In Reply to: Re: Tis the Season posted by Chronic (reposted by Webm.) on October 12, 2005 at 14:54:59:
This is the message I got that you posted. I didn't see an apology or anything you wrote about Halloween. Did you write under a different name? Of course you are entitled to your own opinion but this is what you wrote that I was responding to:
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"Gee, I'd like to know what kind of alcohol your family was drinking that made everyone mellow. I'd understand everyone mellowing out if it was a bong they were sharing rather than a bottle. Perhaps it's that your family members were moderate, responsible drinkers."
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My father in particular was not a responsible drinker. Both my parents were professionals who performed well on the job. Both in high positions, on as an executive secretary to the atty general in TX and the other a directore of personnel for TX, then called "LCB" (Liquor Control Board.) My father functioned at work but was his worst right when he came home and before his first drink. He would drink himself into a stupor one beer after another at this point. He used to drink hard liquor before this but had bleeding ulcers and had his stomach removed piece by piece in different surgeries. He was a high acheiver at work and well respected but at home he was quite sadisitic and abusive. My mother drank on weekends mostly and I mixed the drinks and fetched the beers and lit her cigarettes. My parents were both extremely abusive. I have come to terms with my past. My brother and sister were also abusive to me. My brother had to take care of us a lot and he was nearly 11 yrs older than me and much more sadistic than my father was. I was often the target. So I can relate to childhood abuse but have dealt with my past.
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"My childhood experience, though, was similar to CB's. My memories are cluttered with alcohol-fueled traumas of one sort or another, including driving and gun deaths, serious injury, assaults, thefts and other crimes, and all the other mayhem that usually accompanies alcoholism."
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Because my father worked with LCB and had connections with law enforcement he did not face consequences for drunken driving. I experienced a lot of alcohol related trauma incl. him putting a shotgun to my forehead in a car.. riding with him in a car frequently on trips to bars on freeways at night weaving in and out of oncoming traffic lanes at 80 mph..
When beaten, I would be beaten until I sometimes bled, lash style. Often. I was kicked, hit, shoved, slapped had my hair pulled and called every name in the book as a kid. I know what abuse is.
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My grandmother once told me that she wished her handful of boys (my uncles) had discovered pot long before they did. She was convinced that they would not have gotten into the trouble they did if they had consumed pot instead of alcohol. As it turned out, most of them did settle down once they began to use pot regularly.
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My mother was emotionally and verbally abusive and my father was that plus physically very abusive. I saw my father as the atomic bomb and my mother was the one pushing the button, setting him off much of the time. She was buliemic and extremely self centered. I now know it was part of her personality and more than she could control. With my father, I suppose his anger and sadism was rooted in deep family pain, the Great Depression, WW2 and his family.
As you can see from your post that I copied word for word here, you will realize I did not see your apology or where you wrote about halloween. All I saw was something that assumed I came from a responsible drinker family.
My parents weren't theives. Sorry if yours were. Still, having parents in law enforcement positions with connections didn't exactly make me feel very safe. I begged to be allowed to leave home at 16 but my father said he would hunt me down and put me in a juvenile lock up facility until I was 21. I thought he hated me and couldn't understand this threat to keep me there.
I dreamt of running away and would make up elaborate plans for it with a friend. But it stayed in the dream stage because the risk of being locked up till 21 scared me. Instead I left home on my 18th birthday as "my present to myself" after my father sat me down and told me I could be a veterinarian or a secretary and that I was too stupid to do anything else. By that time, my father was terminally ill with cancer and unable to hit me anymore. Today, I have no family of origin. Don't even know where my brother lives. I know about where my sister lives but we will never be close because of the past. I am glad I have my sons and that I got out before the family could completely destroy that.
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