Is it really a disease?

Do you think alcoholism is really a disease? Do you think it is heriditary? As I was driving home the other day I was pondering these questions and reflecting on my opinions of this issue. I grew up in a family of alcoholics. My granddad on my mom's side was an alcoholic, my dad was an alcoholic, my mom was an alcoholic, my sister is an alcoholic, my ex-husband is an alcoholic as was his dad. There seems to be a pattern here. This post is only my opinion from what I have lived, so if you don't agree with me that's fine.

My dad was an alcoholic, that much I know. Some of the rest of the facts have been filled in from my family. I don't have too many memories of my dad, and sometimes I think that is probably for the best. He was a very hard worker, from sun up to sun down. It was after the sun went down that he changed. He would get off work on his payday and my mom would know that he wasn't coming home. She would meet him and get his paycheck and he would go out to the bar. She woud go home and get supper on the table and get us kids ready for bed and get a neighbor or friend to come and sit with us and she would go looking for him.

I could not imagine that being my life, until I got married. I worked nights in a factory and went to college during the day. My ex-husband worked days and he had the nights free, so he would get off work and meet up with his friends and drink and party, as long as he was home before I got home from work, everything was fine. Then it got worse. I would get home and he would not be there, and the really bad thing was that he was MIA in his work van. So guess what I would do? Yep, I would get in the car and go to all of his hangouts looking for him. I would be so pissed off driving around in the wee hours of the morning looking for him. It got so bad that sometimes when the phone rang at work I would pray that it would be the coroner calling to tell me that he had been in a terrible crash and they had not been able to save him. Of course that call never came. Although I did get the call that he had been arrested for DUI and he wanted me to come and get him out of jail. Well it never happened, I don't bail people out of jail for pure stupidity. You think your friends are that great, let them get you out. Better yet, why not call your parents. I eventually quit going to look for him. I would just go to bed and hope for the worst. When we separated and eventually divorced I found so many liquor bottles and beer bottles and cans. It was a real eye opener. Sometimes it is hard to see things when you are in the middle of it, you know the whole can't see the forest for the trees saying. It was not like I was uncaring, I tried to get him help. The only problem with that was that you have to want help to be helped. He just has an addictive personality and eventually he moved on from alcohol to drugs. The last time I talked to him he was high as a kite and as happy as he could be. I still pray for him, because I know deep down inside the person that he really is.

After my dad died, my mom went through her second teenage phase. Afterall she did get married at 16 and started having children a year later. She went out drinking and partying all the time and dated loser after loser. You would think that after having put up with my dad and her dad growing up that she would want something different. Well she did, she finally found someone worse than my dad. She found an alcoholic younger than her that needed someone to take care of him. So she moved him in and things went from bad to worse. They went out drinking and partying all the time. She started drinking in the afternoons and at night. They would both drink and then fight. I still have nighmares about it sometimes. It is not like you can reason with a drunk. I never had friends come over and spend the night because you never knew when the evening would turn into a bar room brawl. How fitting that I would marry someone at least the first time that had those same problems. The same kind of man that I had grown up around and been influenced by. I rarely if ever saw my mom hold hands or receive affection. I never really saw my mother be loved my someone else. I have made every effort in my own life to show my child how a woman should treat her husband and in return how she deserves to be treated. That is really a whole other post for another day.

Growing up in that environment I have to wonder why am I not like them. My sisters are to a certain degree, each one of them have something that they are or have been addicted to. I have one sister that lost her children because drinking and partying are far more important than being a mother for her. I have another sister that does drugs. Thank God in heaven she never had children. I just knew that growing up I wanted to be different. I did not drink much in highschool or since then because deep down I am scared that I will be like them. I don't want that demon to take hold of me. I have never used drugs, except those prescribed by the doctor. My ex-husband always called me little miss goody two shoes because I could pass on anything. When the joint came around I did not feel pressured to take a hit, I knew in the end I had to live with the decisions that I made and I made the decision to be different.

I could write about this topic all day and I could give you facts from experts and statistics, but I think personal experience speaks volumes. After all statistics are just a bunch of numbers.