Drug Addiction Stories

January 7 has long been a sentimental date for me. It is not a birthday, it is not an anniversary but it is the day I found out that Christmas wishes do come true. I remember being 17 and crying because my parents were fighting again. My dad was drunk again. I had the television on hoping to tune them out. I had my headphones on and was playing on my computer. Multi-tasking and just trying to not hear the screaming going on in the house. Still, it was all about my dad’s drinking and before I realized it, I was typing in on search engines “my dad is an alcoholic”. 

Then I saw it. A link about an Alcoholics Anonymous group for family members. There was a phone number and I reached for my cell phone and dialed the number. The lady on the other end listened to me and told me I was not alone. She said alcoholism affects every member of the family and that there were others who understood what I was going through. She walked me through the steps to get in touch with a local group so I could go to a meeting for teens who have parents who are alcoholics.

I went to several meetings that got me through Thanksgiving and the approaching Christmas holiday from school. A couple of days before Christmas, a sponsor at the group helped me to meet with my parents one Thursday evening after my dad got off work. She told my parents I had been going to a meeting for teens of alcoholics and that I had something I needed to say to my parents.

I looked at them and told them I loved them both. I then looked at my dad and told him that listening to the two of them fighting over his drinking hurt and that all I really wanted for Christmas was one whole day where there was no drinking and no fighting. My dad actually looked ashamed. My parents looked at each other and then my dad hugged me and promised me I would get my Christmas wish.

Then, a couple of weeks later, on January 7, he knocked on my door and asked if he could talk to me. My mom walked in right behind him. He told me that he had just returned from his first AA meeting! That was two years ago. I am in college now and still living at home and today marks the two year anniversary of my dad’s sobriety. It also marks the day I began to believe in wishes again.