From Father to Son

Father to Son

It was supposed to be a fun day at the beach for Hans and his family, with swimming, sand castles and maybe an ice cream cone. Everybody was there that day.

His mom and dad and older sister were with him and they were all looking forward to a day of play, not a day for near death.

Hans tried to hold back tears as he recalled the day he nearly lost his life at a beautiful beach in Southern France, where he grew up. The event happened many years ago, but for Hans, it was like yesterday.

It was a beach on the sea near Monaco. There was a small bay, with rock formations not far from shore. Hans was very young and not a strong swimmer, but he decided to venture out and go to the rocks, while his sister was playing in the sand and splashing everyone. As he swam out he began to have difficulty fighting the current. He was being pushed farther out than he wanted to go.

Meanwhile, as he recalled;

“My father had to go to the concession stand to buy beer. He was an alcoholic. That’s all he did.”

As the current swept him farther and farther out, Hans began to yell for his father, but his father did not hear. He yelled but his father did not respond. “I managed to get to some of the rocks,” he said. “I was tired and I could not fight anymore, but I hung on to the rocks.”

Hans kept yelling for his father. Soon his mother and his sister went to find his father. The father at first did not seem to be alarmed, thinking that Hans was playing some kind of a joke. He drank his beer and told them nothing was wrong. His mother and sister took him by the arm, dragged him away from the concession stand, and pointed to the rocks where Hans continued his struggle. Now convinced that his boy was in trouble, the father swam out to the rocks and took hold of his son.

“I am just like my father,” Hans explained. “I am an alcoholic just like he was. He didn’t hear me. He was drinking, and now I drink and I don’t hear my children.”

Hans has experienced the helplessness of alcoholism. In a sense he has an understanding of his father’s behavior, but at the same time a deep-seeded resentment towards his father, who did not respond to his perilous need. There is a genetic component to addiction, as patterns of behavior in families repeat across generational lines. Addiction has cycles in families, just as it does in individuals. Hans was in treatment to break the cycle.

“I fear for my son,” he said. “I would never forgive myself if harm came to him because of my drinking. He is the same age now that I was when I almost drown that day. That scares me. What if I let him die because I was not there for him?”

The circumstances of Hans’ story are repeated every day in one way of another in this country. Parents, addicted to alcohol or some other substance, are not able to respond to their children. Alcoholism robs them of their capacity to reason, to act responsibly, and most of all to be a loving parent. The deep emotional scar leaves a void in the child, and that void must be filled. The generational cycle continues to turn.

Hans is working the 12-Steps, trying to fill the void and break the cycle. “I do not want this to happen to my son,” he asserts. “It is my responsibility.”

Ned Wicker is the Addictions Recovery Chaplain at Waukesha Memorial Hospital Lawrence Center

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