by Band Back Together | Sep 15, 2016 | Addiction, Adult Children of Addicts, Alcohol Addiction, Anger, Anxiety, Cocaine Addiction, Compassion, Fear, Guilt, Happiness, Help With Relationships, Hope, Loving An Addict, Romantic Relationships, Trauma |
Adult Children of Addicts are at a far greater risk to develop addiction to substance abuse.
This is the story of three brave men:
My father was the son of an alcoholic. He had a brother and 3 sisters who all would partake in the ocassional alcoholic beverage but never let it interfere with the normal every day functions of their lives. My father, on the other hand carried on the family tradition/trait/ illness, or whatever you wish to call it. He was not an abusive drunk, although I do remember he and his best friend trashing our house fighting each other when I was a pre-teen. He was very much involved in my life and that of my brother and sister, but he was still an alcoholic.
As years passed, his drinking became more and more severe. It wasn’t until my teen years that I really started paying attention and noticing that he was consuming a case or so of beer by himself, everyday, along with as much as a pint of liquor. He became more pissed off at the world and everything about it. The world was out to get him and so was everyone on the planet. It was getting to the point where nothing we did was right.
After graduating high school, it was time to marry my high school sweetheart. A day I had dreamt of for a long time. I was never one for dating and the whole girlfriend issue, but this girl was for me and I was so looking forward to that special night and our first dance as husband and wife. In the middle of the most special dance of my life, my father interrupted and said, “why don’t you play something we all like?” Our wedding song was “All Of My Love” by Led Zeppelin.
I was stunned, flabbergasted, ashamed, and yet I let it slide.
I vowed my entire life that I would not be like him, and to that I stayed pretty true. Sure, I had the occasional drink as a teenager. Yes, I got drunk from time to time but never really cared enough for it to become a regular thing. Never would I be like him. I would not put my children through that, even if he was not mean, it was not a childhood I would not want any kid to have to live. Little did I realize at the time that I was just like him.
Although I was not a drinker, I had no problem smoking pot, tripping on acid and mescaline, doing ‘shrooms, or just about any mind-altering substance that I could get my hands on. But hey, I was not a drunk.
It wasn’t until my mid twenties, deep into a cocaine free basing addiction that my wonderful wife, the high school sweetheart, told me ”I don’t know what you are doing, but you either quit or I leave.”
Wow, a brick in the face that one was.
I finally looked at myself in the mirror, literally, and saw a pasty grey skinned man, skinny and sick looking he was just one step away from death or an institution.
I quit. I vowed to myself and my wife that I would never touch the stuff again. I spent several years going to narcotics anonymous, sometimes 2 or 3 times a day and I am proud to say I am free, clean, and sober. I am a fairly healthy 45 year old man still married to my high school sweet heart, and I have 3 wonderful sons and 2 grandsons.
I have felt their joys and sorrows. I have seen their smiles and frowns. I have been there for them. And I was there to help my oldest son through his addiction.
He chose to follow me and go the drug route. I have always been open with my children about drugs hoping that it would steer them away since I was speaking from personal experience; not quoting something I read in a book. He saw it like, hey you’re still alive, it couldn’t have been THAT bad.
On his 17th birthday, I did something that even I could not believe.
On the way home from picking him up at school one evening, he was so wasted that he was actually hallucinating in my car, asking me questions about how we were going to get the car through all those trees, and what were we going to do when we got to the end of the road where it turns red. I was so scared for him; it was time for another search of his room. I found pot growing in his closet, for the second time, so I figured I had no choice. I turned in my own son and he spent his 17th birthday in the county jail, and several others months following. It opened his eyes a bit. He stumbled a few times since but is now a wonderful 21 year old man with 2 sons.
One night, not to long ago, he finally told me that he hated me for quite a while for turning him in, but he then said he could not thank me enough for what he did and that he loved me.
I am constantly worried about him. Will the stress of the children lead him back to the drugs? Will he make it through as I have? Will any of his children follow the familiar path?
One good thing that has come of my sons addiction is that his younger brothers want absolutely nothing to do with any of it. So for now I just let him, and his brothers know, that I will always be there for them, and that life might not always be wonderful but it could always be worse.
And of course, I must thank my wonderful wife.
She stayed with me.
She saw the problems and instead of bailing out she stuck by my side.
She spent several weeks with very little sleep as my mind and body fought each other she was there to calm me.
She saved my life.
by Band Back Together | Jul 12, 2016 | Alcohol Addiction, Anger, Divorce, Fear, Grief, Infidelity, Suicide |
It is very difficult to watch someone you love go through the pain of a divorce. There really isn’t much you can do to help them, especially when they are in denial and are making poor choices.
He’s my best friend in the world. I love him dearly. His marriage was never anything extra special, in fact, it was almost always rocky. A few years ago, he was pretty sure his wife was cheating on him. They talked it out, and were working on their marriage. The only resolution I could see as an outside observer was that suddenly, all of HIS phone calls were being monitored. Including with me, his best friend. But since I’m a girl, I was under suspicion. Which I found quite ironic since SHE was the one suspected of cheating, not him.
So it really wasn’t a surprise to me when everything came crashing down this winter. She had been planning ahead: getting her own bank account and transferring her direct deposit into that account, packing up little things here and there. He was knocked completely sideways when she announced she was moving out. Not surprising, he tried very hard to get her to stay.
For a while.
Until he found out she was, indeed, cheating on him.
He isn’t an alcoholic, but he has always been a heavy drinker when he was in the right mood. Her leaving pushed him to the point of drinking all the time. He called me one night, more drunk than I’d ever heard him, and told me he was puking up blood and was suicidal. It scared me to death. I seriously considered driving the hundreds of miles between us to check on him.
Instead, I made him check in with me all the time. He was angry with her and took it out on me, saying I was smothering him. I know now that I probably did push too hard, but it was out of love and concern for him. He became angry enough that he quit talking to me altogether.
Months passed.
I needed to deal with some things in our hometown, so I went to see him. As I already knew, he was – mostly – ready to forgive me. Our friendship is still a little unstable, so for now, I need to be very gentle on him and give him some space.
In talking to him, I did discover that he is still very damaged. It’s not the loss of the marriage that has hurt him so much as it is the loss of the dream of what he thought their marriage was going to be. Even though he has “moved on” and has a new girlfriend, he couldn’t stop talking about his ex and everything she did. His pain is still very raw, although he’s too stubborn to admit it. I know a new relationship is probably not the best thing for him right now, but I know that, like the alcohol, he is using the new girlfriend as a crutch. She’s not his type at all, and from what I can tell is a walking train wreck. I hope she’s not going to end up making everything worse.
So I’m going to love him and pray for him from a distance. I’m hoping that once he heals more, he will cut back on the drinking, and hopefully see this other girl for who she really is.
This really hurts me to watch, but I’m glad he’s at least allowing me to do that much again.
by Band Back Together | Jun 7, 2016 | A Letter I Can't Send, Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse, Alcohol Addiction, Anger, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Child Sexual Abuse, Depression, Guilt, Inpatient Psychiatric Care, Loneliness, Self Loathing, Trust |
We all have letters we’d like to send, but know that we can’t. A letter to someone we no longer have a relationship with, a letter to a family member or friend who has died, a letter to reclaim our power or our voice from an abuser.
Letters where actual contact is just not possible.
Do you have a letter you can’t send?
Why not send it to The Band?
This is what I would like to tell my mom, and probably would if she weren’t in a fragile state. She’s been wheelchair bound since my second child was born and my daughter is now nearing junior high school. How she ended up in a wheelchair isn’t at issue at this point. Needless to say, she is simply too weak to hear this stuff.
Mom,
Did you ever wonder why I was so angry as a young man? Or why I only had a single friend when I was going through school? You should remember the angry tantrums that I used to pull. The anger I showed you was caused by a deep, horrid certainty that I was useless and doomed to failure. That I could never trust people or achieve anything of moment in life.
While a lot of this is standard fare for a teenager, you never informed dad about any incident as far as I can tell. He was never the kind of man to sit still for such nonsense. Did you stop to think when you told me as a very young child that I was a “surprise?” It didn’t take me long to figure out that “surprise” meant accident, and that you didn’t intend to make me. From that time on, I wondered if everyone would be happier without me, or if I even was truly wanted in the home.
What about the grades, Mom? You know, when I began failing in high school and you would hide the facts from Dad. Of course a child would accept help in such a way. I didn’t want to be in trouble at home AND school, after all. It’s a repeated pattern with you.
Consistently, you would “shelter” your little boy from Dad’s wrath, which was rather corporal, yet never over the top. Yet you failed entirely to protect me from sexual predators. Yes, mother I was molested as a child. I, your little boy, was fucked by a teenage girl belonging to a “trusted” family. My innocence was gone by fourth grade, Mother. Then, listening to your gossip, I learned that you never really even liked that family and thought their mother to be disgusting and immoral. Why, then, was I allowed to mix with them? Did you never wonder why I didn’t have any friends or why I quit playing with the other children from that family? I really believed that my molester was my girlfriend. You have no idea how confused and hurt I was when I saw her with a boy her own age. I had no one to confide in, and as children who are abused often feel that they would get into more trouble.
You were already struggling with demons of your own, of which I had known a little from the time I was in second grade when you were first hospitalized for “stress.” Junior high came around, and while I seemed to be okay, inside I was dying. I felt completely alone, as sex abuse survivors often do. I went through those three years with one friend who I met in fifth grade.
Then, you decided you were divorcing Dad. We moved out and lived for a few months in another town. You went back to father because, as I later found out, he bribed you. Yes, he cashed money from his retirement account and gave you a lump sum of cash to spend at your discretion. That caused me to lose a lot of respect for you. That was a single summer and back to the home. It was fucked up mom.
Junior high progressed. Even then I would have horrid angry outbursts of hopeless despair which should have caused some questions. Mom, why didn’t you do anything to get me help then?
High school came along and I gave up my choir aspirations. I didn’t have the confidence to try out for the high school choir, even though I had pulled straight A’s in all my choir work for junior high and earned a place on the Honor Choir. Indeed, I began to give up on everything then. I didn’t have many friends and had no visitors or invitations during summer breaks to anything. You never wondered why I never went steady with a girl, and asked only one out, and only then after repeated assurances that she would say yes? I pushed away my best friend in this time, in favor of what I thought were better friends. I’m lucky he forgave me, when I asked for his forgiveness.
I joined the Navy, only to flunk their psych evaluation and be sent home after five or so weeks. So there I was in the airport, defeated. You were so out of it, Mom. Dad was obviously exhausted. Apparently, it was getting near to another stay in the hospital for you. Not that they did you any good, except for to get you to decide to pretend everything was okay, so you could get out. Do you remember that ride home and the crazy things you talked about? In any case, Mother, you couldn’t handle your little boy leaving and broke down again. I needed some strength and real help then, Mom. But you, once again, were in trouble. I felt guilty by even thinking, “Dammit, I need my parents right now!” But Dad was dealing with your outbursts and insomnia. And so, once again, I kept my secrets and felt an utter failure. I know you’ve had difficulties Mama, but this isn’t about you right now.
You must realize that I was neglected by you in a few ways. Sure, you kept the house clean and meals on the table, but you never would inform my father of things that he had the right to know, like my failing grades. I was allowed to withdraw unhealthily into fantasy-like video games and television. You didn’t make me do the the things that I should have been doing, Mom. Dad could have helped you with that, if you would have let him. But I knew you, and I played you to keep the bad grades secret, just like any teenager would do, given the chance.
You did all that shit with my older sister, to the Nth degree, keeping her from facing the music for so long that she’s now a drug addict with no job, car, house, or self-respect. I escaped that because all along, since second grade, I have resented you. Yes. Resented that I couldn’t have a mommy that didn’t pick crazy fights with dad as we were watching a baseball game, eating dinner, or whatever. A mommy that wouldn’t freak out at tiny problems and scare the shit out of me with lies fashioned to keep me safe, that only served to inhibit my sense of trust in the world. A mommy who didn’t get so tired she wouldn’t talk to me or Dad and had to be taken to hospital on regular intervals.
I love ya, Mom, but you sure fucked up bad.
Four kids, one alcoholic, another a depressed, self-loathing mess (me) and a drug addict forever child. My oldest brother is the most well-balanced of the four of us, and I truly believe it’s because he spent the greater majority of his time with Father. Why did you “protect” us three from Dad so much? I have a good relationship with my father now, but my brother and sister haven’t spoken with him in years, in any meaningful way.
Do you know why dad was so grumpy all the time, mom? Because he slogged his ass of in a coal mine for twelve hours a day, six days a week and came home to either a batshit crazy or a sweet as pie wife–he never knew what to expect. He paid your way, Mom, and you resented him for it! He never made you stay home, you could have had your own money. Instead, you spent him into debt with secret credit cards, on more than one occasion. I remember the fights. They were the only ones that had any kind of justification. In other words, Dad was right!
You even kept him from forming decent relationships with the majority of his children.
Mom, I love you, but you have messed up three of your kids. That is a fact. I am now thirty six and struggle daily with feelings of empty, horrid loneliness and depression. These things are only bigger for me now, and I resent that you had every reasonable signal that something was very wrong with your child and you did …nothing. NOTHING!
I am now a father, and if one of my children began behaving the ways that I did, I would most certainly get them to someone for help. It’s not normal to rage the ways I did. Now I know it’s because of the injustice of abuse and the feeling that I wasn’t really wanted in the home.
I’m fixing these problems now, Mom, and without your help, just as before. It’s fucked, and I’m still kinda pissed off that all the signs were there. Sure, it was the early nineties. You watched enough talk shows to see at least one child psychiatrist telling parents signs of trouble in a kid. This fucking rock I’ve been toting for so goddamned long is a big bastard now. I’m pissed that I’ve had to do that carrying for so long. I’ve learned so much in my reading that I know that things wouldn’t be so bad NOW, if you would had done more THEN. Maybe you could have found yourself some decent help along the way, too.
I’m taking action now, Mom. I’m a big boy and have been taking care of myself. I’m getting the help I need, but my problems are compounded now by a failed marriage and the breakdown of my little family. This isn’t easier. Time didn’t make this shit go away. Indeed its only become worse.
I will overcome.
I love you mom. I hate you too. I don’t like it, and certainly this is going to be something that I address in therapy. But I’m doing it, finally, and that’s the point.
by Band Back Together | Apr 21, 2016 | Alcohol Addiction, Divorce, Emotional Abuse, Fear |
I’ve not posted for a long time. Three-and-half-years, if I remember correctly.
I’m sorry about that.
I’ve learned a lot about myself and my life in that time.
I learned I had been married to an alcoholic. I learned that I was allowing myself and my children to be verbally abused. I learned that I couldn’t be strong enough to fix things.
This is hard.
As of the first of this year, I’ve been a single dad. Most days. Some days, the kids are with her. But most of the time, it’s just me. That’s not the hard part. I mean, that’s not easy, but we are managing.
The hard part is dealing with the fear. When I see her, my heart starts racing – I go into flight or fight mode, mostly flight. Technically, I still need to let her in the house, the divorce isn’t final yet, but my stomach churns while she’s there.
When I can’t get the kids on the phone, my mind goes dark places. On the drive into work, my imagination plays out worst case scenarios.
Every day is a little bit better – except for when they are worse. Logically, I know I made the right decisions, and I’m going down the right road, but emotionally, I have so much doubt built up.
I considered making this post anonymous, but this post is not about her. It’s about me. I’m scared. I doubt. I get tired. I make mistakes. But I’m still going.
And I know it’s going to get better….
….even if I can’t quite bring myself to believe that yet.
By-DavidWendt
by Band Back Together | Apr 18, 2016 | Alcohol Addiction, Coping With Depression, Depression |
Mental Illnesses are prevalent in our world. They greatly affect not only the individual involved, but the people around them. In the month of April, we focus our spotlight on Mental Health, in order to heal together and break down stigmas.
We want your stories. How has your own, or someone else’s mental illness affected your life? How are you rising above stigmas?
Please share your stories with us during the month of April.
I lost my adult son to depression and alcohol and feel very guilty that I didn’t see his struggle. The days before his death I could have caught him, helped him, saved him. One email, one text. 2 years on, every day I wake and think of him and think of how I failed him. I lost not only my son but my self. When I got the call I fell to my knees and I have never really got up again. My wife left me because she did not want to help me grieve, and I cannot blame her. Will I recover? One day, one day far away I hope I will.
The purpose of this note is however not about me. I’m just like any of a million other parents this year, and next year, and the year after. Its about the other survivors like you. You need to know that you should support every charity, every effort, to work out why this this life toll, that outweighs road deaths by 2-1, happens in this modern day.
You should look at that drink in your hand, or that of your friend, who drinks too much. My son died of extreme alcohol withdrawal and I would wish that on no-one. At the last he must have been terrified. You might be one step away from someone who needs help. Help them.
Thank you for reading and listening.
by Band Back Together | Apr 8, 2016 | Alcohol Addiction, Codpendence, Self Loathing, Shame, Suicide |
I’m not sure I’ve ever written honestly about my mother’s drinking. No, perhaps what I’m trying to say is that I’ve never written neutrally about my mother’s drinking. No, that’s not right either.
I hate my mother.
There, that’s it.
My mother was my world. And in that world was wine. Bottles and bottles and goddamn bottles of wine. Wine bottles she would throw in the garbage so it didn’t seem like there were too many in the recycling outside. So the neighbors couldn’t see.
But I fished them out of the garbage and threw them in the recycling anyway.
Fuck you, mom. Feel your shame. So I don’t have to feel it for you.
My mother and I were inextricably linked through our personalities, the traits she said I possessed that she had too. Look how similar we are, right? It was so easy to become the same person. We were tightly bound into a cocoon that others couldn’t enter. Might as well have been made of fucking steel, that cocoon. And someone was covering my mouth in there, so I couldn’t scream.
I guess that someone was my mother? Or was it myself, my own hand?
All alcoholic relationships are codependent relationships, right? Or so I’ve been told. All I knew was that when she was up, I was up. And when she was down, I was disgusted with myself. Absolutely disgusted.
I hated myself more than I hated my mother. Or, rather, it was easier to hate myself than hate my mother.
So I did. It was all too fucking easy, hating myself. It’s so fucking easy that I still do.
Writing about this requires that I pull emotions from my chest that have lain dormant for years. After a while, it all starts to go a little flat, you know? The drinking thing gets old. You get used to it. You starve those emotions in your chest for air until they suffocate, but somehow they never actually die. They mutate into fucking zombies. And then some person, perhaps some random fucking person who doesn’t know anything about you, pokes at them and you think oh shit, there they are. Why the fuck do I need those.
That’s your mother, the roaring tiger inside you that you forgot even existed. The tiger clawing at your fucking insides, puncturing holes in your intestines. So you bleed out, become your own zombie.
You know the line of that poem, “I carry your heart (I’Il carry it in my heart)”?
I carry my alcoholic mother in my heart. Always.
And that alcoholic mother hates me. I’m a piece of shit. I’m critical. I’m too much like my father. Why can’t I be understanding, like my brother. I write these words and no emotions come out because I’ve heard these phrases too many times. How could I let myself feel sad every time I heard them? I would have died.
I would have killed myself.
But instead of killing myself, I suffocated my emotions so I was a shell empty of water and star stuff and all the other shit they say makes up your body.
I like to pretend I’m not angry about this.
But I am.
I hate you, mom.
You are not Mom. You are mom.
There, fuck you, you don’t even deserve a capital letter.
I can’t write honestly about this. I can’t remove the layer of disgusting slime that clings to my skin that I believe makes others hate me. Makes me an abhorrent person that nobody loves.
But the thing is, I know you do love me. mom.
And that’s the fucking awful part. I never knew which monster I was facing.
The emotional monster that dragged me kicking and screaming into its lair, into its cocoon of twin selves or the alcoholic monster that aimed their own kicking and screaming at me. I imagine my young self like a little hermit crab without its shell, this soft defenseless thing that people didn’t care about because it wasn’t a real pet anyway.
But goddamit, I was a fucking fighter. Every night I battled with my fucking mother. I wanted her to feel her shame the way I felt it for her. This should not be my job. I felt emotions for both of us so she didn’t have to feel them, didn’t have to face what she was doing. And I was sick and fucking tired of it. So, so tired.
I’m still so tired, and I don’t even live with the woman.
Yes, you’re not even mom. Or mother. You’re woman.
Not Woman.
I hate you.
There, in that sentence you don’t even deserve a name.
Only a statement that tears at your heart the way you tore at mine every.single.fucking.night.
I think you can handle it, right? Me telling you that I hate you.
Because it’s true.
Toughen the fuck up and move on.
I know I did.
