Lately I have been thinking about the often overlooked family members in the circle of recovery—the children. I am talking about the young children under the age of 10. Children are very intuitive and, unfortunately, a lot of people think that they are “too young to understand.”
What prompted me to finally do this post was an article by Maggie Lamond Simone in the Huffington Post. Here is a small excerpt from the article. It gave me chills!
“Oh, no, honey,” I said, “Alcoholics aren’t bad people. It’s a disease, and people with this disease just have to make sure they don’t drink.”
“But the guy in the book did bad things,” he persisted.
“Maybe,” I said, “but he was not a bad person.” I was stalling, trying to put off the inevitable as long as I could. But I simply could not let him walk away from this conversation with the very belief system I wanted to dispel. I could not perpetuate the cycle of guilt and shame of which I’d been a victim all of my life.
“You know,” I then said, “Mommy’s an alcoholic.”
WOW, right? Fortunately, resources for children have come such a long way and there are some great child therapists out there that can help. As always you can call one of our reps all around Texas if you need a recommendation.
Betty Ford is a pioneer in this work and has a program called Betty Ford’s Five Star Kids of Texas in Dallas. Ironically, it is in the same office building as our outreach office! In Houston, The Council on Alcohol and Drugs Houston has Kids Camp which is a 4 day workshop and they are having great success.
Let’s heal the whole family……
