Alcohol, My Best Friend

Codependency and domestic violence were commonplace in the family home I was raised in. On the outside, we looked immaculate, but when the doors were closed, the monsters came out. It was what I came to call Family Traditions. It was normal, but I always had the feeling there was something different, and I wanted it. I dreamed about it. When I would read the fairytale Cinderella, my happy ending was having that "something different." The chaos that comes with codependency and domestic violence is something I wanted to get rid of, but I did not know how to do it.

Growing up as my biological mother's victim of domestic violence and witnessing her being abused physically, emotionally, and psychologically taught me to continue the cycle. I had no respect for her or William; nor did I like her. I did not fear her, for all her physical abuse, neglect, and abandonment of me and my older brother. I have tried to learn from their actions and not continue the cycle of abuse in my life. It has been a hard chore to accomplish.

Substance abuse is a family disease and alcohol can be an eraser. It erases husbands, wives, children, parents, siblings, jobs, careers, cars, and on and on. It affects everyone in the family, not only the person drinking or using drugs.

Being raised by alcoholics myself I understand the damage I have done to my children and loved ones. As a child I did not say I wanted to grow up and be an alcoholic and ruin my life and hurt my loved ones.

The solution to this disease of addiction I found is in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, Al-Anon, and Nar-Anon. These are programs for those that want it, not those who need it. It only works for someone who applies it to themselves and their life. That was my experience and that is all I can speak too. I do not speak for AA, NA, Al-Anon, or Nar-Anon or anybody else in it. Nor do they endorse me or affiliated with me in any way, shape, form.

In these rooms of recovery, I have learned about why I do what I do and how I can fix myself. I have also had a lot of "outside help", or counseling, inpatient treatment, outpatient treatment, parenting classes, and domestic violence support groups to learn about myself.

In the end it was me surrendering and finding a higher power greater than myself and alcohol. I choose to call this higher power God. God and the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous saved my life and gave me a life worth living.

****

My name is Molly and I am the child of alcoholic parents, and I was born in the swamps of Louisiana in the 1970s to Betty and William McPherson. We were the white trash of the south. I was their second child; their first was a boy named Charlie. I was always told that my biological father, William, raped and beat my biological mother, Betty. Whether that is true or not, I have no idea. In retrospect, knowing what I know now of my biological father and have learned through domestic violence support groups and psychology classes, I can see this as a very real possibility. However, I have no factual evidence that it happened, but it was clear that they hated each other more than they loved each other. They insisted that myself and my siblings had to take sides in their fights.

In the times he did tell me his side of the story, he made Betty out to be "a whore" during their marriage and, for a time, it colored my version of her. Regardless, what I remember of them is they both drank heavily, which is how I had access to alcohol. Especially with Betty, who is whom I was raised by and had the most contact with until my mid-thirties.

William was a boiler maker and traveled the country from job to job with the union. He had been beaten by his father as a child, so he left home when he was 15 and never looked back. When I was three months old, we left Louisiana for a job with him. We traveled with him until I was three years old. He had taken a job in Wyoming and Betty decided to stay there. I did not see him much after that until I was 8.

I have very few memories of Charlie except that he went to live with William and seemed to bounce back and forth a lot. I thought he was treated unfairly by Betty, and especially William. On a car ride with all three of us siblings - myself, Charlie, and Leo's older brother Donald, I was about 6 or 7 at the time. Charlie had to use the restroom and William told him he had to wait. I had to use the restroom and William said we would stop. I remember thinking how mean that was and that we should have stopped either way. I will never forget the look on Charlie's face-it was such a sad look.

It was as if there were two standards for the boys and the girls in our family. They were hard on him, and he did not like being at Betty's. He seemed to like to drink as much as the rest of us and that was fine with me. I did not have to worry about getting in trouble when it came to drinking. Unlike Jacob, who would steal my alcohol then, when he got caught with it, tell his dad and Betty that he was hiding it for me. I was the one that got in trouble even though he was the one drinking it, not me.

I found out about Leo when he was about five years old. He had this pretty blonde hair and did not say much until the plane took off. Then it was as if a room of babies had started screaming at the top of their lungs and his mother was not helping in getting to calm him down. It was a very long plane ride, and I did not like plane rides to begin with.

His mother was a woman William had become involved with directly after his divorce from Betty. Leo and I became close over the years as his mother and mine are very similar and we both have the same aversion to our mother's behaviors and personalities.

My older sister I do not know much about. I have never met her.

Mom and Dad did not get along and she was always wanting him to sign paperwork that he refused to sign. I asked him to sign it one day in the trailer in Pinedale and he refused. I was about 4 years old. Mom did not know I asked him, but I was desperate. I wanted to see my daddy.

Betty divorced William when I was three and went to work in the coal mines in Wyoming to support us. She worked long hours and when she came home, she would have a mixed drink to unwind. I would help myself to whatever she was drinking.

By the time I was 6, I had become her bartender; two fingers V.O. and the rest soda pop. I had also become a full-blown alcoholic. Alcohol had kicked my ass and I did not even know it.

I was dead inside. Emotionally and spiritually dead. I had drunk so long it did not occur to me to ever quit. I did not know I had a problem. Drinking like I did was as normal for me as showering daily is for a clean person.