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I think that there HAS to be a pre-disposition towards alcoholism in DNA. That would completely explain why it runs so rampantly through families.
I always believe that people with backgrounds of alcholism either go 1 of 2 ways. Either they drink too much (have alcoholic tendencies themselves), or either they stay as far away from the bottle as possible. I myself MIGHT have two drinks a year. And that's fine with me. I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything. I have never been drunk in my lie. Never experienced a hang over. Never want to.
My mother is not an alcoholic. I thank God for that. I am the product of a single parent home, and I always say that when children only have one parent, each breath that parent takes, that child takes. I constantly worried about whay would happen to my brother and me if something happened to my mother. If she took a sip of beer, I was right there, watching. Looking for signs that she might be a alcoholic. I was petrified of losing her. I was petrified of being an orphan. I didn't stop taking each breath with my mother until I had Little Miss. Mocha. That was 9 years ago, Monday, December 8th. I was 24 years old.
My maternal grandfather was an alcoholic. Totally abusive, and good for nothing. My grandmother was one, too, until she found a lump in her breast, and was told to stop the drinking and smoking or die. I don't know how old I was then, but I have NEVER seen my grandmother take a drink or smoke a cigarette, so she must have been clean for over 30 years.
My father (or, "my brother's father, as I refer to him) was a total alcoholic. How apropos that my mother would choose to marry, and have children with an alcoholic. He died in 2000. He drank him self into a stupor at times. He had liver cancer, and refused to be hospitalized. He had watched his third wife die from breast cancer, and I guess he didn't feel that a hospital could really help him. He never told us that he was dying. We wondered why all of his bills were in arears, and why he was living with no WATER. After he died, we all realized that it was because he knew he was going to die, so he just stopped paying his bills.
Towards the ed of his life, he drank constantly, and was a total and complete asshole. He would say whatever he wanted and freak your feelings. One day he hurt my feelings so badly, that by the time I got home, I was crying so hysterically, that my husband thought that I had been raped. All I kept saying was, "Steve,(the father's name)". That was all I could get out. My husband was getting dressed to go mess Steve up. He thought Steve had attcked me. I barely spoke to him after that day, and he died less than a year later.
Now, I stay the hell away from drunks. I can't take the emotional rollercoaster. My husband doesn't drink or smoke. We don't have liquor in the house. I couldn't have it any other way.
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