Trixie Rose on Drunk Daddy: Forgiving an Alcoholic Father

Trixie Rose on Drunk Daddy: Forgiving an Alcoholic Father

Curious about how others navigate their sobriety journey? This conversation between author and host Amy Liz Harrison and writer Trixie Rose (pen name of Holly Rose) zooms in on what it’s like to grow up with an alcoholic father – and then accidentally choose similar dynamics in adult relationships. Trixie talks about her memoir, *Drunk Daddy*, which she cheekily calls a "bad memoir" because it ignores all the usual rules.

No neat arc, no tidy moral – just "all the details, all the messiness" of life with her charismatic, hard-drinking dad, Tony. She explains why she published under a pen name, sharing how shame lingered even after she’d done the work: she wanted "another layer of remove" until, the moment she hit publish, she realised, "yeah, that's me. That's my story." You’ll hear how childhood patterns reappeared when she fell in love with a man who also drank heavily.

One day driving home, she caught herself thinking, "exactly how drunk will he be when I get home?" and realised it was the same question her eight-year-old self asked about Tony. That moment pushed her towards writing, boundary-setting, and the hard truth: "I am really not doing this to myself. Nobody is in charge of saving me.

I can't save him." A powerful thread running through the chat is the quiet strength of her mum, Cecilia, who eventually "stands up in her own power" in the 1970s, just as laws changed to allow women to have credit and mortgages in their own names. Trixie sees her mother as the real hero of the story.

This episode speaks directly to adult children of Alcoholics, people in recovery wondering about the impact on their families, and anyone who’s ever tried to "save" a drinker. It’s raw, funny in places, and very real – and might leave you asking where in your own life you’re finally ready to put your oxygen mask on first.