Welcome to Blog Share - Posted by Anonymous

My mother drinks a giant bottle of cheap wine every night, by herself, but no one will call her an alcoholic to her face. I did once, years ago, and all it did was drive her drinking underground and drive me away from the family.

For years, I have seethed in silence, resenting the fact that she is an alcoholic and is not getting help. I resented my father for not helping her. I resented them both for the harm they caused to our family because of their inability to recognize a problem and do something about it.

I spent many expensive hours slumped in a chair in a therapist's office, outlining the things that had happened, how I felt about them, and the effect they had on me. My coping mechanism was to draw bright boundaries in our relationship. To build a wall to protect myself from their dysfunction. To move far enough away to ensure minimal daily involvement. But none of it ever made me feel any better.

Then a funny thing happened in the last year. I came to accept my parents for who they are. I'd always carried in my head the aphorism “You can't change other people, you can only change how you react to them.” But I don't think I ever understood how to put it into practice. I got the first part, but I thought my changed reaction – essentially just waiting for them to change, instead of overtly trying to change them – was the answer.

I have now realized that maybe a truer and more helpful statement is “You can't change other people, you can only change how you react to them, what you think about them, and how you feel about them.” Maybe a wiser person would understand all of that was implied in the word “react,” but I am stubborn and literal-minded. For me, “react” meant just what I said and did in response to what my parents said and did. The feeling and thoughts were a separate process and still involved my wanting them to change.

I am the sort of person who holds onto principles like a shipwreck victim clinging to the debris of a sunken boat. Like those principles are the only things keeping me alive, the only flimsy bit of support keeping my head above water. Key among my principles was that my mother was Wrong for being an alcoholic and needed to do something to fix it.

What I learned this year was that if I let go of the debris, if I let myself sink beneath the surface of the water, I'd both learn I could breathe and would discover a whole hidden universe. Finally letting go has allowed me to appreciate the good things about my parents. Their kindness. Their generosity. Their unconditional albeit imperfect love of each other and their children.

Holiday gatherings are no longer as excruciating as a trip to the DMV. Interacting with my parents is no longer as soul crushing as a telemarketing job. The simple act of accepting them as they are, unreseveredly, flaws and all, just involved changing my mind and I cannot believe how that has changed my life.

I thought the only way I could ever feel this way about my parents was if they ultimately changed of their own volition. In recognizing that they might never change and realizing that it didn't matter to me, I finally achieved what I've wanted for two decades: peace of mind, the ability to truly love my parents for who they are, and the pure gift of enjoying the time I am able to spend with them.

This post has been living in my mind for the last several months, but as family members read my blog, I never felt comfortable with the idea of writing it. Thank you, And You Know What Elsefor inventing Blog Share day to allow people to express themselves anonymously.