- Alcohol
My father is an alcoholic. I hated how it affected our family when I was growing up; sometimes I hated him. I always thought if he really cared, he wouldn’t put us through the fear and sadness of his drinking. All he had to do was stop. He never did. I went into a blackout the first time I drank. Drinking was an easy way to “belong” in college and I saw no reason to stop. I always drank to intoxication; that was the goal. Regardless of failing grades and embarrassing blackouts, I continued.
After college, morning shakes became the norm. I lost weight, ruined relationships, hated myself. I didn’t have a drinking problem, but I did have an alcoholic father. ACOA was an organization I decided to check out. These were other adult children of alcoholics and it was freeing to talk about the impact drinking had on us while we were growing up. I went to meetings regularly. I bought fifths of bourbon on the way home. Around that time alcohol stopped working. I was more depressed than ever and started contemplating suicide. I went to therapy. I went on medication. I stayed depressed. I will always believe it was a God thing when I called the AA Intergroup number one night while drunk, looking for an ACOA meeting that would fix my soul. The blessing was that I remained sober enough to remember the conversation, but greater still was the man who answered the phone. He encouraged me to attend an ACOA meeting where he went to AA. He was kind and accepting and told me he would meet me there. I wanted his calm and peace. He was so comfortable with himself; so loving toward others. He invited me to AA.
That was 23 years ago and I have been blessed with sobriety since. The gifts are like nothing I could have imagined; the peace and self-acceptance are a true gift. The people in the program loved me until I could learn to love myself and I will be forever grateful. I see my father differently now. I wish he was in the program. I love him unconditionally and I thank God I found the program, even through the side door. The beauty of recovery is that it’s always there. The other side is possible and you can’t know how wonderful it is without walking through.