Letters to my Alcoholic Father

Dear dad,

I'm currently 5 years old and living with you in a one-bedroom apartment after you and mom got divorced. You walk me to school everyday and we when we go grocery shopping you always buy me a doll. We always walk by a house that has a dog with one green eye and one blue eye, I love him. Our apartment is pretty small, just one bedroom, one bathroom, a kitchen, and a living room. Sometimes we go out to parties at your friends house where I sleep while you party. These have been your friends since you were my age, they're like my uncles and I know they'd never harm me but I just don't feel like a party is a good environment for a little girl my age and I don't like how you drive after each party, it's like you forgot how to drive in a straight line during the party, so silly. One day you were sleeping after partying a lot and you wouldn't wake up the next day, I was so bored. One of your closest friends and his wife came to get me while you were sleeping and said they were taking me to my mom's house. I couldn't tell you at the moment or say bye cause you were sleeping but I went with mom and I couldn't understand why they took me there, but when I grow up I'll understand.

Dear dad,

I'm almost turning 7 in a couple of days. I've been living with my aunt and grandma for the last 6 months in another country, it's crazy. Nobody ever asked me if I wanted to live here but I did. I can't say I like it better because I miss you and mom everyday but at least my aunt and grandma don't party everyday so I can get more sleep at home. As a birthday gift they brought you over and you showed up in my school as a surprise and I was so happy, I really missed you. I missed you so much that I can't be here anymore and I'm going back with you, I don't mind if you party so much.

Dear dad,

I'm turning 10 this year and I'm really excited. We were living in a bigger apartment for the last few years and it was nice but finally we moved to the apartment next to it and I have my own room now so when you party I can stay in my room and now since I'm old enough I don't have to come to the parties with you and I can stay home alone. I still get scared when I think about you driving home after you have beer, it doesn't seem safe. I told you once when you got home late after a party that I couldn't sleep because I was worried about you and you got really mad at me and yelled at me pretty bad. I don't like making you mad because as I become older my punishments get worse. The other day you found a letter from my teacher saying I didn't do my homework so you made me shower with cold water and no towel, I had to stand there shivering while I got dry with the air. I thought it was cruel and I hated you for it, so much that I even told my best friend I hated you for that. My best friend has been in my life since we were babies so she knows you've been partying a lot and when she hears these kind of stuff she invites me to spend at least a week at her house and I love it, she makes me feel safe.

Dear dad

Now that I'm 14 I'm really starting to understand the difference between partying and what you do. You drink to drink, not socially. The older I get the worse your drinking gets and it sucks. I've missed school so many times because you drink so much that you can't wake up to take me to school and you don't let me ride the bus or walk to school. I walked to school once and you found out and got really mad. You're really the best dad and you're so nice and fun when you don't drink, I wish you were still like that even when you drink. I'm starting to go to parties now, or at least one that I've been to so far. It wasn't much like your parties, it seemed safer somehow. I was afraid of drinking too much and end up like you but I have to admit I did have some beer though, it was awful!

Mom remarried and moved to another country this year, I really miss her. She said she felt bad to leave me with you because she knows you party too much and that's one of the reasons why you guys got a divorce. This will be the first Christmas I spend without mom. I don't know it yet but this will be the first December you start drinking the whole month and get a lot more aggressive than usual; the first of the rest of them.

Dear dad

I'm now 16, almost 17. I graduated high school, with all odds against me, and I started working as a teacher while I get ready for college. I started going out to parties with my friends and it's fun but sometimes, while you think I'm sleeping at a friend's house, we drive by your house and I can see you're drinking on the balcony, mostly alone. By now I've learned to identify your issue as alcoholism and I can now tell that it's only when you drink so much that you get mad and careless. I wish you didn't drink.

I'm going to be moving to another country next year and I'll be away from your drinking but also I'll be worrying all the time about your drinking, it's going to be stressful but at least I won't have to see you drinking.

Dear dad,

I'm 18 now, turning 19 on November, it's 2016. This year sucks. My best friend died in January; she had been sick her whole life and now she's gone. I feel without her I have no one to talk to about your alcoholism, I feel unsafe now. My brother was murdered in July, you were hungover since it was a Saturday. After the funeral we went home and you drank yourself to sleep. You'll start drinking more and more this year and every time you get drunk you'll bring my brother's death up and it hurts me more than all the times you hit me.

Dear dad,

I just turned 21 a few months ago in November of 2018. In this letter I wanted to bring up what happened in December. As I said before, in December you drink the whole month, I never know why. You drink more and get angrier at life and at me. We went out for lunch the other day and you weren't in a good mood because you were hungover so when the food took a bit too long to get here you threw your burger on the floor and stepped on it. You left me there and I spent the night at my uncle's house but I eventually went back home to you. A few days later we went to my uncle's bar, you were drunk and when we were heading home I got hungry but you refused to buy me food so I asked if there was food at home and that made you upset so you started driving super fast, I tried jumping out of the car. You parked the car and started calling me an idiot and asked me to leave. I left and there I was, walking alone in the dark on a lonely street at 3:00 AM and it was the same scenario my brother was in when he got murdered but I was forced into that situation by you. Nothing happened to me that night and I got home safe where you were drinking. You didn't know where your daughter was for hours and you decided to play some music and drink in the living room, you didn't care. I finally stood up to you after all those years of keeping stuff to myself and I told you that a good father would never leave his daughter like that and if you were capable of that then I wasn't your daughter. We didn't talk to each other for weeks.

On December 29th we went to my uncle's bar. Around midnight I left to go to a concert with my friends and after that we went to eat and time flew by quick so by the time I got home it was around 4:30 AM, you weren't home. I texted and called you many times and never got a response. By 10:00 AM I started thinking you were dead. You came back at 5:00 PM; you were driving back home at 3:00 AM and fell asleep in your car until 5:00 PM. That day I told you I felt ashamed of being your daughter, you stopped drinking.

Dear dad,

I'm 22 now, and living alone with my cat. It's 2020, during a pandemic, this year has been crazy! After the 2018 incident you stopped drinking for 2 years almost and I was proud, building a better relationship with you. I had tried for so many years to get you to stop and finally you did. You'd always tell me how long you had been sober for with such excitement in your voice.

The other day I videocalled you because I couldn't sleep and to my surprise, you were drunk. You didn't even bother to hide it from me. You drank right in front of me like telling the little kid in me that it doesn't stop even when I grow up. Dad, I don't trust you anymore and I love you but I barely respect you. Dad, I really think you could drink yourself to death and it breaks my heart, but dad, it's no longer on me to take care of you, it never was.