues: He came back up to the apartment and the whole room filled with the strong scent of breath freshener. He was no longer "earth quaking." He was far more relaxed and uninhibited, and my mom kept having to excuse his bizarre behavior to LO by saying, "Grandpa's pretty silly, isn't he..." He made at least one more lame excuse to go to the car that evening. Before they left to go back to their hotel, he gave me a hug and I managed to get a good whiff of his breath which had a faint hint of liquor.
Oh ALSO, I had already given him a talking to about giving LO his space. Since they got here, LO would be playing and periodically he'd nervously look back at my dad with his intense energy and bizarre faces and would start crying. (He never acts that way around anyone BTW, and usually loves strangers/visitors.) My dad would ignore his emotional cues and would insist on tickling him or otherwise insisting on himself in a way that would lead LO to a meltdown. Once, my dad asked LO if he could pick him up, knowing LO couldn't answer, took his silence as a yes and snatched him up, making him cry of course. I immediately snatched him away and told him not to do that again. Then as they were leaving for the evening and my dad was all "comfortable," he said in a cutesy voice, "Here, LO, I'm gonna give you a hug whether you want it or not," and snatched him up. I told him that is not OK and we talked about this already. He smiled awkwardly and semi-passive aggressively and said, "I know. That was more for everyone else's benefit." I was livid, but as they were walking out the door I didn't know what to say so he got away with it.
Day 3 - He's getting cocky about it. His excuses were even lamer. He made at least 4 trips to the car that evening. The last time he went he didn't even bother with an excuse, he just said softly, "I'll be right back." That last time I took the opportunity and spied on him through the bedroom window. I saw him open the trunk. I'd seen in the trunk earlier when we went places because I'd put my diaper bag in there, which I took out when we got home. Aside from that it was empty. I saw him lift up the spare tire compartment which is always where we found his liquor when I was a kid. He disappeared down into the trunk for a moment, then came up and paused and made exactly the bitter faces you would expect from someone who just took a big swig of hard liquor. Then he took out his little package of Listerine strips and popped several into his mouth. He was slurring heavily by this time, and showing no restraint around LO.
When it was time for them to go, my dad gave me like 10 hugs and was getting all mopish, obviously because he was so effing drunk. He was very obviously trying to hint that he wanted to give LO a hug and pouted and lingered a good while. When he finally realized that I wasn't going to come out and say, "Oh come here, LO. Give your poor old Grandpa a hug!" He looked at me like he was going to cry and said, "OK, bye then," and hurried out the door. I'm thinking, "Really? You got to have this great long visit with your grandchild and have all these magical memories and pictures and you have to leave it on the 'he's not giving me exactly what I want right now! Boohoohoooo!' note?!"
So that was that and now I'm contemplating a total CO or at least sending an email saying that if he cannot get his addictions under control I cannot allow him to be involved in my child's life. What do you think?
DH wants me to contact my grandparents first to tell them I'm going to do it first because my parents have a history of misrepresenting things like this in order to turn my grandparents against us, which is one of the ways they try to manipulate us. ...but I don't know. I don't really feel like it's any of their business, but I do worry what my parents will say because they can't not tell everyone everything.
ETA, I just realized I never mentioned my mom's role in all this. That's because I don't consider her a person any more and she's essentially dead to me. Here's one little BG story from a couple of years ago that explains why if anyone's curious. http://community.babycenter.com/post/a56154238/my_moo_is_a_5_y.o._princess_aka_pretend-alzheimers_update_p.6_p.12_give_me_strength?cpg=2#c2490765852
So, for at least as long as I have been alive, my dad has always been a "secret" alcoholic... that is to say, every night he would make multiple absurd excuses to "go to the garage" over and over, and everyone would pretend not to notice that he was getting wasted. There were isolated incidents I remember when I was a child when people attempted "interventions," but any progress that was made was short lived and everyone gradually went back to ignoring and enabling.
My dad is a bizarre drunk, but he gets away with it because he's at least a "happy" drunk. But he is bizarre and embarrassing and almost always verging on inappropriate.
Also he's a drug addict. A "prescription" drug addict, but a drug addict nonetheless IMO. His coctail of choice is Adderall, Tramadol (pain killers), and whiskey ...a deadly combination according to my Internet searches. He is currently between jobs (though starting a new one in about a month) so he has no reason to be taking his Adderall. He's just addicted to it. It's freaking speed, amphetamines. I understand, I used to take it too in my teen and college years, not surprising considering the influence I grew up with. But I got clean eventually and became a health nut.
Most of the time he has a mild vibration going from the Adderall. His hands vibrate softly, he has weird twitches, and he makes overly exaggerated intense facial expressions that make him look like a methed up cartoon character. His energy is really hard to be around. His eyes are always popping out of his head, and his mouth is almost always open in some caricatural version of whatever emotion he is attempting to express. Not to mention his face is a deep purply red from the years of alcohol abuse. He kind of looks like he's about to explode from the neck up.
Back to the vibration thing... that's important because on the first day they were here, I noticed that he wasn't just vibrating like he used too, he was having almost violent tremors, and could barely get his glass of water to his mouth to take his "medicine." *eyeroll* I even mentioned it to him, "Dad, why are you earthquaking?" He brushed it off by claiming he'd been looking into possible medical causes and changed the subject. I strongly suspected it was alcohol withdrawals, which is important to note because for a long while now my dad has been claiming (over the phone) that he doesn't drink any more except for the occasional beer.
Somewhere in the middle of the first day, my dad asked me all coyly, "Hey, DD, could you or would you be able to have a rice beer?" He asked that specifically because I can't do gluten. He knows that neither I nor DH drink and that we don't really want people (especially him) drinking around our child, but he always likes to push it to see if things have changed. I said, "No, I'm still breastfeeding, Dad," but I really wish I'd laid into him a little about the fact that he knows we don't drink. He apparently also tried to offer to buy DH a beer at some point when I was out of the room.
Unfortunately I wasn't paying close attention on the first day so I can't rightly accuse him of anything for that day.
Day 2 - He'd been generally getting on my nerves for a number of reasons. He's a total Narc, and makes everything about him. I don't feel like getting into all that right now. It's irrelevant anyway. The point is, I was already on edge with him.
Outside of his really bad addictions, he is also obsessed with food. He thinks about food constantly, he's overweight, a compulsive and emotional eater, and if he sees ANYONE eating he HAS to ask them if he can have some of what they're eating, even if it's wildly inappropriate. I have funny stories I could tell, but maybe later.
So I was feeding LO the special beans and rice that I always buy/make especially for him (which my dad knows), and my dad comes up and asks me in the jokingly pouty voice he always uses in these instances, "Can iiii have some beans?" And makes a silly pouty face, while still being completely serious. Aside from already being annoyed with him, this further pissed me off because I had told him prior to their arrival that we can in no way afford to feed them while they're here. Like literally, we are on a very strict food budget and the money simply does not exist. He had claimed to understand completely.
Later on we were about to watch a movie while LO napped. My parents had JUST gotten back from eating lunch and my dad had JUST gotten through gushing over how full he was. I hadn't eaten in a while so I grabbed a single carrot to snack on. I knew it was going to happen before it did, and right on cue my dad asked, "Can iiii have a carrot?" So I overreact to this and snap at him, "Jesus, Dad, is that all you ever think about? Just, food, food, food! Consume, consume, consume! Me, stimulation, now!!"
My dad doesn't "do" confrontation (unless it's passive aggressive in nature), so he clammed up. He pouted through the whole movie. Did not laugh at any of the funny parts, things that I know he would normally laugh at. It was very tense and awkward. At some point I went back to the bedroom to tend to LO and the second I left my dad made some bogus excuse to go to their rental car for a moment. This was the point after which I started paying close attention.
Clues: He came back up to the apartment and the whole room filled with the strong scent of breath freshener. He was no longer "earth quaking." He was far more relaxed and uninhibited, and my mom kept having to excuse his bizarre behavior to LO by saying, "Grandpa's pretty silly, isn't he..." He made at least one more lame excuse to go to the car that evening. Before they left to go back to their hotel, he gave me a hug and I managed to get a good whiff of his breath which had a faint hint of liquor.
Oh ALSO, I had already given him a talking to about giving LO his space. Since they got here, LO would be playing and periodically he'd nervously look back at my dad with his intense energy and bizarre faces and would start crying. (He never acts that way around anyone BTW, and usually loves strangers/visitors.) My dad would ignore his emotional cues and would insist on tickling him or otherwise insisting on himself in a way that would lead LO to a meltdown. Once, my dad asked LO if he could pick him up, knowing LO couldn't answer, took his silence as a yes and snatched him up, making him cry of course. I immediately snatched him away and told him not to do that again. Then as they were leaving for the evening and my dad was all "comfortable," he said in a cutesy voice, "Here, LO, I'm gonna give you a hug whether you want it or not," and snatched him up. I told him that is not OK and we talked about this already. He smiled awkwardly and semi-passive aggressively and said, "I know. That was more for everyone else's benefit." I was livid, but as they were walking out the door I didn't know what to say so he got away with it.
Day 3 - He's getting cocky about it. His excuses were even lamer. He made at least 4 trips to the car that evening. The last time he went he didn't even bother with an excuse, he just said softly, "I'll be right back." That last time I took the opportunity and spied on him through the bedroom window. I saw him open the trunk. I'd seen in the trunk earlier when we went places because I'd put my diaper bag in there, which I took out when we got home. Aside from that it was empty. I saw him lift up the spare tire compartment which is always where we found his liquor when I was a kid. He disappeared down into the trunk for a moment, then came up and paused and made exactly the bitter faces you would expect from someone who just took a big swig of hard liquor. Then he took out his little package of Listerine strips and popped several into his mouth. He was slurring heavily by this time, and showing no restraint around LO.
When it was time for them to go, my dad gave me like 10 hugs and was getting all mopish, obviously because he was so effing drunk. He was very obviously trying to hint that he wanted to give LO a hug and pouted and lingered a good while. When he finally realized that I wasn't going to come out and say, "Oh come here, LO. Give your poor old Grandpa a hug!" He looked at me like he was going to cry and said, "OK, bye then," and hurried out the door. I'm thinking, "Really? You got to have this great long visit with your grandchild and have all these magical memories and pictures and you have to leave it on the 'he's not giving me exactly what I want right now! Boohoohoooo!' note?!"
So that was that and now I'm contemplating a total CO or at least sending an email saying that if he cannot get his addictions under control I cannot allow him to be involved in my child's life. What do you think?
DH wants me to contact my grandparents first to tell them I'm going to do it first because my parents have a history of misrepresenting things like this in order to turn my grandparents against us, which is one of the ways they try to manipulate us. ...but I don't know. I don't really feel like it's any of their business, but I do worry what my parents will say because they can't not tell everyone everything.
ETA, I just realized I never mentioned my mom's role in all this. That's because I don't consider her a person any more and she's essentially dead to me. Here's one little BG story from a couple of years ago that explains why if anyone's curious. http://community.babycenter.com/post/a56154238/my_moo_is_a_5_y.o._princess_aka_pretend-alzheimers_update_p.6_p.12_give_me_strength?cpg=2#c2490765852