Originally Posted by
mistaTea
Yes, and people will have various reasons for medicating with their addictions. Be it booze, drugs, sex or a combo of all.
Then we learn our behaviour from those closest to us, often our parents when growing up.
Just last week, my younger brother (big booze, tobacco and drug dependency) could not come up with petrol money to drive his daughter to a town 2 hours away to drop her back off to her mother. Yet the previous weekend I was visiting where he lives, and he had plenty of money for ciggies, takeaways and alcohol.
Fast forward to the weekend just gone by... a couple of days after his daughters mother had to drive down to collect her, my bro got paid... and so when the weekend rolled around he was straight down the pub to watch the rugger and booze it up with his yobo mates.
Now, I do not consider my brother to be evil. But he is an absolute sh1t bag as a father. His daughter only visits every so often, and he does the bare minimum in terms of planning ahead to have money to do things with her. He can never bring himself to sacrifice the smokes or the booze 'now' in order to have more cash later.
And though I cannot produce any stats on this issue as davflaws has asked for (because I don't think anyone has collected such stats, or even could reliably do so)... I do not think that my brother is the only f*ck stick, no-hoper dad around.
Now, his daughter does not miss any meals or anything like that. But I know there will be other parents who are even worse with their addictions etc, and that kids missing meals and going without is not such a big stretch to my imagination.