The Child Becomes The Parent
"Our most basic instinct is not for survival but for family. Most of us would give our own life for the survival of a family member, yet we lead our daily life too often as if we take our family for granted." - Paul Peershall
I have thought about this entry for a long time. It is very important that you, the reader, extract from this the real story, the true story. It could be your story. I don't want this to be taken out of context. While I am very proud of my children, this is not about bragging. This is about three young adults, who, using the skill sets that they had developed, together with the love they had for their father, extended that helping hand.
It is December 2004 and once again I am on the run. Still gambling, still lying, still afraid, and in my own mind a complete failure. (As you can see self-pity continues to be a part of my addiction.) To me, it looked very much like I had run out of luck. It was time to pack my bags and move on. But then the phone rang and just has had happened in the past, another miracle began to take place. Starting with my daughter and moving on to my two sons, they each in their own way expressed themselves. They were stern in their comments, but full of love in their offers to help and support me. Another Christmas was saved, however the true extent of their commitment was yet to come.
In January 2005, the effect of several months of gambling came into effect and I was once again in financial trouble. If it were not for the financial assistance of my son, who knows what the next step would have been for me. Between February and July of 2005 I continued to gamble on occasion, however each time it was having a devastating effect on my entire system. By this point in my addiction, sitting in front of those machines was not a place to gamble, but a place to hide. My self-esteem was destroyed, I had manipulated every person who had befriended me, even my family was running out of options.
The crazy thing about all of this was that I really wanted to stop, I really wanted to make a change in my life. In July of 2005 I had just left a club where I had spent the last couple of hours wasting my life away, when my phone rang. My youngest son was on the other end asking if I could come home for a few minutes because he needed to talk to me. What I didn't know was that while I was in the club, my daughter had been in the area and seen my car. When I got to our home, before I could get out of the car, my son came running out of the house saying he would rather speak to me alone. We drove to a nearby parking lot and what happened next will reasonate with me for the rest of my life.
My youngest child, the kid I coached, played hoops in the backyard with, looked at me and asked "Dad are you still gambling?" What happened next was a tremendous outburst of anger, not directed at him, but rather at me. How could one man be so stupid? Here I was surrounded by so much love. He told me again that day, the same thing that my oldest son had told me when he reached out to help me, the same thing that my daughter told me the day I visited her apartment, we love you and we will do anything we can to help you, but you have to help yourself first. That was the last day I gambled.
To my three children and my wife, thank you.
I have thought about this entry for a long time. It is very important that you, the reader, extract from this the real story, the true story. It could be your story. I don't want this to be taken out of context. While I am very proud of my children, this is not about bragging. This is about three young adults, who, using the skill sets that they had developed, together with the love they had for their father, extended that helping hand.
It is December 2004 and once again I am on the run. Still gambling, still lying, still afraid, and in my own mind a complete failure. (As you can see self-pity continues to be a part of my addiction.) To me, it looked very much like I had run out of luck. It was time to pack my bags and move on. But then the phone rang and just has had happened in the past, another miracle began to take place. Starting with my daughter and moving on to my two sons, they each in their own way expressed themselves. They were stern in their comments, but full of love in their offers to help and support me. Another Christmas was saved, however the true extent of their commitment was yet to come.
In January 2005, the effect of several months of gambling came into effect and I was once again in financial trouble. If it were not for the financial assistance of my son, who knows what the next step would have been for me. Between February and July of 2005 I continued to gamble on occasion, however each time it was having a devastating effect on my entire system. By this point in my addiction, sitting in front of those machines was not a place to gamble, but a place to hide. My self-esteem was destroyed, I had manipulated every person who had befriended me, even my family was running out of options.
The crazy thing about all of this was that I really wanted to stop, I really wanted to make a change in my life. In July of 2005 I had just left a club where I had spent the last couple of hours wasting my life away, when my phone rang. My youngest son was on the other end asking if I could come home for a few minutes because he needed to talk to me. What I didn't know was that while I was in the club, my daughter had been in the area and seen my car. When I got to our home, before I could get out of the car, my son came running out of the house saying he would rather speak to me alone. We drove to a nearby parking lot and what happened next will reasonate with me for the rest of my life.
My youngest child, the kid I coached, played hoops in the backyard with, looked at me and asked "Dad are you still gambling?" What happened next was a tremendous outburst of anger, not directed at him, but rather at me. How could one man be so stupid? Here I was surrounded by so much love. He told me again that day, the same thing that my oldest son had told me when he reached out to help me, the same thing that my daughter told me the day I visited her apartment, we love you and we will do anything we can to help you, but you have to help yourself first. That was the last day I gambled.
To my three children and my wife, thank you.
posted by Taximan at 8:25 AM
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