John L. Pastore: A Struggle With Life
at different times. “The limbic system controls emotions and memory. As alcohol effects this system, the person is subject to exaggerated states of emotion (anger, aggressiveness, withdrawal) and memory loss” (How). Even though at the time of my incident my father had been three or more years sober, the alcohol could have still affected his emotions.
My mother said by father was the best father that he could be. I didn’t understand what that meant until I got older. His emotions were different than other people’s emotions. He tried his best to be there for us, but his best was not always good enough, especially for my oldest brother Matt.
My father mixed mine and my sister’s names up all the time, along with my brothers’ names. This could have just been a mistake, many parents do that often. However, this could also have been an effect of the alcohol. Memory loss is one of the long term effects of drinking too much. “Not only can people fail to remember what went on during a heavy session, persistent heavy drinkers can develop memory loss problems” (Long). My father had a very limited memory, he forgot things quickly. As he got older, and when he was sick, his memory started to fade more and more.
I can’t talk to my brother Curtis about my father. I have tried numerous times but he won’t talk about him. He even gets angry at me when I try and ask questions about his childhood. My brother was young when my dad was around and had his drinking problem. My mom thinks he might remember the fights and my dad’s drunkenness. I tried asking him about it, he said he didn’t remember, he got angry with me and said, “Some things are better left unspoken.” This makes me wonder of what he did see and experience as a young child. He has a hard time expressing his emotions in general, but when it comes to my father he just closes up.
My sister has no problem talking to me about my father. We are a lot alike in that sense. From my understanding of the person he was back then, to the person he had become before he passed, there was a huge significant difference, and change, in a good way. When I was younger, I didn’t get to see my father as much as I would have liked to. As I got older, I was in charge of that. I could call him or my stepmother and tell them I was coming up for the weekend or that I wanted to see them. My father also called me more to talk and wanted to see me more as I got older. I had really tried to get close to my dad the last couple years of his life. And he really tried to be a better father, which he accomplished. When I was younger he was just beginning to get sober, and as I got older he got more secure with his sobriety, which made him more secure as a father.
People tend to drink for many different reasons. It may help them relax, or reduce their anxiety, it may even help deal with stress. Alcohol only helps with these problems in the short-term sense. In reality drinking will only make someone’s problems get worse (Ryan).
My father went to AA meetings frequently, they are what helped him get sober and make it through. AA stands for Alcoholics Anonymous, they are a group of recovering alcoholics who meet together to talk about their struggles with alcohol. My father was the type of person who loved to talk about himself. He just loved to talk, period. AA was a great way for him to get out how he was feeling and express his emotions about his addiction. If it wasn’t for AA, I’m not sure if my father would have ever have gotten sober. Alcoholism is a disease; a disease that is extremely hard to recover from. In the big blue book called Alcoholics Anonymous it says, “If a person has cancer all are sorry for him and no one is angry or hurt. But not so with the alcoholic illness, for with it goes annihilation of all things worth while in life (Alcoholics 18).” Nobody feels sorry for an alcoholic; they feel angry and hurt. This is probably because alcoholism is a disease that can be controlled, whereas cancer is not. In Alcoholics Anonymous they believe in finding a spiritual power to guide them to be sober. The big book of AA talks about God being the spiritual power, and leading them to get back in control of their lives. The book also talks about not having to believe in God to get sober, but believing in a higher spiritual power, whatever someone’s beliefs may be. My father believed in that higher spiritual power. He didn’t go to Church often, but I knew God was what changed him, what made him want to be sober.
I recently attended my first Al-Anon meeting. Al-Anon is for children or spouses of an alcoholic. It was not what I expected at all. What I had been expecting was a group of people, both men and women. I pictured them sitting in a big circle, discussing their difficulties with their spouses and family members drinking problems. It was all women. There were no men there, only women talking about their