What i'd say to the alcoholic parent

You were born full of potential. This is where you are now, as you are sitting here. You may hate what you've become, and certainly many events have contributed to this result right here. But you're not dead yet. You most certainly will die, but the potential contained in your baby-body is still within you.

You've had dreams, and then you've been discouraged. For some reason, you didn't become obsessed with the dream strongly enough as to possess you to work diligently forever until you achieved it. You became deflated and forgot about your dream. The precise timing which would have activated those past dreams may be past and gone now. (Let go, life contains suffering :) HOEWVER! You can still re-learn the capacity to dream. However many years you have left, you can still achieve something.  You had stopped dreaming because "what's the point?" But here it is: The point is that you're going to die, and you're going to have lived... And what you leave behind in the world is still completely up to you. Buck up!!! Your legacy is at stake. How you are remembered is at stake, and much bigger than that, the pleasant moments will have been missed if you don't buck up.  There is still time for growth. You can still learn how to reach out your hand and touch the hand or the shoulder of another. You can still inspire if you do buck up. And if you don't, the legacy you leave behind will be clouded iwth negativity. You would miss the laughter you could laugh, the wisdom you could share, the stories you could tell, the service you could give back for all the opportunity you've been given but have been too imperfect to appreciate.

Build some courage within yourself. Convince yourself of your own self-worth. Think of a good life and what that would look like for you, and start making baby steps towards it and never fucking give up. Please!