There is no end to the pain that Alcohol causes

It was around 11 p.m. when he called his wife, asking for the location of his own home. His voice was slurred, words barely making sense. At fifty-four, she had never learned how to use most of these phone features, so she turned to her younger child for help. They shared the location, but moments later, another call came — this time filled with curses and accusations that she hadn’t sent it. Then silence. He didn’t return home for more than half an hour.

Worried, the woman called one of his friends, only to hear that he had been drinking heavily. Her heart sank. “He was already drunk when he left home,” she said helplessly, “and you still gave him more.” The friend promised to check on him, but the minutes stretched endlessly. She kept the door open, pacing, calling again and again, standing near the balcony in the hope of seeing him walk down the street.

When she finally did, her heart broke — through the window, she saw her husband urinating behind the building. He stumbled in a few minutes later, falling again and again, unable to stand. His wife and children rushed to help him, but he pushed them away, trying to walk on his own. In the struggle, he fell again, twisting his arm. His wife and younger child couldn’t lift him, so the elder one had to step in. It was chaos — the kind of chaos that doesn’t just disturb sleep but slowly tears away peace, piece by piece.

But this wasn’t new. A few years back, a similar night had ended far worse. In a fit of drunken rage, he had pushed his daughter to the ground, slapped her across the face, and stamped on her legs — all because he thought she had “disrespected” him. His wife had stood there, frozen, torn between fear and helplessness.

And years before that, when they lived abroad, alcohol had nearly cost a life. Their son was only four when his father took him along to a drinking party. Glass after glass, laughter turned into slurred words. When it was time to leave, he insisted on driving home. But somewhere along the road, he passed out at the wheel. The car stopped in the middle of the street — and his son was trapped inside with him. The frightened child somehow called the party host and his mother for help. The party host came, broke open the car, and brought the father home. And yet, like so many times after, no one really spoke about it. It was brushed off as another “incident,” another night gone wrong.

And years before that, when they lived abroad, alcohol had nearly cost a life. Their son was only four when his father took him along to a drinking party. Glass after glass, laughter turned into slurred words. When it was time to leave, he insisted on driving home. But somewhere along the road, he passed out at the wheel. The car stopped in the middle of the street — and his son was trapped inside with him. The frightened child somehow called the party host and his grandmother for help. They came, broke open the car, and brought the father home. And yet, like so many times after, no one really spoke about it. It was brushed off as another “incident,” another night gone wrong.

In one such family, a small boy once hid inside a wooden cupboard while playing hide and seek with his sister. Their father, in a drunken haze, saw him hide and locked the door. It was only when the children’s uncle shouted at the father to open it that the boy was saved — otherwise, that innocent child might have suffocated inside, locked away by his own father’s hands. That little boy is now grown, working hard to support his family. But imagine that night, if no one had intervened — a life would have been lost, and another tragedy would have been buried in silence.

When there is a drunk father in a family, cracks begin to form — not just in the walls of the home, but in the hearts of those who live there. It becomes a place of fear instead of comfort, tension instead of love. The family learns to whisper instead of speak, to hide emotions instead of sharing them. It becomes dysfunctional, abusive, and painfully silent.

Children grow up too soon, watching chaos instead of care. The wife carries the weight of both parents — shielding the children, managing the home, and silently praying for peace that rarely comes. Every bottle emptied takes away a piece of stability — emotional, mental, and financial. Slowly, the family grows weaker, not because they don’t love each other, but because the drink leaves no room for love to survive.

Alcohol doesn’t just destroy the person who drinksit destroys the balance of an entire family. It turns laughter into fear, memories into scars, and homes into battlegrounds. And yet, behind every closed door where these stories unfold, there’s always one hope — that someday, someone will have the courage to stop the cycle, to speak, to seek help, and to rebuild what alcohol once broke.I can give more and more examples — cruel, painful, and gruesome. But the harsh truth is that nothing changes unless the person themselves decides to. No amount of pleading, tears, or confrontation can fix what they refuse to see. You can cry, beg, or even pray, but until they choose to change, you keep circling the same heartbreak over and over again.

The biggest tragedy, however, is one that society often overlooks — when a drunkard is married off, it doesn’t end with him. Another woman becomes part of that endless suffering, and children are born into a cycle of fear and instability they never chose. What begins as one person’s addiction slowly spreads through generations, like a silent inheritance of pain.

Alcohol doesn’t just ruin one life — it chains the lives of everyone connected to it. And unless there’s courage to break that cycle, to stop glorifying endurance and start valuing peace, many homes will continue to suffer in silence, behind closed doors that hide too many untold stories.