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We have ALL said something we regretted at some point. However, I guaran-damn-tee you that if I smart-mouthed my parents, it was NOT after an evening of drinking and just days after treatment for drug use. And I never yelled at my sibling and said that I wish he'd kill himself, and I have never lost it to the point of being a screaming, hysterical maniac. There has been a series of bad decisions leading up to this incident, for the OP to believe even for a second that their behavior is in some way excusable. And even now, the OP is still playing a victim -- nothing that happened up to the point where their father struck them was the OP's fault, apparently, their father just sprung out of the bedroom and smacked 'em.
This is a case of a lot of people making some bad decisions -- the OP, for drinking so heavily and so soon after drug treatment (I believe they are warned against self-medicating, but of course, sometimes it takes a while for it to sink in), the sister, for pouring the shots (although I doubt they pried open the OP's jaws to pour the drink down their throat), and the father, for losing his temper physically.
But NONE of this would have happened if the OP hadn't gotten so far off-track with their life. They are 20 years old, with no job (but apparently enough money for drugs), no education, and now, no family or home and an arrest for underage drinking. OP is going to have to do the work to turn this ship around before it crashes on the rocks. They just THINK they've hit rock bottom, now . . .
I find it very interesting that everybody keeps blaming solely the OP. She's 20 years old, apparently, never ever received the guidance necessary to stay away from drugs and alcohol, her parents never set any ground-rules for her to live her life and get her adulthood on track, her family has ENABLED this behavior, and her father, such a big man, has used all of this as an excuse to HIT her and leave a bruise rather than have not only handled it differently but prevented all of this in the first place. This reeks of an entire family who has issues, and I'm more than curious to figure out exactly how much this family abuses substances and which ones. I can guaran-damn-tee, that the parents probably have substance abuse issues as well. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Kids aren't magically born knowing what not to do and what's a normal way to live without the first people in their lives showing them.
She's 20 years old, apparently, never ever received the guidance necessary to stay away from drugs and alcohol, her parents never set any ground-rules for her to live her life and get her adulthood on track,
How do you know that?
Kids with substance abuse issues come out of good homes too.
I'm sure everyone means well, but the OP was only on here to get advice on finding a place to stay last night and well, it's tomorrow. LOL. That poster is long gone.
Osito, you've made some good points, but I want to go back to your stating that the OP was "sober now", since he or she was no longer drunk. I think you may have been using that term differently than did other posters in this thread, and that's led to some unnecessary misunderstandings here.
The term "sober" doesn't just mean "not intoxicated" - instead, its larger meaning is that an individual is committed to life-long sobriety. That's why members of Alcoholics Anonymous usually choose to refer to themselves as "in recovery", or "recovering alcoholics", rather than "recovered alcoholics", or "sober".
Another AA term which might be relevant here is "dry drunk". This refers to someone who is not presently intoxicated, but who has a history of alcohol abuse/alcoholism, and who is still stuck in the dysfunctional thought and behavior patterns which typically accompany alcoholism.
Someone who is a dry drunk will continue to manipulate others, blame others for their issues, lie in an effort to escape responsibility, take advantage of well-intentioned others who are trying to help them, etc. They may not be physically drunk, but their behavior and thinking haven't
changed. They may also think they can have an occasional drink, or that if they switch to beer or wine rather than hard liquor, they will be fine.
Not so. This is not uncommon for those who are new to AA or new to facing their alcoholism. Oten life provides a rather harsh wake-up call to the dry drunk, as they cannot sustain such thinking and behavior, and will either stop drinking, or fall off the wagon entirely, only to repeat the pattern. It may take several tries before the full impact of their drinking and its results gets through to them.
I agree with you that this sounds like an extremely dysfunctional family, and with two out of three adult or near-adult children who are seriously abusing alcohol and behaving in very dependent ways, it's highly likely that the parents also have serious issues of some kind. We haven't been given enough information to know just what those parental issues are which appear to have led to such dependent and incompetent young adult children. But the parents don't appear to have posted here at C-D - their adult child did.
So the responses in this thread which seem to make the most sense (to me) are those which offer practical advise to the OP, rather than those which condemn (or excuse) without offering suggestions for both immediate help - i.e., overnight shelter - and for the OP to acknowledge their own role and bad choices which led to this crisis. That's all the OP can do - he or she cannot change his or her family background.
No matter how ineffective the OP's parents may have been in rearing their kids, eventually those kids grow up and have to take responsibility for themselves and their choices, regardless of their family background. Once this is done, it can be very helpful to examine family issues which may have contributed to individual problems, but again - this is not the same as blaming family for one's own adult choices and behavior.
So - OP, if you're still around - I hope you found shelter last night and have gotten in touch with AA. Right now, your focus needs to be on yourself and getting clean and straight and changing your "stinkin' thinkin" (more AA jargon, not being insulting) in regard to how you came to be in your present situation. Get your head straight, get the booze out of your body and your psyche, and make a fresh start. It's not going to happen immediately, but you can't start any earlier than now.
OP, I wish you well - in every sense of that word.
Man oh man. A father backhands his son -- sounds like in an attempt to gain control over someone acting hysterical -- and the son calls the cops and instead of the cops saying - young man, we are hauling your drunk arse out of here to jail overnight (and nothing else transpiring) . . . you managed to get your dad a police record.
So you're so high and mighty that you've never said something you regretted?
SAID something?? Sure! But going on a binge, causing a major disturbance in your parents house, egging your sibling on to kill herself and then calling the cops when your father does the only thing that will probably get you to shut the f up? Nope. Never. So very narcissistic.
You can't very well call me ignorant, little person. You could never handle a mile in shoes that have been through what I've been through.
Right, and that makes it okay to hit somebody. It's her parents' fault for not setting some ground rules. All 20-year olds will start drinking without the proper guidance.
As the mother of five grown kids, I can assure you that SETTING ground rules and people obeying them are two completely different animals. It's especially difficult for entitled, out of control, substance abusing young adults to respect the rules of a house - any house.
I'm not saying that it was OK for the dad to hit the OP. What I am saying is that it wasn't OK for the OP to do all that SELF ADMITTED stuff up to that point. If she hadn't been a drug abusing out of control verbally abusive alcoholic, the entire scenario could have been avoided.
The dad is not here and not on the forum for us to hear his side of the story or to chastise him for striking her. When he gets here, be sure to let me know so I can remind him that he shouldn't have done so. Meanwhile, we've got the OP here wallowing in self pity, so I'm addressing the issue at hand.
So here are the full details of what transpired on Wednesday evening. (See tl;dr)
I was drinking at home (I am 20, so underage) and my sister was providing me with alcohol. I was taking shots and at one point, she said I'd had enough. Well, that didn't bother me. But her attitude about it did and I know that's not an excuse but for the past few years she's just been moping around, doing nothing, acting like she's 100x superior to anyone. And this was one of those cases where she acted as though she was God towards me. I don't remember quite how she said no but she did and the way she did seriously upset me.
I said really cruel, unimaginable things. I am NEVER an angry drunk so I don't know where it came from. I've been trying for years to make her feel better. For the past month or so, I've been clean of drugs (besides Alcohol obviously), really helpful and positive around the house, making great strides to improve my mental health, so social, going to therapy and taking my meds as prescribed... And this just came out of nowhere but I was saying things like "I hate you, I wish you would kill yourself" to my sister. Again, things I'd never say if not drunk and I realize they were hurtful and so wrong and I have, since, apologized profusely.
Anyway, I was screaming pretty loud, "hysterical" according to my mom. The noise woke my dad up, who proceeded to come into the room and backhand me across the face. Hard. Like, I fell over onto the bed and now have bruising on the right side of my face.
I called the police because at that point I was terrified for anything that might happen next, and we were both booked (I for waking him up, i.e. disorderly conduct, and underage possession of alcohol) and he for hitting me. (I also must say I can't believe they would arrest someone when they were worried about their safety... was I supposed to let whatever could've happened happen so that I wouldn't be charged?)
Well, the police said to me "Your dad owns the house so we can't force him to leave." But there is a temporary restraining order on him to not be in contact with me. So at this point, I was left without a place to go. I called my ex and ended up staying there... but it was only a temporary agreement and now I have no place to go. This is so frustrating, as I sit here at my gym, waiting to hear from anyone I can ask. I know there are resources but I don't know the first thing about finding them, plus most look for people who have been repeatedly abused.
tl;dr : My dad hit me, owns the house and we're not allowed in contact so now I don't know where to go since I don't know many people around here.
Any ideas? Help? Suggestions? /: Anything would be helpful, it's almost 1 pm and the gym closes at 5:30 today...
Grow up! You should apologize to your family for your behavior. You were disrespectful to all of them and your dad let you know it the hard and old school way. Maybe your dad will let you come home again although I wouldn't if I were him since you called the cops. In any case, you are 20 and need to figure it out because you are an adult for better or for worse. And I know a young man your age who got smacked from an elder for talking back to his mother. Show your parents respect and situations like this won't happen.
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