My (F29) parents (m62) (f53) are both well-educated, liberal-leaning, house-owning individuals. My mom is a teacher and my dad is a retired blue collar union worker. They live in the suburbs in a beautiful home and go to church regularly, but beyond that, don’t really travel much or go out of their way to interact with others beyond their very small group of acquaintances.

I was home for the weekend after being away for a while (I live on the other side of the country), and they offered me some wine. I accepted, because they taught me growing up that was the right thing to do. Eventually we got to taking about the current state of the world— I know, big mistake.

My mom started going on about how children can’t read anymore and how parents just put iPads in front of their children and how it’s ruining society. While I absolutely agree that’s a problem, I also tried to suggest that the internet, when taught how to be used responsibility by either parents or teachers, can be a huge source of information and knowledge, especially to children of lower income families or who don’t have access to many books or other sources of information. This came from my own experience growing up, where they weren’t really around to support me the way I needed it so I met friends and taught myself how to do things using the internet.

This started a huge argument, as they were both pretty drunk by now. My mom took it personally as an insult to her as a teacher and my dad backed her up saying that I don’t know enough about the world to know what I’m talking about… that if I had kids I would understand.

This devolved even further when I said that I had been volunteering a lot lately with my friend group and suggested that they should do the same, and maybe go out of their way to speak to people outside of their church group, especially people of color, people of different sexualities and social classes and in general step outside their comfort zones to gain new perspectives.

They ended up accusing me of calling them racist which is when I disengaged from the conversation and left, but not before I called them out for “drinking, drinking, and more drinking to forget the rest of the world”, which I know was harsh but I said it so there’s no taking it back now.

While my parents are both functioning during the day/at their jobs, they have been alcoholics for as long as I can remember and I partially moved across the country to get away from them many years ago. They often drink so much that they forget what they said the previous day and end up repeating themselves because they don’t remember our conversation.

As a kid/teen, i remember that they used to get drunk, argue with each other and with me when I spoke up, go to bed, then wake up like nothing had happened. All this certainly caused me have difficulties with them, but up until this point I’ve been civil, trying to nudge them towards sobriety without starting huge arguments… but I didn’t realize how bad they’d gotten…or maybe I’m just old enough now to understand after being away from them for a while. I never intended to imply that I thought they’re racist, or want to do anything more than provide my perspective on things. I feel shitty about sayings the things I said the way I said them, but I also feel like they needed to be said.

I ended up changing my flights from two days from now to tomorrow… I just cant stand being around them like this, and don’t feel equipped to fully confront them about their alcoholism… but at the same time horrifically selfish to be leaving them when I should be trying to convince them to seek help.

AITA?