Father Is Alcoholic and Homeless….?
Question by Dan Moore: Father is alcoholic and homeless….?
Hello,
My dad is/was an alcoholic for many years. He cheated on mom mother and divorce took place. He moved to MN with the lady he cheated with and there he stopped working since she had a good job and it was tough to find a job in the small town they lived in. So he sat at home all day and watched TV and drank while she worked.
A few years later she died of some weird throat bleeding (guess it is not all that uncommon). He was left unemployed and shattered. Since then he has been in a couple different recovery places that give you a place to stay, you have to be in by a certain time, no drinking etc etc. He got kicked out of the last recovery “clinic” he was staying at because he was caught with a pipe that he says was his friends pipe…whatever.
Anyways, his life has just become crap….he has no vehicle, no job and no one in our craptastic family seems to want to help him at all. He has just burned too many bridges in the past.
He keeps giving me signals that I am basically a bad son for not letting him stay with me. The reason I don’t is because first, my wife really does not know him and has only heard negative things about him and she said if he moves in she will go stay at her dads which will suck but she is willing to do that. I don’t want to make her do that. To her it is like some random person moving into her home.
I just don’t know what to do. My dad has literally burned every bridge I can think of. Do I owe it to my father to let him stay here? I believe I owe my wife the respect to realize this is her home as well and take her side on this even though she is willing to live at her dads. Second is that I have no idea when he would leave. When would he get a job? He has no car, he has not worked for 7 years or so now. It is just to uncertain to let him stay with me.
Please help me figure out what I should do. I have heard people say “don’t enable him to continue being the way he is by letting him stay with you or giving him money.” But seriously by not helping how is that gonna make him change when he has nothing to help him change?
Please help!
Well we live in a apartment so we don’t have anywhere he can stay so that’s not really an option.
Thanks to the first poster. I have heard that before as well. But honestly how is it helping him change by not helping him? He is walking the streets….I guess I dont understand how someone can improve their situation from that.
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