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Addiction to Alcohol/Both Parents are alcoholics
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Question
Hello. I am only 15 years old, my parents been alcoholics since before i was even born, i was born with lots of health problems because of it. Now that i am turning 16 soon i understand things better, my dad used to be abusive and now he is just sort of crazy. When he gets drunk he smashes everything and trys to pick a fight with anyone especially my brother. My mom is always yelling at me for no reason. When ever the come home from a bar they wonder why i am so "cranky" but i always say none of your business and it's because they never tell me where they are or what they were doing or if they are even coming home. its been like that since i was younger and just about 2 weeks ago i had to stay at my friends house because i was too scared of living here. and i am not in a good relationship with my parents, i never talk to them about personal stuff, so they never understand me. but they never give me time. When i get a bad mark the punish me, and send me to my room without food or even homework. My family is going broke, we were wealthy until they started spending all their money on alcohol since i got a job they think i can pay for my own food and clothes and everything else, but i only get paid about 80$ a week. I was suicidal when i was 13, after an incident with my brother and my father, which he pushed my brother down the stairs. But i want to move out when i am 16 which will be in a month and a half. I don't know where exactly. but i can't live like this anymore i am in such a depression, even though i don't show it. i am always hiding in my room crying or punching my bed or something to calm myself down. Sometimes I'm soo stressed out i pull on my hair. i don't know whats wrong with me, but i blame it on them. My mother made me lie to the police just so we don't be put in a foster home. i don't know what to do anymore.
Greetings to you, Jenna, and please let me try to be helpful to you. I am almost old enough to be your grandfather, and you can trust me completely.
First, absolutely none of the problems you are having are your fault. You are not getting the kind of nurturing love every human being needs, and that is not because of anything at all about you. Your health problems are not your fault, and you deserve a lot of credit for hanging in there as well as you have and for trying to find a way to be happy and to prepare for a long life ahead.
If you know a police officer or school counselor or a teacher or relative or any other adult you feel you can trust, go talk with him or her right away and ask for emergency shelter and a safe place to live. And if you do not know of anyone you believe you can trust, please let me know right away. Also, going to a friend’s house is not a very good idea since you could end up in some kind of trouble. You need to talk with someone who can intervene in your life and guarantee your safety, and especially if you sometimes still think about suicide.
Please write to me again soon and let me know what is happening with you. I have two daughters who went through a lot when they were your age, and I want to help you in any way I possibly can.
leejosepho@hotmail.com
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Answers by Expert:
Joseph Lee O.
Expertise
Greetings to you! Amidst the insufficiency of all the philosophical, religious and “self-help” approaches to relief from chronic alcoholism, I have personally experienced the content of “Alcoholics Anonymous”, the book. Thus, I can now explain at least the essence of the physical, mental and emotional aspects of an alcoholic's inherent condition and plight, and I can show why a spiritual solution is required and how it works and how to attain one.
Experience
The oldest of four boys, I grew up in a religious, Midwestern-USA family. Unable to decline a friendly offer in a social setting, I had "no effective mental defense against the first drink" ("Alcoholics Anonymous", the book, page 43), and took my very first drink ever at age 24 ... and within minutes I had become obsessed with getting more of the effect that glass of homemade wine had given me. Alcohol had just done something *for* me that nothing else had ever done; it had seemingly "fixed" something inside me I had not even known was broken.
Over the next seven years of my life, I "drank up" just about everything and everyone ever meaning much to me at all, and I eventually abandoned my young family so I could drink and smoke pot at will. For, you see, alcohol was giving me a good-to-go feeling about life and a sense of control I had never before had, and at least in the early days of my drinking it could kill just about any pain that came along.
At age 31, however, circumstances and consequences had piled up all around me in ways that were making it obvious I could not continue on much longer. Life had become too tough, my pains had grown too great and the dangers of continuing to drink had become too undeniable for me to be able to continue believing I might ultimately survive an inescapable drop to the bottom of the pit. I still wanted to be able to drink safely as in days past, but something had seemingly "taken over" my drinking and was dragging me completely out-of-control after just one drink. So, and even while completely overwhelmed by the thought of facing life alcohol-free, I decided to stop drinking altogether ... and I quickly discovered I could not. No matter what I said, thought or did even just "one day at a time", I always ended up drinking once again. Where I wanted to drink safely, I could not, and neither could I remain abstinent for very long at all ... and such is the physical "allergy" (where one drink takes another) coupled with alcoholism’s mental-emotional obsession for the effect of alcohol ...
... but then I met a small group of people who personally understood my deadly dilemma - my complete personal powerlessness - and those same folks were quite able to propose a permanent solution. I accepted, of course, and today it is as if I "could not drink even if [I] would" ("Alcoholics Anonymous", the book, page 57), and for that I now remain unendingly grateful.
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