Hooked
T
O MY PARENTS
. A
LL OF THEM
.
â
C. S.-H.
Contents
When we think of addiction we tend to think more about the person who suffers with it and less about those close to them who struggle in its undertow. Children whose parents are preoccupied with alcohol or drugs or gambling or even work, however, often have little choice but to try to find their place in an uncertain, topsy-turvy world spinning on an axis that revolves not around them, but around addiction. Children love their parents, frequently through thick and thin, and often when the parents are not worthy of that love. But it is hard to grow up always feeling second best to a parent's addiction.
So many of the young people whose stories animate these pages describe their disappointments, their confusion, their sadness and loss, their shame and anger. But they also talk about their love for and loyalty to their troubled parents, and their hopes for better days. This book addresses the more common types of addiction found in families, but its themes ring true for all dependency situations. While the drug or behavior of choice may vary, children's need for the attention and loving care of at least one parent or guardian does not.
The young people whose stories make up
Hooked
are remarkable in their willingness to tell stories often so private that they might not ever have shared them before, even with brothers or sisters. Their bravery in speaking out is a gift to the countless other children and young people out there who may draw comfort from realizing that they are not alone. This book may help them learn to name their conflicted feelings toward their parents through seeing that these are shared emotions and experiences.
These are, finally, hopeful stories. For even in recognizing the odds against them, these young people strive to make better lives for themselves and their families.
âMarina Barnard, Co-Director of the Centre for Drug Misuse Research in Glasgow and author of
Drug Addiction and Families
(JKP 2007).
My addiction started with alcohol. I'm still not sure when I crossed the line, but eventually I was drinking in the mornings. My family knew something was wrong with me, but they didn't know what it was. My kids used to say, “Dad is weird. I talk to him and he doesn't answer. I talk to him and he isn't there.”
After drinking for a long time, I went to Alcoholics Anonymous for help and I managed to stop. But it didn't last. Fifteen years later, I was visiting some friends who made their own wine, and I tried a glass. Six months after that, I was somewhere else and I had another glass. Before I knew it, I was drinking in earnest again. Eventually, I was also taking pain pills and crack cocaine. This time, addiction interfered with my life a lot more. I became unpredictable and sometimes behaved in ways I knew were destructive.
One day, I finally told my family how bad things had gotten. By that point, my children were adults and I had hidden my addiction for years. Their initial response was disbelief. They didn't want me to get help. They didn't want people to find out. But I eventually went to Narcotics Anonymous, and that's when I realized how much worse things could get. I was one of the only people there who still had a family, a job, a house, and a car.
I'm sober now, but I'm not fixed. Using drugs for as long as I did messed up my ability to control myself. I was convinced I could do it just once more and then stop, but I couldn't. That's what makes addiction a disease, and that's the most important thing for the children of addicts to understand. My addiction was never my children's fault, and there was never anything they could do about it.
If your mom, or dad, or sibling, or aunt, or grandpa is an addict, you didn't cause their addiction and you can't cure it. If they make appointments with you and don't keep them, that's not your fault. If you talk to them and they don't listen, that's not your fault. If you have a family member who's an addict, that's not your fault.
I wish I had been open about my problems earlier and sought outside help for all of usâmyself and my family. I also wish we had had family conversations about my situation. Staying away from drugs and alcohol and realizing that you can't “fix” or “cure” an addict may be the only way to ensure that you live your own life, and not theirs. But that doesn't mean you can't still love them. My own friends and family have been a tremendous source of support to me, and I wouldn't have made it through what I have without them.
âRobert Munsch, author of
The Paper Bag Princess
and other beloved stories for children
Greg's father was an angry drunk. It took Greg a long time to realize that the best lesson his father's drinking taught him was to accept all his emotions, even when they seemed contradictory or wrong.
Dad's triggers
Most of the time when I was growing up, my father's alcoholism wasn't that noticeable. When he was sober, he was a really decent guy to be around. He always wanted to show us a good time. He'd take us skiing and camping and hiking. But he'd experienced a lot of nastiness and trauma as a kid, so there were certain things that would set him off, and that's when he would start drinking. Usually it was something to do with work. Sometimes it was a fight with Mom.
In many cases, alcoholism is not visible to most people. Alcoholics often seem normal to their colleagues and even friends. It is not uncommon for family to be the only ones who witness the effects that drinking has on an individual, particularly if he or she is a “functioning addict.”
Once, when I was about eight, I was woken up in the middle of the night by the sounds of fighting. After things had finally died down a bit, I came into the living room to find that there were holes in the walls, and our TV was broken. My father had passed out on the sofa and my mom was in tears. After a while, she told me the reason Dad was so angry was because he couldn't watch a TV show he'd been looking forward to. We didn't get the channel, and so Dear Old Dad decided to go ballistic on the house. It was amazing. He really smashed the place up.
Another time, when I was ten, I woke up early in the morning to find our apartment full of smoke. Dad had fallen asleep drunk on the wicker sofa and his cigarette had ignited a cushion. My mother threw the cushion off the porch and onto the lawn. Somehow the furniture survived, but the house could easily have burned down if things had gone differently.
Dad gets arrested
The worst night of Dad's drinking for me came when I was in the eighth grade. I had broken my arm in gym class that afternoon so I had a cast on. My younger brother and I had both gone to bed, but our parents' fighting woke us up. They were screaming at each other, and throwing things; my father was incredibly drunk. My brother left and went to a friend's house, but I stayed.
I did my best to get between my mother and fatherâdespite my broken armâto prevent them from hurting each other. But no matter what I did, Dad wouldn't back down. At one point, my mother managed to get on the phone and had started telling a friend of hers what was going on when my dad ripped the phone right out of the wall. Fortunately, my mom's friend called the police.
Four cops arrived, tackled my father, and put him in handcuffs. I was terrified. My dad was a swimmer and a weight lifter, so he was really strong. At one point, three police officers were trying to get him in handcuffs and couldn't, so a fourth guy jumped on his back. Finally, my father just couldn't hold their collective weight. I'll never forget seeing his legs buckle. My dad could leg-press almost four hundred pounds, so it was terrible to see those muscular, athletic legs give out.
The rest of the time
There were also a lot of low-grade events where Dad would be intoxicated and nothing really major would happen. But even when things weren't over the top, it was impossible to have a relationship with someone who was completely hammered on gin most of the time.
You could tell immediately when Dad had been drinking. His facial expression was different and there was this nastiness that was just below the surface. You could tell by looking in his eyes: they were always sleepy and avoiding you. He wouldn't answer anything directly. And he would get really caught up in his own experience.
My reaction
Whenever Dad got drunk, I would immediately feel sadness, disappointment, frustration, and anger. It became so familiar
âhere we go again.
But it was unpredictable too. Sometimes when he was drunk, the moment would pass without any danger. He would just fall asleep or something. But other times, all hell would break loose.
Many addicts behave differently each time they are under the influence. It is not unusual for alcoholics, in particular, to be affectionate sometimes and aggressive or depressed other times. This is because alcohol slows brain synapses and changes body chemistry, which can affect the drinker's mood in unpredictable ways.
Flirting with other women
The summer after the incident with the police, Dad and I had gone down to Cape Cod, just the two of us. By that point, my parents had basically announced they were splitting up, and my dad was still a young, attractive guy. While we were there, I discovered that he had a girlfriend. I was furious. I thought he should still be trying to make it work with Mom, and I knew he'd been with other women before. He taught at a college and he had affairs with at least three or four of his students.
One night, he came back to our room really drunk after hanging out with this girlfriend of his. I was fourteen at the time, and I pushed him up against the wall and told him I didn't want him to see her anymore. He flipped me around like it was nothing, held me up against the wall, and laughed. He said he “admired my spunk,” but that I shouldn't try anything like that ever again. That's the way my dad was. There was just no messing with him, but I still tried a few times.
Fighting back
A few months after that trip, the whole family was back in Cape Cod together. That was right before my parents finally did split up, but we went on one last family trip first. One evening, we were watching TV and Dad was drunk, and I was really angry with him. So when he got up to rearrange the sofa that I was sitting on, I brought all my weight down so that its wooden leg landed directly on his foot. Right away I thought:
I can't believe I just
did that!
Dad was livid. He grabbed me and slammed me up against the window. My shoulders were on either side of the bar that ran down the middle of the glass, and I could feel the window moving in its frame, pressing outward. I knew that if I didn't escape he'd push me right through. I had this horrible mental image of getting all caught up in broken glass.
Somehow I broke free of his grip, jumped over the sofa, ran through the living room, and performed the single greatest athletic achievement of my life: I hurdled over the dining room table with all the chairs sitting around it. I think I managed it because I was just so scared that he was coming for me. I went through the back door and my mom and brother went through the front. God, it was so scary. We had no idea what he might do.
Fortunately, after we were out of the house, he didn't follow us. In fact, he calmed down really suddenly. Within minutes, we cautiously went back inside ⦠and found him asleep. After all that, he had just gone upstairs to bed. It took me a lot longer than him to fall asleep that night.