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Most of you that come here and read my nonsense, have of course seen one of my first posts about alcohol addiction. A woman that I will refer to as LH reached out to me recently about this previous post about her battle with the same disease that stemmed from her sexual abuse as a child. She was unable to cope with the pain her heart felt, so she turned to alcohol, and at first it was something to take her mind off of the pain. It soon grabbed her like a muscular man not willing to let go..luckily se was able to find the inner strength to get out of the addiction before it became too strong. I am inserting an excerpt of the email she sent my way! If you or someone you know are struggling with any type of addiction please get help, as I am not a professional…I am just a writer looking to help others through the personal dealings with this disease.

LH wrote to me on 2/4/2010

Her story is as follows;

It was an extremely moving and well written piece so I looked at some of your other blogs and decided to follow them. You hail from my home state (I was born in Atlanta, Georgia) and your views are pretty unusual for the deep south, at least from what I can remember. I’ve been out in LA for years.

Anyway, I too have had personal experience with addiction. My dad was an alcoholic my whole life and I am a survivor of sexual abuse until I was 12. He was also a preacher, Methodist, in South Carolina. And nobody in my family believed me. I stuffed all of these memories so deeply until I began therapy when I was 26 and then it all came out. And it was ugly. So I partied on top of them. For ten years. I and watched my career dreams as a writer/director start to disappear. Lots of stuff happen, I barely stayed out of jail and without a home. And a friend who had what I wanted pulled me into a meeting and I got sober. That was 9 years ago Jan 17. Saved my life.

But the way you described your mother needing to drink even though she was killing herself I understand. I was doing that to myself too. And it was something bigger than myself that pulled me out. To this day I don’t truly understand how I got out.

There is more to come…so please come back!

I was watching television last night while my dinner was being prepared for me in the kitchen and Oprah came on…the segment featured women struggling with an alcohol addiction. This subject is very close to my heart because I watched my mother struggle with this same addiction and the damage that is done to the families can be extremely devastating. My story is a bit different than the ones shown on television because my mother is no longer around to help spread awareness on the disease of addiction.
My story is as follows; At eight years old I was told my mother wouldn’t live to see me graduate high school, get my drivers license, or see me start my own family if her drinking was to continue this way. She was diagnosed with a disease called esophageal varices which causes the esophagus to hemorrhage into the stomach only to be excreted by way of vomiting. There were times I can remember cleaning up as much as a pint of blood at a time from our apartment walls and that wasn’t the worst part for me…the worst is watching someone you love give in and suffer from this terrible addiction! She was taken to a gastroenterologist in Atlanta Ga where her esophagus would be banded back together with medical bands and would discontinue the hemorrhaging if she could stop the drinking and end the torture being done to me and her body. Of course because she didn’t the end result was eventually death. As the physicians predicted I was sixteen and alone, my entire immediate family was taken from me by this addiction. This for many years and sometimes even now is hard to deal with. The damage that this disease does to your mind, body, soul, and spirit also kills the hearts of those around you.
I wrote this blog in hopes of helping others even though it leaves me feeling vulnerable while the world reads one of my biggest struggles in life. However if I am able to even just save one person from going down this dark dark road of addiction my job has been done! There are plenty of places to go for help if you think you or someone close to you has a problem with drugs and/or alcohol.  This is a struggle that a majority of our nation continues to hide from others because they are afraid of being judged…don’t be afraid just get help!