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| Why I Run For the Children |
| Columns - First Person | ||||||||
| Thursday, 31 March 2005 | ||||||||
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It happened late one night when I was five years old and in kindergarten. Mom and I were home alone, and my father came to the door and wanted to come in. My parents were separated at the time, but he really wanted in. I had an Easter present for him, but I wasn't allowed to open the door to give it to him. Mom said I could pass it through the window to him. My father was enraged, and I was afraid - it felt like the wolf in the "Three Little Pigs." "I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house in." Down came the front door, and suddenly my father was in the kitchen cursing like a maniac at Mom. She ran into the bathroom and locked herself in - leaving me out in the kitchen with my screaming father. Slowly, he calmed down, talked to me a bit and, thankfully, never raised a hand to me. Maybe because I looked so much like him - blond hair and big blue eyes. He muttered something, yelled a little more to my Mom in the bathroom, and went down the hall to their bedroom. It became quiet. I think that he passed out. All that drinking and screaming must have exhausted him. Mom and I got our shoes and coats and left quietly. We opened the garage door slowly, got the car out and off we went - straight to the police station. When Mom started talking to the police they said, "Lady, we know Bill, and he wouldn't act like that. He's a good guy, we go hunting with him and spend other time with him, and he just wouldn't behave like that." So off we went in our pajamas and coats. We drove to a nearby church and slept in the car for a couple of hours.We drove back home the next morning. His car was gone, so we went back into the house. It was a sight I'll never forget. Everything from the refrigerator was on the walls and floors. The refrigerator was turned over, the phone ripped out of the wall, the television smashed on the floor into a hundred pieces. I was a little person involved in a very big problem. I tried to console my mother and make her pain go away but couldn't. We stayed at a neighbor's house for a few days, and I went back to school shattered and dazed. My mother became a single parent. At that point I minded my "P's and Q's". Keeping quiet and behaving seemed safest. Still, Mom who had been beaten by a drunk husband on a regular basis, now would beat me, and the cycle continued. For no reason the beatings came. I felt so helpless, full of fear, and worthless by this point. It was sheer insanity. My mother had married a drunk who was so out of control that doing something destructive to something or someone made him feel in control. At the end of the school year, we moved in with my grandparents (my mother's parents). They called me "Tink" because I flittered about like most five year olds. They adored me, and I felt truly loved. Yet, I went to first grade still in a daze. I felt as if my whole little life had been pulled out from under me. My family was in shreds, and I had all this recent "stuff" that was taboo to talk about. I basically failed every subject. I needed help on how to process what I had experienced six months prior. I felt like the odd kid out. There wasn't an awareness of what alcohol could do to families, especially the children, and you certainly did not talk about it at ALL. My father was a deadbeat dad, never paying for anything, and I'd only see him once every five years or so. He was into fast cars, fast women, and the fast lane at all times. It was probably best that he wasn't around so much. My grandparents had become a stable force in my life. My mother was too young to be a parent, so she was back in college, working, dating and was not around much for me. I got little positive reinforcement from her, but did get an occasional yelling/beating. I lived with my grandparents until I finished 7th grade. My mother remarried, and her husband became my abuser for the next five years. It took hard work and years of therapy to recover from all the losses and abuse. Today, I'm a happy, whole individual with a special husband and lovely daughter, and I have the tools to deal with life's experiences - good and bad. I also have a powerful conviction that no child should have to struggle helplessly in the confusion, fear, and trauma that too frequently come with alcoholism in the family. It is my goal, as a woman in my early 40s, to help those children who need to seek refuge from the storms that alcoholism dumps on the family unit. If I can help just a few children realize that it is not their fault that their parents are addicted to alcohol. We know how to break the cycle early and support and nurture these special creatures to become healthy, whole and productive individuals. I can say this honestly because, at 37, I was turning into my father, raging at my then five-year old daughter. She is now ten and very happy that her mother will be celebrating five years in a 12-Step recovery program. This is why I will Run for the Children® this year in the Marathon of the Palm Beaches in November and at Walt Disney World in January. I run to bring attention to these children who suffer in silence and raise money to help break the cycle for the millions of still-hurting children who deserve better. To learn more about the Run for the Children® visit www.nacoa.org, or call 1-888-55-4COAS. This article is published in Counselor,The Magazine for Addiction Professionals, April 2005, v.6, n.2, pp. 71-72
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