Don S

Welcome to SR, wandergrrl!
Don S

AndrewBeen

A parent can't spare their child pain. What they can do is to arm their kids with all the tools they can, and hope the child can find these tools of use. Do your all, give them what you can, and hope for the best. Knowledge is a tool. The knowledge may or may not be of use. The reality is that the son of a male alcoholic is at an order of magnitude greater risk of becoming alcoholic. That should be communicated.

The severity of alcoholism in my family was kept from me until I was an adult. (Dad was a very private, aloof drinker as you might imagine.) I wish I had known sooner. I wish I had not had to rely on family friends to tell me the truth nature of what was really going on all those years. I wish I had been told the high liklihood of my acquiring this disorder. I wish I had been told what the warning signs looked like, and what to do when I saw them.

You know, chris, it might not have changed the course of things -- I might have still become an alcoholic and sought recovery. But I probably would have gotten sober sooner and wasted fewer years of my life.

Don S

The lesson I wanted my son to have is that his future is not predetermined by biology or genetics. The belief I want my son to have is that change is possible. To that end, my own choice of sobriety was the most important behavior I could model for him. I know, because he told me so.

Don S

minnie

Personally, I think that more damage is caused by the unempathetic parenting that results from active alcoholism than genetics. How many alcoholics suffered from low self-esteem before they ever picked up the first drink? And how many of those found relief in being able to numb those uncomfortable feelings with alcohol?

AndrewBeen

That is SO well put!

Millwallj

There are some who say the disease concept is the biggest threat to Civil Liberties america has had in a long while...

extreme I know...but if you look at it there are shards of truth (everywhere?)

Millwallj

Self esteem comes from self sufficiency. Independance from anyone or anything. A feeling of being alone and competent is, for me, true sobriety. Through AA or not, disease concept or genetics, I need to stand on my own two feet as a single, solitary human being.

Don S

Thanks, Andrew. I just reposted for you a letter I wrote to my son a few years ago. It's over on the 'Friday Affirmation' thread.
Hey, Millwallj, 'self-acceptance' is even more important than 'self-esteem'. But that's another thread....
Don

Millwallj

Yeah, I guess it is. thanks Don. I am okay at accepting myself at the moment, but I am sure there will be a time when I need to practice that.

mrs mipsy

This has been a fascinating thread on readback, thank you all so much for your posts. There seems to be much debate within the debate, some of which I had never really given thought to, particularily an A/H not wishing to analyse what may of been contributing factors to their disorder through the clarity of sobriety. I guess that's because I'm analytical, but of course I respect everyone's 'method' of getting sober. I also guess this is why I posed the initial question...for my own reasoning of 'trying to make sense' of my behaviour and did this 'genetics' theory really hold any water? I'm still confused about it, which means I can't truely rule it out of the equation, this is unfortunate, but then I suppose ultimately, we either believe it or don't. I will look at the reading suggested by so many of you.

laurie6781

I'm bringing this thread back up to the top because I just got sent a recent article about the heredity question.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...1005075044.htm

It's quite interesting and gives a link to the whole report.

Love and (((((to all))))),