WHO’LL SAVE MY LOVELY DAD?
Naomi’s City broker father is an alcoholic who’s relapsed after being sober for 13 years.Why is it so hard to get him the help he desperately needs . . .
COPING with a parent’s addiction is one of the most heartbreaking situations a child can face. Family breakdown, bankruptcy and living with the fear of physical harm to someone they love can become part of ‘normal’ life.
It’s estimated more than three million people live like this in the UK, as a relative battles alcohol or drug dependency — but the stigma and shame mean many hide their problems.
Naomi Bacon, 29, has decided to break the taboo, prompted by the relapse suffered last year by her father, a former City broker, after years of sobriety.
It’s easy to assume addicts live in poverty, but this was not the case for her father. Naomi and her younger sister had a comfortable upbringing in the Home Counties, and both attended private schools.
However, Naomi, who has her own PR firm, heard the word ‘alcoholic’ for the first time when she was just five years old.
‘It was Bonfire Night, and I remember Dad behaving very strangely — irritable, erratic and slurring his words. He and Mum had a big row and he stormed off.’
Over the years, she grew used to ‘that’ Dad. The one who hid bottles of vodka and made her mother sad.
‘My friends’ parents would often stop them coming to our house. I grew up feeling Dad’s problems were something to be ashamed of.’
She also learned that, often, alcoholism never truly goes away. For, despite being sober for more than 13 years, her father began drinking again 18 months ago.
Since then, Naomi’s personal life and career have often been put on hold as she helps to care for him and support her mother.
Now, she wants to highlight the problems facing people in this awful situation, and particularly shine a light on the way addiction is treated in the NHS.
‘I am convinced my dad’s alcoholism is a symptom of deeper mental health problems,’ she says. ‘ The way the system is set up means he won’t get a proper mental health assessment until he is long-term sober. But I don’t think he will ever be properly sober until his mental health issues are addressed.’
Her father’s problems, Naomi suspects, were exacerbated by his globe-trotting upbringing. The second- eldest son of a Canadian diplomat, the family had lived in embassies around the world.
‘The flipside was they found it hard to make friends because they were never in one place for very long,’ she says.
‘My grandmother once told me Dad was a sad child who worried about everything.’
Naomi’s father first tried hard drugs when he was about 14.
‘I wonder if it was a way of coping with feelings of anxiety or isolation,’ she says.
Her parents met and married after a whirlwind romance, but by the time Naomi was five and her sister two, their father had started drinking, and was to spend the next decade falling off, then climbing back on, the wagon.
Ten years later, he went into rehab — and was sober for 13 years. ‘It was wonderful. When he’s not drinking, my dad’s the funniest and most gentle, considerate man you could meet.
‘So when I phoned home in March 2017 and he answered paralytic, I felt sick. This was a version of my dad I had almost forgotten existed.’
Dealing with an alcoholic parent as an adult has presented Naomi and her sister with a whole new set of frustrations. ‘We have much to thank the NHS for, but the gap between mental health services and addiction treatment is so wide that people like Dad are falling through it, and falling hard,’ she says.
And this doesn’t only affect Naomi’s family. Earlier this year, a joint report by the Institute of Alcohol Studies and the Centre for Mental Health concluded that there is a major problem within the NHS. It stated: ‘ Some 86 per cent who use alcohol treatment services also have a mental health difficulty, and many people with mental health problems misuse alcohol. Yet few get effective help from either alcohol or mental health services.’
The report recommends an urgent review of funding and support for those suffering both alcohol addiction and mental illness.
Naomi kept a diary of one challenging week in her family’s life, to illustrate the uphill battle they face and the complex emotions involved when a beloved parent is in the grip of addiction.
WEDNESDAY NIGHT
I CAll my parents after work and get Dad on the phone. It’s clear he’s under the influence of drink and possibly other substances too. I know he sometimes buys prescription drugs online and also abuses a strong painkiller that contains codeine and can be bought in any chemist.
My heart sinks. He had been sober for a month. A whole month! But this has been the pattern since he originally relapsed last year.
I can sense how ashamed and wretched he feels, so I reassure him I’m not angry. I don’t let on how sad and worried I am.
This is my darling dad — the man who used to make my sister and I special Saturday breakfasts and watch our favourite film, ET, on repeat with us, who still cooks lavish meals for my friends and is the most generous man I know.
He’s not perfect, but I have always known how much he loves me.
I speak to Mum, and we agree to let him sleep it off. I’ll call in the morning.
THURSDAY 8AM
MUM phones in a state to say Dad is in london with his brothers, but won’t answer her calls. I keep ringing and get hold of him at 9am. It’s clear he’s very drunk — he’s incoherent.
As he’s with family, I try not to worry, and concentrate on work, but it’s difficult putting on this ‘brave’ face again.
I speak to my uncles in the evening and they tell me he’s been passed out most of the day. At least he’s safe.
FRIDAY 9AM
MY uncle calls, very distressed. Apparently Dad is unconscious after consuming two litres of vodka very quickly, as well as a cocktail of tranquillisers. They have called an ambulance.
I put on my email out-of-office, saying I’m dealing with a family crisis, and head to A&E.
People think alcoholics bring their problems on themselves, that it’s their choice to drink. But downing so much alcohol in such a short time is more like a suicide attempt — there can be no enjoyment in it. like all of Dad’s drinking it’s a form of self-harm, a cry for help.
When I arrive at hospital, Dad is still unconscious. I speak to the nurse and doctor and beg them for help. Dad clearly needs psychiatric treatment.
For once, this medical team are very kind to me and compassionate towards Dad. Often, he’s treated like a pariah and a nuisance. People hardly can bear to look at him.
Still, when the doctor tells me Dad cannot be assessed for psychiatric treatment until he’s tackled his drinking, I lose it a bit and get very angry.
I’m not proud of myself, but I tell her I have heard all this before and ask how he is meant to do that unless he’s given proper support.
She says she recognises Dad has depression and anxiety as well as addiction, but it is hard to separate which needs to be treated first.
At least the doctor manages to get Dad to open his eyes.
He calls me: ‘My beautiful baby’ then says he ‘wants it all to end’. My heart breaks a little more.
SATURDAY 2PM
I GO to visit Dad with my younger sister and Mum. He is aggressive and angry as the alcohol leaves his system.
But the hospital staff say they’re
discharging him and claim he’s been assessed by a psychiatrist.
Only that morning, Dad told Mum he wanted to walk in front of a bus, so how it can it be safe for him to leave? I insist on speaking to a psychiatrist myself.
Five hours later, he arrives and it emerges he hadn’t assessed Dad that day — he was working on notes taken the previous evening, while Dad was still intoxicated. He agrees that Dad should stay another night.
I sit with my father all evening. He cries and tells me he wants to die every day. He even says he wants to be sectioned, taken into a psychiatric hospital. He’s never been to one, although he has been in rehab. He tells me he drinks and takes prescription drugs only to dull the pain he feels all the time.
That night, he sees a junior psychiatrist and tells her everything. He’s never been this open before, and I feel some hope he will finally get the treatment he needs.
SUNDAY MORNING
I AM weeping with frustration. Dad is being discharged. The psychiatrist says she’s spoken to her superiors and they believe he won’t kill himself because he loves his family so much. I am appalled. This puts unbearable pressure on Mum, my sister and me, effectively saying it’s our responsibility to keep Dad alive. He needs practical help, not thoughtless platitudes like this.
Then we discover he’s managed to slip out and buy a 500ml bottle of vodka, downing it in one go.
However, we have no choice but to take him home to Sussex. He’s told he will be referred to the community drug and alcohol service he’s been under for 18 months. The service does what it can, but its budgets have been slashed.
It is at this point that mental health services should step in — but they won’t work with someone who is abusing alcohol.
MONDAY
My out-of-office is on again, and I’m at Mum’s where I find Dad shaking and suicidal.
Mum takes him to their GP, who brusquely tells him not to cut out alcohol suddenly as this can cause fits — but doesn’t provide a detox plan. Like the hospital, she suggests going to the community group or residential rehab for six months, although God knows how long the waiting list is.
For private rehab, you need a lot of money, which we don’t have as Dad has worked only sporadically over the past ten years. A month costs £10,000.
The truth is that Dad’s problems affect all of us. While I don’t resent it, I keep having to take time off from the job I love — often at very short notice — and I haven’t had a boyfriend in years because I feel my situation would be too much for someone else. Who would want to take all this on?
TUESDAY
MuM has to give Dad small amounts of beer throughout the day to ease withdrawal symptoms, including severe tremors, pain and anxiety. Going cold turkey could cause heart failure.
I contact adult social services to ask them to escalate Dad’s case. I’ve never tried this before, and wouldn’t know to do it at all were it not for a friend who used to work at the council. I’m amazed — Dad receives a call that day.
AND NOW . . .
TWO days later, we meet a community psychiatric nurse who chats to my dad kindly. He says he will try to set Dad up with a community nurse long-term, and we are now waiting for his call.
Dad is suffering both mentally and physically — but he is not using, and we are taking it day by day. If he continues to relapse, I know they will cut him off from this support. But I’m glad we have at least established this small connection.
There have been times when I have resented growing up with a father who is an addict. But as I’ve got older, I’ve realised I have so much to thank him for. I always had love, and many of my strengths are as a result of my childhood. I am resilient, optimistic and rarely daunted by problems.
It may be a long journey, but Dad will be my priority for as long as he and Mum need me.
I just hope we can get him help before time runs out.