In the back of my mind…Preface

My story. I keep hearing, “tell your story”. Do I tell my story? Do I expose the truth for everyone to read and have opinions? Do I tell my story for myself to heal fully? Who am I telling my story for? All these questions come to mind when I put my fingers to the keyboard and try, again and again to not start, but to finish my story.

When someone sits to tell their story it isn’t just about them, it’s about all the people around them that had a hand in their addiction, their trauma, their path of success or failure.

I’ve told my story in a round about way but never divulging the entire story because of fear of hurting the people I love or starting something I never intended to start.

It’s time. It’s time to tell the story of how I became powerless over alcohol and how at the same time it made me feel powerful, how it gave me an escape to live through what I was living with and then how it almost ruined me and my children.

I am not sure how I will get this out, maybe a chapter book, or blogs as chapters. I guess the main thing is to start and finish. Continue to heal and help others. Time to unveil myself and the secrets I carried since I was 4 years old. The blindness, and countless nights of prayer and hope.

The name of my book will be, “How did I get here”. Isn’t that the big question we always ask ourselves when we are at our lowest and full of toxins that fuel our brain and emotions. The unraveling of the tied up ball of mess that we had become. Who would be there at the end of the tunnel when we became whole again.

My trauma started at the age of 4, witnessing my father abuse my mom. I walked in on them one night after hearing my mothers cries and screams. I saw her face was full of blood and my dad full of rage. My father saw me and picked me up, brought me to my room and threw me on my bed, pointed his finger in my face with his teeth clenched and said, “You stay in here and don’t come out!” It was that day that I started to self-sooth and stay quiet. The first time I felt scared and alone, but at that age I didn’t recognize those feelings so I began to express them in different ways.

While still at the age of 4, I remember standing in the hallway between my room and my parents, holding my mother’s hand with a suitcase in her other hand and asked me while standing in front of my father, who I wanted to stay with, her or my father. Of course a daughter always wants her mom at that age so naturally I went with her. I believe I would have been scared to stay with my father after what he had done to my mom.

We stayed with my aunt and uncle for a bit until we moved into a basement apartment. My mom had a job selling encyclopedias door to door, this was 1974-75 so that’s the kind of work that people used to do. Funny now as we look back at how times have changed, but for some reason, some people don’t. Ever. While on her route she stepped into a Collection agency office, while trying to sell the receptionist books, the owner of the business came out from his private office, and, while stunned at her beauty, asked her what she was doing selling encyclopedias looking like that. Blushing and defensive, she laughed him off. He asked again. She replied, “I have a little girl I have to support and this is what I have to do!” He asked her if she could type, and how many words a minute. Again, 1970’s, we had typewriters. Anyway, I honestly don’t think he cared if she had experience or not, he was so taken by her. Her deep blue eyes and pale skin, with long black hair, so petite she was, and dressed to the nines. Of course he offered her a receptionist position as long as she came back at 5:00 that evening for a drink. She refused because she had to get home to me, and that was not something she did. Is this guy nuts, I could hear her saying, but he insisted and she did go against everything she stood for as a woman, that night, that job, changed our lives. There was hope and my mom was proud to be able to get out of her sisters and have our own little nest. We could put everything behind us and go forward.