I lost my father to alcohol July 2006 when I was 16. The official cause of death on the death certificate was alcoholic liver disease, he drank himself into the grave.
I hated him for this for a long time.
How could a father choose alcohol over his own family. And in my case why was his family still buying it for him. You see my father was sofa-ridden, his distended stomach prevented him leaving the house yet my brother (then 18) and my mother would still bring him alcohol if he asked.
I was the only one who seemed to acknowledge the seriousness of the situation and realise he had a serious alcohol problem. When you come down the stairs at 5:30am to find your father drinking whisky and cans you know that he has a problem. So why was no one stopping him? I was the only one who asked him not to drink because I didnt want him to die due to his addiction. I remember when he was really ill, he asked me to get him a glass of gin from the kitchen and I refused point blank telling him I wasnt going to help him kill himself. My mum had the drink in his hand before he fiished having a go back and I'd walked out in tears.
Didnt she understand she was helping to kill him??
Helping him kill himself.

I was always a daddies girl. It was him I went to when I needed to talk, even about thigs like periods, she was pretty understanding bout everything. However I also knew that my dad had a dark side when he'd been drinking. He never raised a fist to me, he knew that would be the last time he saw me if he did. At ten years old I sat there and said that if him or mum ever touched me they would never see me again. He must have realised I was serious even at such a young age. No raised fists, just broken doors, windows, plates and my heart. You knew when he'd been on the whisky because he got nasty, he'd been angry, aggressive and down right nasty to you. He would shout and scream for the slightest thing. This resulted in me crying myself to sleep quite a lot of the time.
As I got older and started to understand more I stayed away or left the room, especially when he and mum had been out and were arguing. I could hear them from my room and it made me feel angry, scared and sick. I guess the fights fueled him to drink even more.

I was 14 when I tried to commit suicide for the first time. I was being bullied at school and had lost all my mates down to vicious rumours and lies, my mum and dad were constantly arguing and fighting and my brother decided to use me as his punchbag. He never hit my in the face but he'd push me into things, twist my arm behind my back and generally terrify me. I couldnt tell mum and dad anything so I fell into depression. I'd come home from school to find dad asleep on the sofa with a can next to him. He'd go pick mum up from work at 5 and I sometimes didnt hear them come back till gone midnight most nights. I barely saw them. In a way I didnt mind too much but as soon as that door opened if I was still up I knew that things would get nasty quickly so would get out as soon as I could to avoid the shouting.

Now about a week after my 16th birthday he was taken into hospital for the first time. He was getting progessively sicker. He was bright yellow and his abdomen looked like he was 9 months pregnant. He could do nothing for himself so the doctor sent him to hospital but the ignorant man discharged himself a week later. Things were okay, he was off the drink but this lasted less than a few months. Things reverted back to how they had been before. Only this time he was so sick he could barely move from the sofa.
I was due to do my GCSEs and mum finally put him back into hospital but this time after two weeks he did a runner from the hospital and came home. I knew from that moment he wasnt going to get any better. I wrote a poem called alcopop which i will probably post on here soon. It explained how I felt. I wish id shown him it now. Maybe it would have shown him what he was doing to me.
Id come down to the bathroom to find urine all over the toilet and floor, and more than once there was blood from a bed sore on his butt. I had to clean all this up at 7 in the morning before I couldnt go to the toilet myself.