Beth (June 2001)

My name is Beth and I am the adult child of an alcoholic and have been my whole life. That is, 40 some odd years. O.K, O.K., 45!!!

My name is Beth and I am the Adult Child of an Alcoholic and this is one step in my recovery. This is, putting my past in the past.

When I close my eyes I see lots of things. I see the pink bedroom that I shared with my sister. That bedroom was a hiding place. The bed was something that I could hold onto tightly during all the screaming and verbal battering that I heard going on downstairs. The bed was somewhere I pretended to be sleeping every morning when my father would look in before he went to work. The bedroom is where I felt relief when the screen door finally shut and the newspaper landed inside.

My name is Beth and I am the Adult Child of an Alcoholic father. And, I cry when I think about him. I cry when I seriously reflect on my childhood. It is the most accurate description of my true inner feelings-- the true inner feelings of a 4 year old, of a 5 year old, of a 6 year old. These are true inner feelings of Beth, the original Beth--the Beth that was hidden away deep inside somewhere. Somewhere protected and safe from fear and hurt. The Beth that was put aside in order to survive.

My name is Beth and I am the Adult Child of an Alcoholic. These words are part of the recovery of my four year old self. The growing up of the child trapped within.

My earliest memories are of our house. The big white leather chair in the den. The RCA Victor t.v. with the wooden doors. The plastic covers on the living room furniture that my sister rebelliously removed when she came home once from college. The staircase going upstairs and the staircase going down to the basement where I listened to Peter and the Wolf and watched my mother cry while she listened to the Berry Sisters sing in Yiddish. Readers Digest and Readers Digest Condensed Books lined along the glass bricks in the den.

Our lives where centered around the house and the neighborhood. My mother didn't drive when I was little. We took cabs, rode buses and walked a lot. It was a great accomplishment for me when my feet finally touched the bus floor. And it was loads of fun riding in the back of cabs in the fold down seats.

Sunday was the only day that my father didn't go to work. We spent the day visiting relatives, eating out in restaurants, or taking rides into the country. We saw real cows on the way to Milwaukee.

Many Sundays we hung out around the house. My father spent most of his time lying down on the couch watching tv and sleeping. My father was a big man, six foot two. When I was around four I would lay with him on couch often getting trapped between his long legs if he fell asleep. I never felt brave enough to ask him to let me go or to ask my mother to rescue me. I saw a lot of Westerns and detective stories but never found my voice.

We never had conversations at our house. We had inquisitions. Eating a meal around the kitchen table all of us together was not a cause for rejoicing. It was tense. It was important to deflect --to deflect any possible cause of Daddy's anger. I tried to make myself as small as possible, invisible, if possible. I watched to learn the signs. I watched to see where the pitfalls were. I tried not to cry or show any emotion when someone else got yelled at.

We were told that we were loved. We understood that we were recipients of unconditional love. We would always be taken care of. We would always have a roof over our heads and clothes on our back. Here began the birth of the double message. Here began the incongruence, dissonance, opposites, confusion, craziness.

You are loved. You cannot feel comfortable speaking your mind.
You are beautiful. Don't you want to be slim like the other girls.
Your father loves you. Being terrified by Daddy's booming criticizing voice.
Loving couple. Daddy belittling Mommy.
Feeling hurt and not being able to say ouch.

Instead of saying ouch, what did I do?

I went dead, no expression, no feeling.
All feelings were frozen.
I made detailed plans for the future. I thought about anything that would take me out of the present.
I focused on someone who could save me.
I ran.
I ran to friends houses. I ran to BBYO. I ran to work. I ran to college. I ran to Seattle. I ran to Israel.

I craved positive attention. I tried to get it academically in school. I tried to meld into my friends families. I even called some of their parents, Mom and Dad. I ate dinner with them and then went home and ate again. I did almost anything to join a family like we saw on television.

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I love my father fiercely. I fiercely hate my father. I see my father when I look in the mirror. I see his eyes in my eyes.

I want him to hold me and protect me. I need to be protected and made to feel safe. He is the shield. He is the barrier. He is the Truth. He told us that he was the only one we should believe in. He giveth and he taketh away. He could buy anything he wanted. He could make anything happen that he wanted. He was larger than life. He was despicable to my mother. He was despicable to my mother in his dying days. She didn't deserve any of his evil words. She couldn't help herself and she couldn't help us.

The tears keep coming. We were trapped. I just feel the overwhelming evil. I feel a wall of evil and fear. We couldn't say anything to change it. We couldn't do anything to change it. And, the bad just kept coming. It was always BIGGER than we were.

My Dad loved creation. He loved life. He was always watching and trying to understand how things worked. He was a mechanic that could put anything together and take anything apart--both people and things. He had an acute business sense and a good sense about people. A long time after I was out of the house and oceans away, he watched and played with his grandchildren with a sort of fascination. That was the lyrical Dad--the father that we miss and long to be able to talk to again. But, you see, I don't remember ever having a natural conversation with him. Even when he was dying and most of the fight was out of him, I was still always on my guard.

More than anything, however, he had to control. He had to control people sometimes to the point of destruction. I witnessed many, many interludes where he destroyed co-workers, AA brothers, his sisters and brother. Day after day he berated my mother when we could hear and when we couldn't. Time after time he told us to respect our elders and never burn our bridges.

He was always bringing people home for dinner or on Sundays. Estelle threw the steaks on the broiler and they all got drunk or post AA they didn't. At restaurants he always hassled the waitresses and left big tips.. He was addicted to excitement not taking into consideration how that affected others.

He had hay fever and was overweight for most of his life. One year he had a very bad hay fever attack and the doctor strongly advised him to lose weight. So, he did. He lost 100 pounds in a year. He joined TOPS. Part of that program was to write down everything you ate and its caloric content on a calendar. Of course, he couldn't write it himself. He told my mother what to write. For a year, he would scream at her during this weekly exercise. It became a sick norm that we all watched and no one said a word to stop him.

What was the consequence of his inappropriate behavior? THERE WASN'T ANY. We never saw any. We learned so many lessons:

• We became isolated and afraid of people and authority figures.

• We became approval seekers and lost our identity in the process

• We are frightened by angry people and any personal criticism.

• We either become alcoholics, marry them or both, or find another compulsive personality such as a workaholic to fulfill our abandonment needs.

• We live life from the viewpoint of victims and are attracted by that weakness in our love, friendships, and career relationships.

• We have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility and it is easier for us to be concerned with others rather than ourselves; this enables us not to look too closely at our faults or our responsibility to ourselves.

• We get guilt feeling when we stand up for ourselves and instead give in to others.

• We become addicted to excitement.

• We have stuffed our feelings from our traumatic childhoods and have lost the ability to feel or express our feelings because it hurts so much. This includes our good feelings such as joy and happiness. Our being out of touch with our feelings is one of our basic denials.

• We judge ourselves harshly and have a very low sense of self-esteem.

And there so many more that we didn't learn.

He asked me once why none of his kids lived nearby. He really didn't know and I was physically unable to tell him. As always, I made up an acceptable answer.

He once took me with him on a Sunday to take pictures of some cars way out in the suburbs and for some reason he decided that I should drive. Quality time. I was terrified. I knew how to drive but had never done so under his eyes. For the first hour, he told me how to drive and eventually I relaxed and by the end of the day we were great pals.

For years we spent Thanksgiving at my sisters house in Virginia. We all came in for a long weekend. My father usually came for a day or two at the most. One time, he decided to leave after a day and a half. I was devastated. I had come all the way from Seattle expecting a family weekend. After he went to the airport, I wouldn't speak to anyone for 24 hours.

Why would someone so big want to squash his baby daughter? Why would someone so strong want to make his offspring weak? Why does the fear continue until now?

The front door opens, Daddy walks in after work. Will it be terror or tender? We go out for dinner. Will it be terror or tender? I come home from college for a visit. Will it be terror or tender? If it is terror, there is no dissent. We are all under his thumb and don't say ouch. But ouch is what it feels like. And, ouch is what I need to say today. Sometimes I need to say it and sometimes I need to scream it. But mostly, I need to say just how I feel without the extremes.

I made a pact. I made a pact with myself each year, each month, each week, each time the screaming started. I made a pact with myself never to be hurt again. I made a pact with myself to control all events in my life so that no one could ever hurt me again.

How does this work?

Rule 1: Never let anyone know my true inner feelings.
Rule 2: Focus attention on others.
Rule 3: Repress anger and criticism of others.

O.K. so what am I left with? I am left trying to live in a world that I created in my head of what life is supposed to be like except that I never shared these perceptions with anyone. No one knows what I'm thinking. No one knows what I'm feeling. I feel frustrated because nobody understands what I'm feeling or expecting from them. But, I need to protect myself at all costs. And what are the costs?

I feel totally alone. I feel alone even when I'm with lots of people and even when I'm the life of the party. I have built a wall between me and the rest of the world. And now I must find the window. Now I need to tell the secret. Now I need to say that my name is Beth and I am the adult child of an alcoholic. I need to speak my mind. I need to feel my feelings.

There is a saying in AlAnon: Progress not perfection. This is the beginning of my progression. This is today.