- Alcohol
- Faith
My name is Peggy, and I was born in 1956. I had a sister and brother who were older than me and a sister and brother younger than me. Our Parents were alcoholics. I have very little memory of my childhood. What I do remember is being alone with myself most of the time. I remember the feelings of fear and of my stomach being upset most of the time. I never felt like I quite fit in at home or anywhere for that matter.
Until my freshman year in high school, the year my brother was a senior. He was popular, a great humble guy, with many friends including the high school basketball team. This was the year they won the championship for their division, and our house was an open, revolving door to the team and all of his friends. I made lots of friends that year. They wanted to be with me in school and at my home whenever they could. It felt good to have friends and be liked by all these girls. I had no idea that after my brother’s graduation all those friends of mine would be gone.
I was so naive as a child. I lived in a fairytale world, dreaming of beautiful endings and flowers and fields and that everybody would be happy. I would hear the fighting and the things my dad would say to my mother. They were words I never heard anywhere in school and no child should ever have to hear. I learned them through my dad’s anger, lust, and cheating. All night I would be in fear and hold tight to my dolls.
One time when I was young my mother punished me for something and made me go to my room. I went in the closet and sat on the floor and cried. I was so sensitive to words and scolding, it hurt deep. That closet became my place, my hiding place. I was filled with fear, and I told my fairy tales to make the fear go away. I spent many nights and days throughout my childhood there.
My mother was beautiful, and I loved her so much. I always looked for her attention and for a while she gave it to me. I am not sure when or what changed, but it stopped and she grew angry at all three of us girls. She would tell me how “needy” I was. I have never forgotten that, and I fear people thinking I am too needy to this day.
My two brothers they were my mom’s prizes and could do no wrong. My oldest brother would protect her when my father would go after her. My father would use the word “antagonize.” She would “antagonize” him, he said. I was happy my brother helped, I was scared. He was always my protector too, he would calm me when I was scared and always be so good to me. The memories I have of my childhood can cause my stomach to get upset with that fear I know very well now. The good memories are just glimpses of things, little flashbacks come to mind.
I would always think maybe everything would be okay. My fairy tale never came true. I am learning now in the four months of clean time I have that there are no fairy tales but in books and on TV. When I was sixteen my parents lost their home to bankruptcy. We had to move to a two family house on the other side of the tracks after living in a quiet neighborhood. Everyone knew our loud, crazy home was far from quiet. Nothing changed, and it was all downhill from there. My sister left home for California from Connecticut where we lived. My brother, my protector, left and soon after joined the Army.
After my brother left there was more drinking than ever, followed by divorce. Now my mother was gone all the time, out drinking with men, and I have no idea what kind of life she was living. I was not able to care for myself or my two younger siblings. We rarely had food in the house. I got a job at a restaurant to help us. I would give my 11-year-old brother money to walk to the little store and get milk and food. One day he came home with a whole chicken. I didn’t give him enough money for that, he had put it under his shirt and stolen it.
My father lived in a boarding house a few miles away, and I would go visit him and he would cry. I would comfort him as I always did from the time I was a little girl. I didn’t know how to handle any of this anymore. I ended up quitting school and going out with the friends I knew accepted anyone. We would go out, and I learned to smoke cigarettes. Eventually pot and drinking came around. I really didn’t want anything to do with that, but then I met a guy and wanted the least bit of attention he gave me.
I got pregnant, he married me, and I divorced him when my son was two. I was 21 and had started smoking and drinking and wanted only to be liked and needed from then on. My ex-husband had mentally and verbally abused me, and, even though it was familiar to me, it was different being done to me.
I started going out to a place where he knew people but didn’t go, and I had fun there. They eventually hired me as a bartender, and I made new friends and had a lot of fun working. The money I made provided for me and my son. I was able to save enough to move into my own apartment and give him a nice home. I made some true friends, mostly men, and they were good to my son and would come watch his t-ball and baseball games. Things were going well for me, and I had done it all myself.
I had one very special friend that also had a son. We would meet when we could, drank a lot together and enjoyed each other so much. I felt truly cared about. It went on for five years, and I will always cherish that relationship. He genuinely cared for me like no other had or has since. Alcohol was not good in the relationship, so we both knew it would never end up in a permanent thing. He was a wild and crazy guy who made me laugh and feel loved, but we were both in pain and alcohol was our way of numbing it.
I was now a functional alcoholic who worked hard but drank hard too. I bartended in an Italian restaurant six days a week and made really good money. I met my husband of thirty years this past April there. He worked nights, and I would go back at night to be with friends and drink there. He was going through a divorce and had a son three years younger than my son. We started going out, taking the boys places and got along really well. It was rough going with his divorce for a while, so I would be on and off with him, getting hurt over and over. He and his ex-wife fought over custody of their son, and she ended up with his son when they divorced. This caused deep bitterness in both of them.
He and I enjoyed having our sons spend time together. We were living together, when she dropped his son off at his work with garbage bags of clothes. He then fought for custody and won. We got married in the process so it would look better for him. I would have married him anyway, because I loved him and he loved me.
He was hurting and so was I, and hurting people hurt people. I mention his marriage only to tell you that his ex-wife put me through absolute hell, which I now know as mental abuse, for 14 years, until my husband’s son decided to go live with her in his junior year of high school. At 16, we didn’t allow our boys to drive. They had to be 17 and have a part time job to help pay for insurance and fuel costs. She bought him a car, like she bought his love the years he was with me, and let him get his license at 16. He broke our hearts, and she broke my spirit for the last time.
Throughout those years my husband would not talk to her, so I had to deal with all arrangements with her for visitation, vacations and summer visits. I had nobody who understood, as this was 25 years ago and “blended families” were not common. I don’t have to go through 30 years of my marriage to tell you about the insanity I have had and the mental and verbal abuse I dealt with. I also hurt him, not so much with words but with anxiety, depression, and totally hurtful “leave me alone” attitudes that were dysfunctional. We still go through it from time to time.
I had ten solid years of sobriety, and he had seven from 1988 to 1998. Those were the best years of our marriage. We found a church and had strong faith (I still do), and we also had a child together. He bound our whole family together, and it was good for us and the boys. My boys are all grown now with good jobs and sweet wives. I have 3 step-grandchildren, one grandson of mine and our youngest has his first baby due in September. They are all ours, but I put it that way because I have very real issues with my children.
Nine years ago my husband and I were separated. I had left him four months prior for the fourth and what I thought was the last time. He called and said he was moving to Florida. I got scared, and, as he always wanted me to, I went back. My youngest son agreed to change colleges and come with us. He was turning 20 at the time. After packing up and saying good-bye to all I had ever known, we drove from Connecticut to Florida.
It has been more nightmares ever since. The only thing I can say is now I am finally adjusting to living in Florida after 9 years, and my marriage is better. My husband still is an active drinker, and I have been in and out of detox and using everything I could, up until 120 days ago. My oldest sister died at the age of 53 after suffering with cirrhosis of the liver for 3 years, and I wasn’t there for her. When I went to see her she was on life support, and I don’t know if she heard me tell her I loved her. My father was sober for the last 15 years of his life, and he died after battling cancer for 2 years. I miss him to this day, and he will be gone 15 years this November. My youngest brother fathered 2 children, was wild and crazy and did drugs most of his life, and died at the of 40 from colon cancer. I wasn’t there.
They all suffered, and I could only help my dad, because it happened before I was gone. I had never tried a 12-step meetings program, and when I did I realized it was not about the drug, it was about the lifestyle of addiction. My youngest son only lasted six months in Florida, as he missed his friends and went back home to Connecticut. I was devastated.
My pain and my fears are and have been a lifestyle, and I never knew how to start living differently. I went from abuse to abuse over and over again. I knew nothing BUT insanity! I want the answers now, one day at a time. I know God’s timing is perfect, and for whatever time left I am here I want to live striving to be honest, willing and open minded to what my world can be. I want to learn a new way of living. I have lived in this kind of life too long. I don’t want it anymore, and that is part of the answer. I had to not want it anymore.
I have huge “heart and soul” pain for not being there for my family. I am writing this because I have lived with the consequences of fear of rejection and the belief that somebody won’t love me. I want to learn a new way to live, and my 12-step program can help me do that, but I have to do the work.
I do not believe my husband or I would have moved away from my home, if we had thought about the future and not just moved to a new geographical area. Everything fell into place for the move here to Florida. My husband got the perfect job, we found a beautiful place to live and our moving company fell right at our feet. It was the year of the hurricanes, four in a row that devastated Florida. We were here for the last one, and that was an experience I pray I never have to go through again. But I live in Florida.
When I think about all the pain and unhealthy attachments I have had to our sons I pray, “Oh God I cannot do this, I give up control.” It hurts too much. Now another grandson is coming, and I want to get healthy instead of falling back into my old ways. To do that I have to do the work. I go to meetings almost every day, and I talk to my sponsor once or twice a day by phone or text. I read books, walk the beach in the morning, and talk to God. I pray all the time by talking to God out loud in my home and praying when I am with others. My heart goes out to young unwed mothers of which there are many. I look for the young men who are like my sons and talk to them, and they call me “Mama.” This has all happened in the last four months.
When we want it bad enough, God will make things happen for us. I have some really good days, and I have days I question why I have to be addicted and experience the pain I choose not to numb anymore. I read, I pray. I have two sheets of paper, and I put gold stars on one with something I did right and healthy and write what I did. I have one I put blue stars on for every negative thing I think or say and flip it to something positive. Addiction is a difficult thing but it isn’t going to go away. If I treat it as it should be treated and do the work, I believe I am on my way to a productive, happy life. When I see young people at meetings, I pray they keep coming and that they don’t lose the battle and wait until my age before they work on their insecurities and heal from whatever abuse they may have had.
I don’t have to do a drug or drink alcohol today. I was never out on the streets. I was silent and at home. I lied and fooled people. I was not myself, even though I thought I was most of the time. I have just finished my first step with my sponsor, and she tells me how strong I am. Many people have told me that I am strong. Yes, I am. Yes, I have gotten through many hard things. I have been sad and anxious and isolated for too long. I have much to offer, and I pray that I will inspire even one young mom or a mom who has lost her children to the courts and wants to get better so she can be the mom she needs to be to get them back. I want to inspire one young man who would really rather be doing well in his life and any woman who is like me.
I can do this thing with tenacity, and I can take my chaos with me everywhere I go until I get to the part of my journey where I am smiling and looking in the mirror and liking who I see. Just for today I can do this with God’s help. Thanks for listening.