Patrick J Leach

Alcoholism Patrick J Leach

Alcoholism is a family disease. In my family it stretches back as far as I can see: my father, grandmother and grandfather on my father's side, my grandfather on my mother's side and possibly my uncle, my brother (I suspect), and definitely me. Family on my mother's side were not well known to me because my father's alcoholism alienated us from them. We were also alienated from neighbors and almost everyone in our community. My parents did not have friends visiting. Any social contact my brother and I had happened outside our house. Alcoholism was a well-kept secret from anyone outside our family. We were ashamed of what went on inside our home, afraid of what would happen if people could see, and my father told us to keep everything a secret. We told no one of the insane and violent things he did. We never sought help. We watched, horrified, as the disease of alcoholism twisted and tore us apart. We were unable to resist him until my brother and I became adults, at which point my mother knew she did not need my father's income to support her family, and she divorced him. This was the end of any contact I had with my father for the remainder of his life. In this book finally, at age 67, reveal many of the things I have kept secret most of my life.