A Special Christmas Letter From Dad
discouraged by the mistakes you make.
You may change to word alcohol to drug of choice wherever you wish.
A parent never knows how a child will finally come out. When I took my own careful inventory as part of my recovery process I had to look at the example I set for my children. I taught them that alcohol relieved perceived stress. I made alcohol the center of all family get-togethers. I demonstrated that we could not enjoy a meal out or a party without alcohol present. That is how I was taught, and I just passed it along to the next generation.
My Dad had terrible depression bouts. He would get so hateful that nobody could stand him. He was never totally incapacitated by his disease, but his moods swings had a great deal to do with all of our fears and inability to cope with reality. Don’t get me wrong. I do not blame my Dad for my own derelictions, but I am aware of how far back this disease goes in our family. The insanity that I am trying to stop with this letter is this; we just keep doing the same things generation after generation while hoping that somehow we will get a different result.
Society accepts now that ADD is cause by a mental/chemical imbalance, and some day it is likely to learn the same about alcoholism. People are getting help now for their ADD. Young people throughout our family with ADD are being treated with drugs that help them, and those accepting treatment are becoming excellent students. Until we can do the same with addiction, shouldn’t we do everything we can during this generation to be part of the solution instead of part of the problem?
I am through with living in shame for our family warts. I am tired of sweeping these things under the rug as we continue in lock step to destruction. For this year, and for the coming years, let’s stop hiding our deficiencies. Let’s celebrate that we can now identify them…that we can hold them up to the light and start to correct them! Let’s ask God in unison to give us the strength to deal honestly with each other, and to seek help when we need it. We have another member of our family who needs help in 2008, but is not capable of asking for it. Let’s not allow another tragedy to happen to another loved-one because we all failed to see the problem while failing to support the solution.
I love all of you, with my whole heart and soul. I am proud of each of you. You are completely acceptable to me, and to my God, just as you are, but we can all get well. Why don’t we get well together…as the family that we are?
Dad.
Men Living with Addicted People
Author’s qualifications
Ken P.
Ken P. was raised in poverty among what would in AA terminology be referred to as “low-bottom drunks.” Neither of his parents drank, but both were children of alcoholic mothers, and both had long histories of alcohol addiction in past generations. After watching two uncles die of acute alcoholism only a half of a block from his childhood home drinking on the same couch, he was married for 19 years to a woman who became a practicing alcoholic.
He is a singular man in that he has been active in the Al-Anon recovery program for 30 years, a program usually attended by women. Ken started attending meetings when men in Al-Anon were extremely rare. In 1976 he was one of only a few male Al-Anons in all of Houston. During three decades he has attended two to three meetings per week, led meetings, sponsored many men, spoken at major Al-Anon and AA conferences, and served as chairman of the board of directors for the Al-Anon Intergroup office, which serves over 200 weekly meetings in the Houston area.
Ken earned a BA degree in biology during the sixties in San Francisco from San Francisco State College. He performed menial labor for five years, working nights, weekends, and summers to pay his own way through college while supporting a young family.
Upon graduation, Ken entered the pharmaceutical industry as a sales representative, was moved to Texas and made responsible for sales to hospitals affiliated with medical schools, and then managed representatives responsible for sales in medical centers throughout the south. He was in the first class of hospital representatives selected for special training to set up and monitor drug studies. He successfully retired at the age of 54.
Friends and family describe Ken as a high energy, focused man who throughout his lifetime has excelled at tackling major projects that require years of dedication and successfully completing them.
Recently, Ken has dedicated himself to his 12-step program, and to tutoring students in the SAT, ACT, biology, higher math, and French. He began writing about the recovery process for men with addicted family members in June of 2006, and was soon joined by Scott B. and Bob T. The three men realized that, with their experiences in the corporate world, plus their exceptional levels of mutual trust developed after years of working the program together, they had a unique mix. Also, similar backgrounds with addicted family members were there, but one had survived an addicted wife, one an addicted mother, and another an addicted daughter. Each could therefore approach the subject of addiction from a totally separate viewpoint. The collaboration that began soon netted publication of the article titled “Are you Living with an Addicted Person?” in the July 1, 2007 issue of Going Bonkers Magazine. For Ken personally, publication of the book represents the chance to help the families of addicts on an even broader scale, which he is convinced is one of the most important purposes for his life.
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