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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

It May Not Be Too Late For Help

Ann Landers Creators Syndicate

Dear Ann Landers: When I read the letter about the grown son who no longer wanted to see his parents, I was sure it was written by my in-laws. My husband, too, told his parents he no longer wanted a relationship with them - if they continued to drink. Consequently, he has incurred the wrath of his father, his mother, his sister and an aunt.

When I married my husband 25 years ago, his mother didn’t approve of me. I was the wrong religion, the wrong nationality and from the wrong part of town. Every time she drank, which was often, I heard her nasty comments. Meanwhile, my father-in-law couldn’t keep his hands off me. When one parent sobered up, the other started drinking.

Their names appeared in the paper for DUIs and “drunk and disorderly,” but that did not embarrass them enough to stop drinking.

During our marriage, we were called on to stop fights, pick them up and put them to bed, and take them to the hospital after drunken falls or overmedication complicated by alcohol. We have been through interventions with them to no avail.

Every holiday and birthday celebration was a disaster, and after 20 years of this, we finally stopped. We could not leave the grandchildren with them, so the kids didn’t get to know them well. (And I had good reason not to leave my daughter with my father-in-law.)

Ann, I know alcohol addiction is a disease. Both my husband’s minister, the treatment program and the local social worker said my husband did what he could. I tried a little longer and got nothing but frustration.

I never understood how anyone could choose not to have a relationship with his or her parents, but I do now. What I can’t comprehend is how parents could choose a bottle of booze over a relationship with their children, but my husband’s did. - Sad and Defeated in Lisle, Ill.

Dear Lisle: People do not “choose” addiction. They become victims. How sad that your in-laws did not seek the help they needed years ago. It may not be too late. Instead of turning your backs on them, why not at least try once again to get them to seek the help they need? (Alcoholics Anonymous works wonders - and I recommend Al-Anon for you.) It would be an act of generosity and just might turn them around.

Dear Ann Landers: Are you crazy?? Little girls should never use a men’s room. Boys can be taken to a ladies’ room because women’s restrooms have closed stalls. No decent man could use a urinal in front of a little girl, to say nothing of the trauma to the child herself. In cases where they are among strangers, the father should ask a female who works in the place (waitress, sales clerk, policewoman, etc.) to take the child to the ladies’ room.

As a doting auntie to a nephew, and a former little girl who was taken everywhere by her daddy, I can assure you that this is the standard operating procedure and virtually always works. - No Name, No Initial, No City

Dear N.N.N.I.N.C.: Thanks for the input. You sound like the Voice of Experience, and I’m glad you wrote. Incidentally, I received a ton of mail from readers who agreed with you.

Gem of the Day (Credit the Prairie Rambler): Pupils at an elementary school in middle America were asked by their teacher to write 50 words or less on the effect of oil on fish. One 11-year-old wrote, “Last night, my mother opened a can of sardines. It was full of oil, and all the fish were dead.”