I think the drink gift is an awful idea, in my humblest of opinions. I wouldn’t buy a chain-smoker cigarettes either.
You mentioned his interest in carpentry - how about a subscription to one of those DIY type magazines? You could renew it for him each year!
I do love this idea. I know he would think of me every month when he received it in the mail. 
And it would be a little more significant and creative than a gift certificate to Menard’s (which is what I got him last year.)
If you wanted to you could make (or buy) a hot cocoa/coffee gift set and include a few of the small mini bottles of peppermint schnapps each with a small red bow on it.
Combine the carpentry with time together. Find out if Home Depot or your local Learning Annex/community college will have a woodworking seminar that you can attend together. Working together on a bookshelf or table will mean a lot to him. He’ll look at the table the two of you made and think, “Olive and I did this.” And when he is gone, you will have a happy reminder of him.
Your location says Ann Arbor. Washtenaw Community College offers woodworking courses.
I don’t like to assume the worst about anyone and try to get a little more history before forming an opinion. You say his refusal to go to AA cost him custody of his kids, but otherwise you don’t say if he’s hurt anybody, lost his job, crashed cars, lost his license, etc.
It’s possible, at least in my mind, to enjoy alcohol and not abuse it.
I’m thinking, how about getting him some brandy snifters or a cool looking flask? I can understand you not wanting to look like an enabler, but class has a way of putting limits on bad behavior.
I suppose there are worse gifts one could buy for an alcoholic parent. For example, whilst browsing geek.com to find something… anything… to buy for my dad, I came thisclose to buying a portable breathalyzer. Hey, it’s something he needs (because he’s been known to drive drunk) and definitely something he wouldn’t have already (because he’s still in denial about the whole driving drunk thing).
Awfully tempting, but I decided to send him a couple of coffee-table books instead. 
I’ll buck the trend here and say go for it. If he’s resigned to being a drinker, then let him kill himself in style. Buy him the tastiest poison you can afford. He’ll appreciate it.
But the carpentry ideas are far better.
It seems to me this would be classic enabling behavior on your part. The only way alcoholics change is by experiencing consequences for their alcoholic behavior. Now, it sounds like you understand that he’s not going to change–that’s a good thing for you to understand, IMO, but you don’t have to buy into his illness by enabling it.
Will you honestly feel good about giving him a bottle of schnapps? Why in the world would you? His alcoholism has had a very real and very negative effect on your life. I think you know giving him booze isn’t what you want to do or you wouldn’t have posted this in the first place. I vote for the magazine subscription and gift certificate.
ETA: I’m curious–for the folks who don’t see a problem with giving him the booze, do any of you have alcoholic family members?
I am told that they have invented automobiles with motors that run even if the operator has no license.
Giving an alcoholic a gift of alcohol is foolish.
It does?
(says the girl whose father drank a bottle bottle a day of Remy Martin VSOP cognac at $85 a pop… one snifter at a time)
Olivesmarch4th, you stop beating yourself up about this. There have been some good alternative gift suggestions in the thread, but honestly in your situation, I don’t see anything inherently wrong with your idea. I know that is not going to be a popular opinion. If your father was trying to get treatment, or was recovering, then obviously it would be in terribly bad taste to buy him alcohol. In your case, he has made his decision to not seek treatment. You can’t unmake that decision, you can only live with it. I think you have made your peace and the Peppermint Schnapps would go a long way toward letting your Dad know that you have accepted him just as he is. I don’t think you (or anyone) should beat themselves up over what gift to give someone. If you do come up with something you like better, then by all means, do that instead…but I won’t be one of the mob with torches and pitchforks out side your window if you don’t.
This isn’t a ‘‘really likes beer’’ sort of guy, this is a man who is seriously alcoholic. He drinks beer in the morning, beer in the afternoon, a glass of milk with dinner, beer in the evening, and a glass of ice water before he goes to bed. And then on the weekends he goes to the bar and gets drunk. I don’t even know what he’s like sober.
I appreciate the bit about not assuming the worst.
I just wrote a lot of personal shit but now is not the time. A bit more general explanation later. I need to stop using SMDB as a personal therapist.
Yes, I do, anyhow. Some recovered and some recovering and some not. And that’s what’s led me to conclude that trying to change others’ behaviors or control their actions through guilt and disapproval is futile. Nothing **olives **does, short of physical restraint, will change his mind or his behavior, and I think she gets that.
I agree that the magazine subscription or the class together are far better gift ideas. I particularly like the class together, as it will get him out of the house to a non-drinking venue, give him fun and educational time with his daughter (alcoholic or not, nearly every father just wants to spend some time with his daughter while she’s not nagging him, right?) and who knows? Maybe - maybe - taking one class will lead to some renewed interests that don’t involve drinking. Maybe.
I would not do it. It’s not so much the act of buying booze for him. (I admit to buying wine for my alcoholic mother when she could no longer shop for herself.) It’s the “wrapping it up and making it special” that bothers me. Yes, you have accepted your father’s disease, but somehow to me giving him booze as a gift, just elevates its importance. I say go with the woodworking gift ideas.
olives, we may not be therapists, but often we’re willing to listen. Don’t worry about abusing our patience. If there’s a problem I’m pretty sure someone will say something. We’re not exactly a shy and retiring bunch, after all. 
Having said that, stop beating yourself up - you do what you have to do to survive, sometimes. Taking actions that can appear selfish when you’re looking at your mental or physical health are not necessarily wrong. You’re allowed to protect yourself.
And, for that matter, you’re allowed to kvetch here.
I think giving an alcoholic a gift of alcohol says “I don’t care if you get better.” He knows that he has had to pay some really terrible consequences because of drinking and he knows that you know. It isn’t a gift that you two are going to enjoy together, it really isn’t something he’s going to “enjoy” in the classic sense at all.
Give him something that shows that you think of him as a whole person, not just an alcoholic. I really like the idea of a gift subscription to a DIY magazine. Plus when he reads/sees something neat in the magazine it’ll give you guys something to talk about.
I wanted to add that I don’t think the schnapps is a bad thing because you are telling him that you have accepted him for who and what he is. When you give him something that does not involve alcohol, though, you show him that you see more than just an alcoholic. You see your dad.
This time of year is supposed to be about sharing and togetherness, finding the good in each other. As Bill Murray said in Scrooged, “It’s Christmas Eve. It’s the one night of the year when we all act a little nicer, we smile a little easier, we cheer a little more. For a couple of hours out of the whole year we are the people that we always hoped we would be.” For this one time of the year, remind him that he is more than an alcoholic. Remind him that he is your father and you are his daughter and that you love him, despite his shortcomings.
Good luck to both of you.
I appreciate the sentiment. Mostly it’s my problem – I’m incredibly sensitive to criticism. I made the mistake, early in my career here, of posting something incredibly, gut-wrenchingly personal in the Pit, and it blew up in my face in a way that was very difficult for me to handle emotionally. It really was a nightmare I don’t want to repeat. I try to be a sincere person, but I acknowledge that I have a tendency to be melodramatic and that almost unfailingly expresses itself in my writing… (I write fiction, after all) …but my childhood was seriously fucked up and I don’t appreciate being judged for the life skills I lack due to that fucked up childhood. Everything I know I have taught myself. (<---- good example of the melodrama here.)
But I suppose I’m relatively safe in MPSIMS to at least elaborate a little.
It may depress you to know that I meant the OP as a sort of moral curiosity. I had the idea driving home from work, and I asked my husband (who doesn’t have a great deal of experience with alcoholism, but does know my father.) He tilted his head to one side, skipped two beats and said, ‘‘I don’t know.’’ It seemed like a fair question to post for some mainstream opinions. I did not expect it to get into emotional territory, but I do know alcoholism is an emotionally charged issue on this board, so highsight’s 20/20 and all that.
Let me put it this way. In my life, I have had 4 men formally expected to be my father and 3 who gave their best effort as father figures while they happened to be living under my roof and screwing my mother.
My Dad – my biological Dad – is the best one I ever had. He treated me like a princess and always had something positive to say about how he felt about me. He was neglectful, impulsive, and believed that while I was with him nothing could harm or corrupt me. He was unfortunately wrong. But dammit he’s my father, and I love him.
It is an incredibly awkward and unusual thing to try to get to know someone who has been absent from your life for a decade. He knows nothing about my life growing up, only what I’ve told him, which is incredibly difficult to discuss with him since I often wonder why the hell he wasn’t around to put a stop to it. (We’ve discussed this… ‘‘I didn’t want to lose you, but I knew as long as you were with your mother, you would be safe. I guess I was wrong.’’) By the time I was 13 we effectively had no relationship, and at the encouragement of my mother I wrote a letter to a judge requesting that my father’s parental rights be terminated. I feel incredibly guilty for writing that letter, which is a double-punch insult to both of us because it sings the praises of my adopted father, who would later turn out to be an abusive asshole of the highest order. He has not read the letter detailing his failures as a father and I pray to God that he never does, because losing me and my half-sister was traumatic enough. The trauma is written all over him every time I see him, and it breaks my heart.
I always felt, as a little kid, I was assuming responsibility for him, not the other way around, and I guess a part of me still feels this way.
So since we’ve resumed our relationship, we’ve probably visited about once a month, so 12-16 times I have been with my father since becoming an adult. I was engaged and damn near graduated from college when we met. It’s not terribly painful or gutwrenching, but it IS really strange. He can’t be a ‘‘father’’ in the traditional sense but we can have a relationship now as adults. I have to leave him next year and move to another state, but I need him to know that I am not going to leave him the way I did last time.
I guess it’s okay to talk about this here because I really don’t know anything about alcoholism, so maybe I’ll learn something.
My dad’s an alcoholic - but not to the point of losing his kids or anything, just to the point of being seriously annoying and increasingly useless - and I would never in a million years give him booze as a present. Granted, he doesn’t drink booze just beer (except when pestering party guests to do a shot with him) but I wouldn’t even buy him a 12-pack at the store if he asked.
Yes, I “accept” that he drinks but I don’t like it. Don’t condone it. Don’t add to it.
You can accept your dad’s behavior too (looks like you do) but you don’t have to condone it or promote it.
Giving him a big bottle of booze says “I accept that you drink.” Giving him ANYTHING else says “I accept YOU.”
I love sandra_nz’s suggestion about the magazines. I also really dig “the gift of time.” I know if I gave my dad a restaurant gift certificate, we’d both get a nice meal and some quality time together out of it.
Ultimately it’s up to you, but as a child of an alcoholic I find it’s just easier to “accept and ignore” than to “accept and participate.” Perhaps it’s psychologically wrong to just ignore it but it makes MY life a whole lot easier and with alcoholic family members sometimes you just have to let them be and do what makes you feel best.
You’ve answered your own question. If you see it as “a terrible addiction” then it isn’t good for either you or your father to feed it.
You wouldn’t go out and score him some crack, would you?