Family Addictions
Dear Sister,
Today I received another text from your husband. This time some joggers found you passed out in a wet ditch, not far from the liquor store. They called the police who returned you to your home. Your husband said that you walked two miles to buy some beer … a trip you have journeyed before. Your daughter changed you into some clean, dry clothes and put you to bed to sleep it off. You escaped one prison of loving fear and concern, only to seek out another prison of darkness and oblivion.
You are truly one immortal alcoholic. How many times must this happen as you slowly commit suicide?
I want to write words of encouragement and love, yet it seems incongruous when what I’m feeling is anger and frustration … swirled together with a long forgotten sense of loving admiration and a deep bond of sisterhood and family.
What in the hell happened?
We grew up unknowingly in an alcoholic family. Our mother grew up with an alcoholic father and all the abuses, both emotionally and physically that get bestowed upon such a family. Our father grew up in a family that wouldn’t allow alcohol in the house … secrets and ignorant abstinence be damned.
Our mother married our father because, for one important reason, he didn’t drink. That was when he was 21 and mom was 18 years old. Dad started drinking when he was in his 30’s, and within a few years became an alcoholic . Socially acceptable of course. Hidden from others … including us kids. Mom never did use words, but her anger towards his drinking behavior was enough for our young minds to take in and comprehend that there was a problem. It didn’t affect us kids…. or so we thought. We never saw him embarrassingly drunk … we loved our father and our mother dearly. It was their problem … a secret so palpable that we all made a pact to take this shame to their graves.
They are now gone, and the inherited alcoholic tendencies have raged on. Four sisters try to make sense of it, and pray for a graceful healing from it. Nothing else seems to work. We now have nine grown children who have been observing and learning about this horrifying addiction for all of their sweet lives. Who, of them, are at risk? And now they have babies …
The devastation won’t end until we are able to go within and ask for strength and healing from our source of light and love, and have faith that we are heard. It won’t get better until we are able to come alongside our grown children and share our shame, our fear, and our desire for love and forgiveness from such a heartless and invisible disease. It won’t abate until we reach out and pray for what we are deserving of …. self-compassion and strength to embody our true essence. And t won’t lend the promise for our children that their lives will be free of this addiction until they feel that our love for them and self has been the source of change … of all change. Love is always the question … and always the answer.
Keeping putting pen to paper …. Some of what you write I feel as if you’ve taken the words right out of my head … Consoling really to know that someone out there has experience so much of the same and were not alone . Thank you for your braveness and willingness to be so open and honest … It’s healing others
My heart goes out to you,, Leigh, and your family. In my family there is a history of bipolar illness, all the way to my generation. I worry about the next generation, that of my children. I mention this, because for my mother’s generation it is now clear that the people afflicted with bi-polar disorder were self-medicating with alcohol. I’m not sure whether that makes it easier or harder to deal with their alcoholism. Your sister (and you and your whole family) are in my thoughts and prayers.
Thanks so much for your kind words, Jane. It is heart-renching at times. I worry about our children and hope they make better choices given that they have the knowledge regarding alcoholism and their own personal risk. My family, including myself also have a history of depression. I think I’m going to write a piece about my past struggle with that. How are you and John? Where are you in the world? How exciting for you!