It was my 13th birthday when my mom got me a guitar, and my dad never called. Like the beer cans that litter the bedroom floor, the birthdays and Christmases with no phone calls start to pile up. You just assume that your dad's funny way of speaking and shaking hands and staggering movements and sudden bouts of loud noises and broken coffee tables and fights with your stepmom are just part of being a dad.
You wonder what you did wrong. You ask your mom why your dad isn't calling. She looks at you, puts on a brave face and makes up excuse after excuse. But she knows. All you can ask is, "Does he love me?"
There's guilt. Check. Anxiety. Check. Anger. Check. Depression. Check. Embarrassment. Double check. Inability to have close relationships. Check, check, check. Children of alcoholics develop fears of abandonment, researcher Gilda Berger found in 1993. The biggest check mark you can imagine. The National Association for Children of Alcoholic Parents receives more than 4,500 calls a year from children under 18 trying to deal with the emotional problems alcoholism causes.
My parents divorced when I was 5, meaning that I spent every other weekend with my dad in apartments, double-wide trailers and, at one point, an actual house. I looked forward to my dad picking me up. Something was always going on—often a new girlfriend with kids I could play with. I would watch scandalous movies with my dad like "Pulp Fiction" or the first "Scary Movie." It was fun. Then my mom started drug-testing him when he picked me up, and the rambunctious weekends in Saltillo, Miss., halted.
I was hurt, which turned to anger, which turned to a lot of other things. But now I understand my father wasn't choosing alcohol over me. I believe a disease was devouring him, eating away at his brain and clouding his judgment.
Just as mental illness is a serious disease, so is alcoholism. The National Institutes of Health says most people who seek treatment are able to fight alcoholism. I urge not only my father, but every father, mother, brother, sister, wife and husband in America struggling with alcohol abuse to seek treatment.
The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism reports that 18 million people in the United States suffer from alcoholism. It's a disease that's hard to shake and can be passed down to another generation. As a young college student who is dabbling in the arts of alcohol, that's a terrifying fact.
Zachary Orsborn is a student at Mississippi State University.
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