Thank you for all your correspondence you have sent me over all these years, there was times when I would be feeling down and you would send a letter or information and it would help.
The fight to stay sane is sometimes so difficult there were, and are, times when I wonder if it was all worth it.
Being a child of an alcoholic family and in that family I was sexually abused, beaten, humiliated out of mind and sometimes I felt that was a good day. The bad days was when I was waiting on some thing happening, the fear of terror waiting for him to come home, or some thing going wrong, praying to a God that I knew could not stop him, for help. No matter what happened in
the family I was the one that got blamed.
Coming home from school my belly was in a knot, head sore and crying inside nowhere to go.
I lived in fantasy, to stop all this stuff, and when I was big I would sort all these people out. A close female in the family played sex games with me and between them all it left me one screwed up little person.
I still have trust issues; I am safe when I am in control.
I hated alcohol the smell and the change I seen in others, first the fun and the singing, and then the big change, the fighting and bitterness, I still feel it. I would hide and force myself to shut out all the noise.
I created my own noise in my head to drown out theirs, and that led to a lot of problems in later life.
I was first drunk when I was 12 years old. I stayed drunk either in my head or physically, for the next 13 years it took away all the pain of being an object, OK it created so many other problems but killed the feelings when I was out my head.
I was a very violent man, I took and did what I wanted and from seeing what alcohol had done to others it was now doing the same to me and worse, but I was right I had a cause.
I was 25 years old when I had my first visit to a mental hospital to get me off the drink, and that was when my troubles really started. Although I had been taking drugs for some time I replaced the drugs with alcohol and what a mess I made of that. I used to think of dying but had not tried to kill myself. When I stopped the alcohol and drugs I had five suicide attempts.
Facing life with no support was very hard, anger kept me going.
I was in AA, and although I needed them it took years to let anyone near me. When I get that old feeling I am still the same. I still feel that for an adult child AA is a hard place to be if they do not have some kind of support behind them.
I hear people saying that the attempts of taking one’s life are just a call for help. Yes I can see that but it is one dangerous way to call for the help. Most of my friends from the old days killed themselves. My father killed himself when he was 50 years old and a number of years later my stepmother did the same. A very good friend of mine committed suicide last year and he was 20 years sober, another ACA (adult child of alcoholic parents).
That is the down side the good side is if we keep talking about the pain and let others in, we find people who will give us time who we can trust.. I have a wee saying, “we have to talk 30 miles to travel an inch”.
In between all that I got married. We have three children (that was before I stopped drinking) and six grandchildren. Our marriage has been something else, and we are still together. I have been unable to work for the last 12 years as my mental condition has rendered me unemployable. I love sharing with others and do some volunteer work with people like myself, when I say I get more help than I give, I am not just being a nice guy.
There are times when I feel a terrible sadness that comes over me for all I have had to go through.
Of the years of treatment, the deep depressions, sometimes the effort to live is just too much. And then something happens and it makes it all worth it. When I share I talk about the really bad times and then the things that make it all worthwhile.
I will be 62 years old on my next birthday, all these years ago I was told I would not reach 30. My answer is to keep going for help and share. One of my big problems is to isolate. To phone some one is so hard to do. When I get upset I still get these noises in my head. I now have friends I can talk to.
When I was a child I lived in total fear and the only place I had any space was the street and my gang.
I have now got a different gang and I need them.
They allow me to be myself and love me when I do not love myself.
Not bad for a person like me that was told I would be on heavy medication and I would be in and out of hospital for the rest of my life.
There are so many people to thank for helping me with my continual recovery and for the part ACOA (Adult Children of Alcoholics) has played, and it is not finished.
For some reason that I am not sure of, I felt like writing. I wrote to you all these years ago and it was a good move then. Thank you.
