Day 261: You Can’t Get Something from Someone That They Can't Give

Why do we keep going back to people who can’t give us what we want?

Would we keep going back to a well that had no water in it?

It’s a hard lesson to learn and one that many adult children of alcoholics or those who grew up in dysfunctional families struggle with time and time again.

If you have a parent who still drinks and you have contact with that person, the dynamics of that relationship can be fretted with suffering and pain.

An alcoholic has a disease. Unless that person is willing to get treatment and deal with their addiction, there isn’t anything you can do to help.

Though that’s not totally true.

The best thing you can do is to set a hard boundary between you and them. What this boundary is can only be decided upon by you.

If you are struggling how to deal with a parent or close relative who is an alcoholic, go see a therapist to talk this through with them.

What’s important is that you focus on yourself and take care of what you need in your life. You cannot save your parent. You cannot stop them from drinking. And you cannot fix the hole inside yourself by trying to repeat the dysfunctional pattern with someone else.

What do I mean?

If one of your parents is an alcoholic, beware that you might try to bet involved in a romantic relationship with a person who has similar traits. Why? We try to fix our past by being with someone in the present who we think we can save. As messed up as that sounds, we keep latching onto people to fix our abandonment issues. Such behavior is unhealthy, and it’s not possible to solve our problems. Two broken people do not make one whole.

The way forward is by loving yourself, building your self-esteem, resolving the anger and abandonment problems you grew up with, and setting hard boundaries with the alcoholic in your life.

If we stop repeating the problems of the past and make a break to go forward, we can find love, acceptance, and joy in life.

Arguing with an alcoholic parent and falling into dysfunctional patterns will not be healthy for you. Try something different and reach out for help.

There is a way forward.


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