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This post is an anonymous guest post
From a young age I knew my dad was different to other dads. My daddy was a alcoholic. Until the age of 4/5 he use to make me and my young brother watch him beat my mother up when he was drunk, I still remember the day he was taken away by the police he went to far and started on my brother. We did not see him for a year after that. My mum split up with him the day the police came so it was decided me and my brother would go to his every weekend and some of every holiday.
He was well known in most pubs and we would spend hours in there watching him slowly get more and more drunk and cry over his eldest daughter, his “love of his life” a women before my mother and say how we was not his children. Any where we went we would end up in a pub. Me and my brother use to go wondering around places such as Southend by ourselves with how ever much money in our pockets whilst he went for a “quick drink.” The best times of my childhood with my father was when he was sober he would take us to every museum and art gallery in London and tell us all he knew, he would read us bed time stories and tell us how much he loved us, but it was short lived he would go from daddy to danny in a few short drinks to this day I still hate the smell of whiskey.
The few worse times that stick in my mind all these years later where as follows, he had picked me and my brother up got sodden drunk and started brandishing a knife in the middle of a high street the police was driving past and saw him, he got taken away whilst me and my brother was taken back to my mums, a little while later I decided to trust him again so whilst my brother refused to go like a fool I went back to my daddy, he picked me up from my mums started drinking then tried driving back to his, nearly crashing then falling asleep at the wheel on a busy street that can just about fit a bus, I was in the back not even 13 years old and terrified, luckily I saw two women so banged on the window till they came to my rescue they phoned the police and got the car out the way during this time my dad had woken up and walked of forgetting his daughter was with him, the police fount him and for the 2nd time in as many months I saw him being dragged into a police van and I was escorted back to my mums by the same police as last time.
It took months for me to talk to my dad again. When I did he promised the world he had changed, said he was going AA me and my brother trusted him so decided to give him one last chance, this was a big mistake, on the Saturday he left us early in the morning promising to be back by lunch after his AA meeting, we waited till late in the afternoon thinking maybe his train was delayed, hours passed in which we gave up waiting when our “dad” came back he was steaming drunk we confronted him and he said “he had to have a drink and was busy getting laid by some women” me and my brother decided to go back to our mums, we left him saying we was going to the shops, I text our mum and said he had ruined his last chance, when we was nearly at home dad phoned and started arguing saying to come back and he won’t do it again, I gave up on him that day telling him I hated him, I saw him once more for less that a hour and a little while later my mum got a call saying he had died from a stroke I was heart broken and mourned for the sober daddy not the drunkard.
I was 15 years old. I’m now nearly 20 years old with my own child who will never know his grandaddy and to this day I still hate the smell of pubs and am cynical to any one who says alcoholics can be good people. These people never saw what I did.