[via Email]
There are so many questions I wish I could go back and ask my own parents.
Eventually, you have whatever epiphanies you have, but then it's too late to walk through the dynamics of it all. My dad was sober for four or five years before he died, but I don't think we ever discussed what he felt, why he drank or why he stopped drinking. As for my mom, she was in complete denial. I couldn't even get her family to help me intervene. She bled out, alone, without us. That's just the way of the alcoholic family, right?
What would I ask them? I have no idea. Or some idea. But I certainly hope it would go beyond the “Is he, or isn't he, an alcoholic” conversations we had about my dad when I was young.
Part of me would just like to walk through it all…or just hear another family walk through it all. What they thought, how they felt, what they eventually did. I was looking at the website and thought, maybe the topic fit another one of your podcasts. I'm sure I need to process this. I'm convinced we need to have some conversation with my nieces about addiction…It's not like it was when I was a child and No One Ever Talked About It.
Not sure how that will go.
Kimberly
IN THE BAG
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