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share your childhood

Old 12-21-2007, 02:04 AM
  # 21 (permalink)  
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In my family, we didn't have problems - we drank. Alcohol was a part of every celebration and a part of every sadness. It was a comfort, a lubricant, a relaxer, and a tradition. Drinking, heavy drinking, was normal. There was, at least for me, an understanding that one could drink as much as one wanted as long as things got done and appearances were kept up. I was eight years younger than my sisters and I know through veiled hints and overheard conversations that there were events that were never discussed in my presence. This maintaining illusions continued long after we had all become adults. Problems were not something you talked about. You dealt with the immediate consequences on your own, you moved on, and you drank. I don't know if this is how the rest of the family viewed it because we certainly didn't talk about it.

Three children, three lives, three different results. My oldest sister had some kind of awakening when my mother died in 1997, scaled back her drinking and got serious about exercise and healthy living. I drank myself into treatment six years ago, where I had to finally face the fact that alcohol was a primary problem not a primary solution. My other sister drank herself to death five months ago. Two years earlier, she said to me "I hate saying I'm an alcoholic because I think our parents raised us to be better drinkers than that."

Whatever happened in the past, whatever effect it may have had on my life, needs to be remembered, even (gasp!) talked about, but I can't wallow in it. I can't live in the past and recover. Recovery happens in the now.
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Old 12-21-2007, 09:40 AM
  # 22 (permalink)  
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Well for those that feel thier child hood was a major player in thier alcoholism what I am about to share might just cause one to do what they should be doing with any problem they have and have a look in the mirror!

My parents were beyond good, they were married when I was born, my father was an alcoholic but quit drinking the day I came home from the hospital.

My parents priorities were food on the table, a roof over our heads, & clothes on our backs, everything else came after those.

My brother and I were raised by parents who put our welfare ahead of their own.

I was raised in a happy household by 2 parents who never left a doubt in our minds that they loved each other and loved us.

Everything we did we did as a family, we were not poor nor were we rich, we did alright.

There was no abuse verbal or physical.

There is not a single thing from my childhood that anyone other then myself did or did not do that even in my wildest dreams I could twist in any manner that I could use as a reason I am an alcoholic.

As an adult I found that I was truly blessed in the way I was raised as I learned from friends what their childhoods were like, most of them did not become alcoholics or drug addicts yet thier childhoods in comparison to mine were a living hell. My wife was raised in a abusive house hold, physically and verbally, yet she is neither a drug addict nor an alcoholic.

Do not get me wrong, I am sure that a bad childhood can speed up alcoholism or drug addiction, but if I am any proof of it, for me my childhood should have made me bulletproof to alcoholism or drug addiction.
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