"My father died 11 years ago – his alcohol problem was a huge issue in our family. I was the baby, with seven much older brothers and sisters – the eldest was 20 when I was born.
"My father's drinking became a real problem when I was a toddler. He became very abusive when he'd been out on a binge and my role was to look after him when he came home drunk, since everyone else was out and my mother had usually run away to her sister's place because of his violence towards her the night before. I'd have to pick him up when he fell and get him to bed. I had a terrible childhood.
"I left home when I was 16 and came to Gauteng to stay with my sister. I finished school, went to secretarial college, got married and had kids. The problem was that my husband came from a home that was even more unstable than mine. Most of the time he was out of work and, like my father, he drank excessively.
"I was very careful with my own drinking because, right from the first drink I ever had at the age of 18, something happened to me whenever I consumed alcohol: I'd feel my personality change. Something would go through my bloodstream and take over my words and actions. So for the next 15 years, I limited my drinking and the minute I began to feel uneasy with the effect it had on me, I'd stop.
"Although I loved my husband, he was very abusive towards me, both physically and emotionally, when he drank. I felt trapped in a time warp: just as I'd looked after my drunken dad, I now looked after my drunken husband. I had no self-esteem and felt I somehow deserved his treatment, so I put up with it.
"Eventually, I found the strength to divorce him – but remarried him one year later, because he went down the drain and I felt sorry for him. I felt it was my job to hold him together. "Then, in July 2001, he suddenly died of cerebral malaria. It was a tremendous shock. I simply couldn't believe what had happened, but I knew I had to be strong somehow, for my kids' sake.
"Two months later, I had my first drink since my husband's death and suddenly felt as if I'd found the solution: this was going to help me cope, take the pain away and allow me to sleep. I went downhill rapidly. At first it was a weekend thing, but within a month I was into full-blown drinking – having a 'cure' in the morning and one for the road at night. Over weekends I could easily go through two dozen bottles of red wine.
"Alcoholics are usually very resourceful, and somehow manage to hold things together, despite their problem: with me, it was my job. I work in the financial department of an insurance company and it was a miracle I wasn't fired because of my mood swings and aggression when I was drinking. I'd go to the pub straight from work – that afternoon shot became vital in my life. I knew I had supper to make for the kids, and that there was homework to supervise, but somehow it all just receded as soon as I felt the alcohol enter my system. I often didn't go home at all for a day or two, and the kids would be left alone while I was bingeing. Eventually, when I arrived home full of guilt and self-loathing, I needed another shot before I could face my children.
"I soon found I also needed a shot just to get out of bed or to go to work: in fact, everything I did became an excuse to have a drink. If you're an alcoholic, you become devious and you lie. I'd drop the kids at my brother's house and tell him I had chores to do, then go out on a binge.
"One night I fell asleep at the wheel of my car after a couple of drinks and completely wrote off the vehicle. It took out a whole string of street lights, flipped and landed on its roof – but I walked away without a scratch or bruise. I then bought a bakkie and had another accident, this time with my daughter inside. She hit her head against the windscreen – but not even that was enough to be my wake-up call.
"It was only when I hobbled into my doctor's rooms last year, in absolute agony, with my knee the size of a tennis ball, that the turning point came. He told me I had gout from my drinking, and warned me that soon my liver and other organs would be affected, and that my drinking could eventually kill me. Within days I was with Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), and I haven't touched alcohol since.
"Of course, it was hard at first. Now that I was sober, I saw the damage I'd done to my children psychologically and I had to earn their trust and love again.
"But they showered me with affection and support once they saw I was serious about not drinking, and practising AA's 12 Steps and principles made things easier. I latched onto the programme very quickly and found what I'd been looking for all my life: a sense of control, of dignity and a brand-new way of behaving.
"Today my life is filled with hope. In fact, it's only just begun!"
Evelyn*, 44, divorced mother of two teenagers
"I come from a long line of both priests and alcoholics. I grew
up in the Cape as the oldest of three children. My father had
a drinking problem. He's never acknowledged his alcoholism
– he sobered up in the church, not through AA – and my
childhood was filled with physical and emotional abuse.
We never knew how my father would return each day – sometimes he'd be playing with us, and at other times he'd yell, threaten and chase us into a corner.
"My mom couldn't deal with my dad, and it was left to me to look after him. I was a very good all-rounder at school, but by Grade 10, I started to rebel. I'd bunk classes, and in Grade 11 I ran away from home for the first time. That seemed to set the pattern: I carried on running away from situations and problems all my life, including those of my own making. "I got married at 21 and divorced my husband three years later because he was unfaithful, but I took him back because I loved him. We remarried and had our kids. I was a social drinker in those days, only taking alcohol at parties or dinners, and I was well behaved.
"But then I discovered my husband was cheating on me again, and my world fell apart. For the next five years, I went on the rampage, getting drunk every single night. "I'd have a couple of drinks at home in the evening, my husband would watch TV and go to bed, and then I'd get dressed up and go out for a night on the town.
"I'd come home after a binge and we'd get into an argument, or sometimes a physical fight. When you're drunk, you lose all sense of responsibility and although my two small children meant the world to me, I became totally reckless. I'd drive while drunk with them in the car – thank God nothing happened to them.
"The turning point came when my husband told me he could no longer live with me. I was drinking half a bottle of brandy every night, which was all I could afford, but by that stage my body was so saturated with alcohol that it took only two or three drinks for me to be totally pissed. What hit me hardest were his threats to take the kids away. That sobered me up. I went to AA in May 2002, and I've been sober ever since.
"The road back has been pretty tough – AA teaches you that drinking is only a symptom of an underlying problem. In my case, it served to mask all the abuse I'd suffered as a child. I'd been trying to escape reality all my life, and avoid the pain of having to face my duties, forgive the people who'd abused me and, above all, forgive myself.
"I also had to face the fact that my husband had a drinking problem too and that our marriage wasn't working, so I finally divorced him and relocated to Gauteng.
"AA enabled me to take a close look at who I was – and
I didn't like what I saw. But slowly, one day at a time,
I've managed to confront all my demons and now, for the
fi rst time, I feel like a whole woman with a clear sense of
who I am."
*Not their real names.
