The letter in the article touched me as both the child of an alcohol and as a mother who was an alcoholic. To this day I can feel my back go up and myself tense up the moment I hear in my mother's voice that she's been drinking. I revert back to being a kid in an instant, it brings an immediate emotional response from me. She changes as soon as the alcohol enters her system, her voice, her demeanor, her attitude, posture, everything changes. Her Beast takes over and there is a notable difference. And I grew up to be just like her. I know that my children have witnessed the same change come over me and lived with that same uncertainty of not knowing what they were coming home to. They lived with the same volatility and extremes. It causes me deep shame still to really think about. I still cringe and lament about what I've done. How could I have done that knowing what I know and having lived the way I lived?
To me AVRT is a quit drinking manual. As far as my morality when I was drinking, it was wrong and immoral, a sin even. I made mistakes without a doubt. The reasons for my alcohol dependency go deeper and and more complex that just labeling me and all others who get addicted as immoral. I believe there is a genetic factor, whatever that gene is, I've got it, from the very beginning I didn't drink "right". My sister on the other hand doesn't have it, her personality doesn't change with her first drink and she can leave it alone after one or two. We came out of the same parents and the same house.