Secret Life, Sacred Story — This Alcoholic Knows That When the Sharing Starts, the Healing Begins — Anonymous, Orlando

My father wanted a girl. That is the story I have been telling myself for about 50 years. I wasn’t sure of the reason for it but that is how I interpreted the preferential treatment provided to one gender of the family over the other. As a male child, I spent a lot of time and effort trying to befriend this man who wanted no part of my life even though we lived under the same roof. When he was off to work I played and enjoyed life to the fullest. Upon his return, I hid and kept vigil—surveilling his every move so as to avoid interaction and hatred. My surveilling techniques and interpersonal avoidance strategies became ubiquitous in my life. Stealing food from mom’s kitchen, stealing treats from kid’s lunchboxes, evolved into home burglary techniques with loose change and women’s underclothes as prime targets. All of this was highly stimulating and exciting. I lived life to the fullest during those formative years! Curiously, my father enjoyed his time with male friends. He taught my sister how to drive a car and enjoyed frequent ski trips to the local mountains with her friends. But with me there was only subjugation and hatred. During my early teenage years I stole the family car nearly every night and drove without a license, pulling the car quietly into the garage around three in the morning. On one occasion I entered my parent’s bedroom to replace the car key, awakening my mom, who screamed as if a burglar was in the house! By the age of sixteen I had “had enough” and began outwardly revolting. One night, and possibly on more than one occasion, my subconscious dreamt of being locked up in facility away from my family. As intuition would have it, I actually did become locked up on the sixth floor of the Cascadia treatment center as a result of juvenile incarceration. My father signed his waver of parenthood over to the State, thereby making me a Ward of the State until age 18. Seeing myself as “not fully male” I began to act tough in order to survive in the juvenile detention center, the receiving homes, the foster homes, etc. At age eighteen, I thought, oh great. My father has disowned me; I am a convicted thief; a high-school drop-out; a blackout drinker and possibly gay. This is not good! A 35-year story told short: I wallowed in self-pity, shame, guilt, confusion, hatred of myself and others. Deeply conflicted about my inner-knowledge and yet unable to share myself openly with anyone. I knew immediately and instinctively that I needed to share myself openly but I could not; the risk was too high. By age twenty-one (after a twomonth marriage) I told my sister about a few things I had done but withheld the darkest secrets. I kept those stories to myself hoping to drink them away. As a recovered alcoholic, I am deeply grateful to share my story with you—because a burden shared is a burdened lessened. I know many alcoholics and addicts who have shared their sacred stories just I have in sobriety. I have seen their faces brighten with relief from telling their story just as mine brightens at this moment. “We, who have recovered from serious drinking, are miracles of mental health.” (Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Ed., p. 133) May God bless you and keep you; may His face shine upon you as you trudge your road to happy destiny.