[Magdalen] Bishop Cook: Another unfortunate piece of the story

Grace Cangialosi gracecan at gmail.com
Tue Feb 3 21:37:16 UTC 2015


Amen to all of that, Molly, and great gratitude for AlAnon. I don't know where my kids and I would have been without it. Both my parents were alcoholics, as was my sister, who died of alcoholism at 52. I married an alcoholic, which I didn't know was classic--and, boy, talk about denial!! I couldn't admit, even to myself, that I'd been so "stupid"!  An intervention failed. My son is also an alcoholic, though he self-identified at 18. After a brief trial of social drinking, which didn't work, he gave it up completely.

On February 3, 2015, at 3:59 PM, Molly Wolf <lupa at kos.net> wrote:

Me too.  I still swim in that vast dark sea, and my faith sometimes comes near to drowning, because it's so mixed up with that murky water.  Alcoholic priest as dad, alcoholic theologian as mother. I wish indeed I could click my heels and feel myself lifted out of that sea, but maybe that waits for the next life.

Don't be too judgmental of alcoholics.  It isn't something they chose to be, and denial is one of the primary symptoms.

Off to Al Anon, which does me a hell of a lot more good than church...

Molly

The man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way. -- Mark Twain

> On Feb 3, 2015, at 3:31 PM, ME Michaud <michaudme at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Earlier today I wasted some time reading a list of things people
> wish they'd learned in college. What *I* wish is that the public
> schools would require workshops on substance abuse. Not the
> "just say no" lecture, but a case-study curriculum addressing
> stuff like alcoholic parents, the trajectories of addiction, and
> coping skills and responsibilities of the possibly co-dependent,
> of co-workers and friends.
> 
> Alot, I know.
> 
> As I've said before, both my gf's parents died very young. Their
> drinking reverberates through her life in interesting and complex
> ways. She's a wonderful person, intelligent, kind and compassionate.
> Her life could have been so much easier if she'd had the skills to
> help her comprehend her parents' behaviours. When she speaks
> about her childhood, it sounds as if she was swimming in a vast
> dark deep sea of confusion. That if she clicked her heels three times
> it would all go away.
> -M


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