I originally wrote the following article for a chemical dependency newsletter for people who are Adult Children of Alcoholics.  It was an emotionally difficult piece for me to write.  I do hope that my writing will help anyone who either suffers from alcohol addiction or those who are still grappling with the aftermath of growing up with a parent who abused alcohol.  My thoughts are with you all. 

I have a framed photograph of a young man in his prime, smiling gently into the camera, for his high school portrait.  I have had it on my bookcase shelf for as long as I can remember.  When I look into this young man's face I see hope for the future.  Yet whatever hopes he had for the future were cut short.  The photo is of my father before he succumbed to his alcohol addiction.  It was my father's addiction which ultimately killed him along with all of his dreams.  His life story stops at age 34, leaving behind my mother and me to pick up the pieces.

There have been times when I have wanted to smash that portrait of my father into a zillion pieces.  As a fully grown adult with children of my own, I still carry that little girl's rage and despair over losing my father.  Underneath all this passion to hate him, there is also love.  I was only four at the time of his death but I still embrace my memories.  I can see a hazy vision of my dad at one of my tea parties, his larger frame stuffed into one of my little chairs at my play table.  He is pouring one of my stuffed animals a cup of pretend tea.  He calls me "Princess" and kisses my cheek.  And then suddenly the vision is gone.  My mother is crying and my father is simply no longer there.

I have thought about what my life might have been like had my father lived.  I romanticize it.  I think that it surely would have been better.  I will never know.  Some questions will never be answered.  One of the biggest unanswered questions I have always had is the question of "Why?"  Why did my father die?  Why couldn't he control his alcohol addiction so that he didn't have to leave me and my mother?  Why would someone drink themselves into a coma?  My mother tells me that my father's doctor told him that if he continued to drink, his liver would be permanently damaged and he would most likely die.  And six months later the doctor's prophetic words came true.

Sometimes the universe provides us with what I believe are synchronicities, meaningful coincidences, which ultimately give us some of our answers.

I experienced such a synchronicity in my late twenties when I began an internship working with people having a dual diagnosis of both mental illness and chemical addiction.  I was pursuing my second Master's degree in Social Work and needed some hands on credits.  I was working full time and so it was very difficult to find an internship which I could do within my schedule.  My advisors found me the only program open during the evenings so I could complete my requirements.  This was for a day program for those who were dually diagnosed.  I have to be honest here.  This was not an internship I was excited about.  I was afraid to see people who might be like my father.  My father, in addition to his alcohol addiction, also suffered from extreme depression.  He had been hospitalized for trying to take his own life more than once.