As lifeless as she looked, her eyes were open. Smothered underwater in a baby pool on the back porch, I ran to her aid thinking she was no longer alive. Fortunately, she was still breathing and I cautiously dragged her out of the water. Tears streamed down my face as I shook her limp body in an attempt to bring her to consciousness. As a fourth grader, this was a horrendous experience, however, several other of my mother’s drunken episodes were just as terrifying.
My mother’s alcoholism made her threatening and belligerent, which often made me despondent. I would come home every day dreading what I might encounter. She would frequently be either aggressive and incoherent or unconscious. On the rare days she was sober, I celebrated having an affectionate and supportive role model.
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Her disease was my disease. I would walk down the hallways and see people whispering and blatantly looking or pointing in my direction. Maybe they were talking about my mother being arrested last night, the number of times she had been thrown in jail and went to rehabilitation centers, or even how often she had been caught drunk driving. Fortunately, they did not know about the time I painfully watched my mother get tasered by the police. Watching her drop to the ground in my backyard like a shot deer, fracturing her wrist as she fell, was an event that will forever be ingrained in my memory. While others at school fretted about fitting in, I was constantly anxious about what was awaiting me at home. Beyond just worrying about my mother being drunk, I was always unsure of what condition she would be in when I got home from school. Would I have to take care of her and clean up her vomit or would I need to avoid her while she barraged me with screaming insults through my locked bedroom door? Remarks such as, “You worthless daughter” still haunt
I remember our first days in US were difficult for me and my mother; especially, one night when I woke up and saw her fainting in the cold floor. I had panicked, I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t have a car, or phone to call anyone. I felt a shame of myself, I couldn’t help my own mother at the same time. Thankfully, one of my neighbors was awake, and she helped me with everything.
Sanders’ essay, Under the Influence, forced me to understand the complexity of alcoholism by painting a graphic picture of a horrible situation. I will no longer accept society’s whimsical terms for drunks, alchohol, or alcoholism. I will see the disease as the ravaging monster Sanders’ suffers through. I found Sanders’ honesty to be appealing and the reason I enjoyed the miserable narrative. Sanders’ essay was an wonderful persuasive piece that did its job of forcing me to understand the true horror of
Alcoholics are those who take in a daily excess amount of alcohol causing the body to be unresponsive. In the book The Glass Castle we have the thematic idea brought out by Rex Walls which is that alcohol can make oneself to go crazy and cause the family problems. Children with an alcoholic parent suffer the lack to show emotion and they are given roles to substitute the parents sue to this the children start to think about suicide. Children who are in the care of alcoholic parents suffer the idea of shutting out what they feel towards the events that go on around them. As the article “ Growing up with Alcoholism: alcoholism is a disease that affects the entire family” says, “They continue the role of being good or bad or funny or lost to keep
Throughout my whole life, my father has been an alcoholic. There have been times when he has tried to quit, but it never lasted for more than a few months. His addiction has brought on stressful times for my family. Some days we did not know where he was or if he was coming home. Although my father’s addiction might not have made the best childhood, he did show me the kind of person I did not want to be.
The transition from eighth grade to ninth grade is one of the most difficult but unforgettable things a student must do in his adolescence. For me, it was filled with new opportunities of taking Ap classes and joining clubs. One of these cubs was Youth and Government (Y&G). For as long as I can remember my brother, Riad, has boasted about how amazing Y&G is and how it has changed his life. My brother is three years older then me, so as a freshman he was a senior in Y&G.
Alcoholism is a chronic brain disease that affects all walks of life and does not have any bounders (Gossop, Stewart, & Marsden, 2008). I choose to attend an Alcoholic Anonymous (AA) meeting since this disease is prevalent among adolescents and adults. The meeting was held in the first-floor forum at Pilgrim Congressional Church in Queens New York. The goals of the AA meeting were stated explicitly by the leader conducting the meeting. The mission of the organization is to maintain sobriety by helping alcoholics achieve recovery.
Her father, Rex, has a severe alcohol addiction that significantly impacts the family’s lifestyle. Rex’s alcoholism leads to emotional instability and frequent, hostile aggression towards his family. One way alcoholism affected Rex, was by causing emotional instability. The article, “Symptoms and help for Alcohol Problems” by author Elisabeth
Alcoholism is a significant problem in American society. About 20 million people in the United States abuse alcohol and out of that number, around 10 million are addicted to alcohol and considered an alcoholic ("Alcoholism" 1). In The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, Jeannette's father, Rex, shows signs of being an alcoholic. His disease puts a lot of strain on the family and relationships within the family and eventually, Jeannette's father dies from heart failure, a common disease caused by alcoholism. Rex Walls can be identified as an alcoholic father by most of the six identifiers of an alcoholic from the American Addiction Center.
Under the Influence by Scott Russell Sanders “Under the Influence” by Scott Russell Sanders is a poignant essay relaying Sander’s struggles with his father’s alcoholism. Sanders’ essay is revealing in ways that statistics and studies on alcoholism cannot possibly contain. Sanders’ essay is like a catalog of the devastating emotional effects of his father’s alcoholism. In his essay, Sanders convincingly counteracts misconceptions about alcoholism and supports the argument that alcoholism is more like a disease rather than the common misconceptions of alcoholism.
There is codependency in every relationship; however, my focus was on my relationship with my husband. After some thought, I realized that the relationship with my husband mutually satisfying relationship. Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACOA) As an aspiring Marriage and Family Therapist, this group was very intriguing. Looking at the multigenerational effects of addiction illustrated the systemic affects that results from the disease of addictions.
When I was a teenager, the cool thing to do was hang out with friends, party, and drink alcohol, so I thought. My friends and I would tend to follow the crowd and it seemed to always lead to trouble. I was only 14 years old the night it all began. At the time, I could not drive so my friends came and picked me up, we all went to a house party and alcohol was there. Because we were senseless and easily influenced, we decided to try some to fit in.
Growing up at a refugee camp in a very poor country is not what an average child has to go through. In Nepal we did not have much shelter to live by. We were given some bamboos, thatch and some rope to build up our home and once a month they would give us some rice. I grew up without electricity therefore television was very rare to me. I was born at the house made up of bamboo and thatch rather than a proper hospital with some form of professional care.
Their parents would always drink alcohol until it comes to a point that they are disregarding and neglecting their children. “Cheryl and I always woke up before our parents, so I would tend to Cheryl’s needs” (3). Both April and Cheryl would hear their parents yelling, fighting, knocking things over, and bumping into walls whenever they drink alcohol. They would also come to see their mother kissing someone else whilst their dad sleeping on the floor. Eventually, due to this family behavior, the Children’s Aid would come and intervene and take April and Cheryl away from their home.
ALCOHOLISM How many times have you heard about the consequences of alcoholism? Have you taken them into account? Alcoholism is one of the major problems in society. People don’t take it so seriously but it actually is a disease. The effects of this disease are really serious.
The term “spiritual formation” can mean diverse things to different people. For me as a Christian, spiritual formation is the process by which God forms a person into His image. The goal of formation, as expressed by Ashbrook (2009), is “a Love Relationship with God…to live fully and freely in His love, and to respond by loving Him as well” (p. 26). Many experiences, both positive and negative, shape an individual’s relationship with God. The journey of formation will be distinctive, and often enigmatic except in hindsight, for each individual.