For all these years, your father’s objective has been to say and do whatever it takes to continue to drink. He is addicted to a substance which is widely available, legal, and not highly addictive. As long as he doesn’t do anything criminal, he is free to continue drinking. The ball is in his court; it has always been.

After all these years, you say your mother is a woman who ‘unwittingly’ enabled your father and would do “anything to hold her family together.” But the family isn’t together. One sister opted out totally, and the other partially. It takes savvy and craft to deal with a drunk for decades. We wouldn’t call your mother unwitting. We would say in all these years, she has chosen to function as another bottle for an alcoholic.

The ball is in her court. It always has been.

There is only one power you have — the power to control your own actions. If the drunk won’t put down the drink, you can put down the drunk and get away from him. If the enabler won’t stop enabling, you can put down the enabler and escape her drama.

It is not within your power to change either of them. You and your sisters are victims of alcoholic child abuse, and both parents played significant roles in delivering that abuse.

What is within your power is the ability to assess the damage done to you, and work to correct it. It is within your power to insulate your husband and two beautiful children from the damage these two adults can do to them.

But give up your life for these two? No. How about the drunk stops drinking? How about the enabler stops enabling? They don’t get to give themselves more rights by taking rights away from your children, your husband, and you.