Author: Andrew Arthur Dawson

There are days I think back to my childhood when I am out and about and see parents with their kids playing at parks, going out to dinner, laughing as they walk into a movie theater, or walking hand in hand while browsing at stores in the mall. While I may have experienced each of those things as a kid here and there, what I remember most is the nightmares of growing up in an alcoholic family.

My father was bi-polar/manic depressive and battled with addictions including alcohol and gambling. My mother too suffered from alcohol addiction and battled her own codependency issues. One of my earliest childhood memories with them involved me answering the front door around eight years old. Seeing two policemen standing there and asking to speak with my mother was scary enough. Being ushered into the basement and told to stay down there with my sister until she said it was ok to come upstairs was even scarier. Come to find out, my father had been found in the apple orchard down the street in a coma-like state after trying to drink himself to death.

Sadly, memories such as this one are common in families that suffer from alcoholism and other addictions. When I speak at recovery meetings, I normally ask those in attendance how many suffered from at least one if not both parents being an alcoholic or a drug addict. Normally at least 80 percent of the people present raise their hands. Many of those people have shared with me privately their own horror stories after hearing mine. For those born into addiction based families, it’s rare to experience what a child truly needs as they are growing up. There is one thing and only one thing that I’ve come to know in my God-centered journey that every kid should have received growing up and that’s unconditional love. In an addiction based home, it’s extremely rare if that ever happens.

My parents weren’t happy with themselves. Most anyone that is suffering from serious addictions never are. My mother and father were constantly caught up in their own disease and misery. Part of them did their best to raise my sister and I as good as they knew. Unfortunately, when alcoholism and mental disease were added to the equation, it seemed as if there were nothing my sister and I could do that could ever make them happy.

I was a swimmer and a dam good one at that from a very young age. A day that I try hard to not reflect on anymore was when I was at a large swim meet and was in the final race of several heats that had taken place earlier in the day. When the race had ended, I saw that I had finished last. Overall, because of the prior heats, I had come in sixth out of close to probably forty people. When I got out of the pool and my mother came over with a towel, what I wanted so desperately to hear was that I did great and that she was proud of me. Inside I was sad because I really had wanted to finish in one of those medal standings. Her first words to me as she wrapped the towel around me were “You didn’t kick hard enough.” For a child to hear those words in their own moments of despair is like being kicked when already down. What I really heard in those words was “You didn’t try hard enough.” And what I took home that day was the feeling inside that I wasn’t good enough.

Unfortunately in a toxic, addiction-based home, loving words, loving praise, and warm and embracing hugs don’t happen often, if at all. From my own experience in my addictions when I was active in any of them, there was nothing and nobody that could make me happy and it was common for me to put down anyone and anything that was doing better than me. I couldn’t stand seeing anyone succeed while I felt such a failure. And for anyone that was already down, I usually made them feel even worse by putting them down even more, because in some sick way, if they felt worse then I, then what I was going through didn’t feel as bad. Knowing this has helped me to understand at least why it was as a child that I was disciplined when I got a B instead of an A. Or when I dusted, I was always told I missed a spot. Or if I vacuumed, why there was always an area I seemed to have overlooked. Or if I cleaned the pool, there was always dirt still in it. And so on and so forth.

Today it’s becoming common in households where addictions are present for kids to suffer from physical and sexual abuse on top of the mental and emotional abuse already present. What’s even worse is when these same kids grow up and become addicted themselves and repeat the same patterns their own parents lived out in their lives. It seems like it could be a never ending cycle.

But it doesn’t have to be.

I’m walking proof that the cycle can end. What I really needed as a kid was to be loved and to grow up knowing I was good enough just as I was. As an adult, through my recovery from the same addictions that my parents suffered and died from, I found God. After finding God through my recovery, I found that God has always loved me just as I am. And after finding that God always loved me just as I am, I learned how to love myself. And after I learned how to love myself, I’ve begun to live daily loving others as best as I can no matter what my ego may say.

My goal today is offer love to everyone no matter what. It’s my way of giving back to as many people as I can that may have been just like me and grew up feeling worthless and unloved. It’s not always easy. Sometimes I find myself having to love people that seem to hate me for no reason. But even in those cases, I remember that at the center of those people is a soul and a piece of God. And I remember how I was once filled with hate because of all the hurt and pain I had been through. Knowing this helps me to spread unconditional love everywhere even in the presence of that hate.

Through my journey of healing, recovery, and finding God, I have learned to forgive my parents for their own addiction based behaviors, and been shown how to not only love myself but everyone else too.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

It was the beginning of September, 2007. I had just come back from a month long trip in Europe where I was trying to run from myself and all my addiction based behaviors. Ironically the place I spent the most time during this hiatus from my life was Amsterdam, a place where one can find any addiction readily accessible. When I landed at Logan Airport in Boston, MA, I was a mess on every level and knew I needed help. It had been 12 years since my last drink or drug and I felt worse than when I had been active in either of those addictions. The progression of my disease had worsened each year since my sober and clean date of June 11, 1995 because I had gone to substitute addictions that kept me feeling numb. On top of that, my business and finances in Virginia, where I had previously lived, were in shambles and a seven year relationship with someone I thought would last forever was now over. The only person willing to take me in at that point in time was my sister who lived in an outlying suburb of Boston, Massachusetts.

Shortly after landing, my only friend in Massachusetts called me and suggested after hearing my duress, that I come to his home group in AA on that upcoming Friday night. For years, this friend had made the same request when I was in the area visiting. On every one of those prior occasions, my answer was always the same that I had something better to do, or even worse, I would guilt trip him into skipping his weekly home group meeting stating that I was only in town for a short period of time. I never realized how self-centered those actions were or how much AA might have helped me with all the pain I felt inside.

People in recovery have said that when one really hits their bottom, they become willing to do just about anything to find healing. When that phone call arrived at that moment from this friend, I didn’t have any excuses anymore. I didn’t have any other place I could think of that I’d rather be. I knew I needed help and that if I didn’t get help, I was either going to go back out on drinking or drugs or kill myself. So I told my friend that I would be there. When that Friday night arrived, I plugged the directions into my GPS for the church that the meeting was being held at, and an hour later, I arrived. As I walked in the front door of the church, I saw my friend, along with a tremendous amount of other people who were all smiling, laughing, and greeting each other with hugs. I felt completely at odds.

My friend gave me a big hug and said he was glad that I came. I told him that I really needed to speak about what I was going through at that meeting that night. He explained to me that he didn’t think it would be possible because there was an incoming commitment. I had never heard that term before and asked him to explain. He told me that in the New England area, many AA groups go out to other groups, detoxes, hospitals, or prisons, and speak about their experience, strength, and hope in recovery. And that night, he told me, there was a group coming in to do just that. Many old timers would say that at that point, I should have just gone into that meeting, sat down, shut up, and listened to each of the speakers.

I didn’t.

In my ego and self-centered universe, I thought everybody needed to hear what I was going through. So instead of listening to what those old-timers would have told me, I kept badgering my friend and convinced him to talk to the incoming commitment and place me on their list of speakers. He eventually gave in and I was called at the end of the meeting to come up and speak. As I slowly walked up to the podium, I looked out at the 150+ people that were there to get a message of positivity and hope that recovery can bring. Instead what came out was that my name was Andrew, that I was still an alcoholic, that I was 12 years clean and sober and that I was also a complete, horrific mess. The last thing I remember saying that night was that both my parents took their lives from this disease and that I was going to do the same if I didn’t get help. I left that podium after that in a torrent of tears.

God really does work in mysterious ways. While it may have been completely selfish and self-centered with speaking at that AA meeting, it changed the course of my life for the better. I got a sponsor that night. I got a list of phone numbers of people to call. I developed a group of friends that helped me realize there were sober people out there to hang out and have fun with. And over time, through working the steps, I found God all around me and within me. He had always been there, I just had kept running from him from one addiction to another.

Thank God for my friend offering me as he always did to come to that meeting. Thank God for AA and recovery. Thank God that I’m still clean and sober today and now even from all addictions.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson