I guess the best place to start is the beginning.

I’m 51. I grew up in a small rural town called Winder, Georgia. That was really the address, and the even smaller town I lived in was a little town called Carl, Georgia. No stop lights (until like 10 years ago), and don’t blink because you might miss it as you ride right thru it on Hwy 29 towards Athens, Georgia –  the home of the mighty Georgia Bulldogs. Yes, I have to throw that in. Big big dawg fan. There’s nothing like God, sweet tea, and the SEC.  I have 2 older sisters, 7 and 9 years older than me. My dad was an electrician, and my mom could do most anything in the world, but she worked as a cook in the elementary school so she could be home with the kids when school was out. That always made me feel real good. We went to a southern Baptist church, I’m a recovering Baptist too. That hellfire damnation pulpit sermon was something that put the fear of God in me every Sunday, but by the grace of God I found a loving God in the eyes and arms of those people who met me at the door of the rooms of AA.  I played outside in the woods, Walked to my grandmothers at least once a day, and was very involved in sports, music activities, and riding my motorcycle. I lived on a farm so we had a lot of land to ride the motorcycle on. We had a lot of gardens and grew a lot of our own food. I loved singing in the church, but when I got in front of crowds to sing or speak by myself I had this horrible shaking voice. If I was talking I would start stuttering. I HATED it when I stuttered. It was so embarrassing and I was just a barrel full of anxious nerves. I stayed extremely anxious and nervous like that the majority of the time, but once again God took that away in the rooms of AA and put me at peace when I opened my mouth and began to speak. I’d never known what it felt like to be calm and be able to speak. I knew though deep within it was coming from God.

When I was about 6 or 7 I had a really bad habit (we will call it that for now) of taking my thumb and swiping it up and down my breastbone to the middle of my chin, then to just above my lip and finally to between my eyes. This motion was done over and over for 10-15 minutes at a time or until someone stopped me. It caused raw sores in those areas and would be very red. My family, especially my sisters laughed at me, and still tease me to this day. It hurt because I couldn’t help it. (It’s like trying to stop drinking and not being able to on your own.) I especially did this when I was nervous. My mother would catch me doing it and try to stop me, but I just couldn’t so I would just go to my room to continue the self-destructing activity. I also would bite my nails until they would bleed. A horrible devastating thing to do to yourself. They would hurt so bad, but when I was nervous either the swiping up and down my face and breastbone, or biting my nails brought comfort to me. When I got sober I could not get my emotions in check and was just a mess. When I started therapy and started seeing a psychiatrist. When the psych doc did the initial evaluation and basically asked me every question under the sun from the time I was born to present a lot of things came to light. I was diagnosed not just an alcoholic, but also with bipolar disorder, and a very very strong possibility of having tic’s or Tourette syndrome when I was a child. Tourette syndrome consists of multiple motor tics. Psychopathology occurs in approximately 90% of Tourette syndrome patients who are suffering from clinical depression (I am), anxiousness (I do), Bipolar (I am), and many other mood disorders. Doctors have linked Tic disorders with stress. Tic disorders occurs highly in children around the age of 5-6-7. I eventually out grew that tic, but I replaced it with many other self-destructive disorders. I look back and now understand a lot of my child hood and how it meshes into my adult drinking life. It was hard being so young and not understanding what was wrong with you, and hating yourself because you could not stop the behavior. I wish I had known I had a disorder when I was a child and could have received help. It could have truly changed the course of my life, but that is not what God had planned for me.  I can say that going to the psych doc made a tremendous difference in my life. Lifting the clinical depression, and balancing the bipolar made life more manageable with safe meds. These are just a few of childhood health challenges. There will be more adult health challenges to come in the coming posts.

Everything was pretty much black and white in our family. My daddy didn’t put up with a lot of bull. We pretty much walked a straight and narrow line. I think probably this is one reason I even had my first drink. The rebellion drink. They preached against drinking all the time. My mother said it makes you crazy and mean. She told me stories of how drinking made her daddy mean. So in my mind I wanted to do anything I could to meet my mother’s approval. I loved her so much, and didn’t want to let her down. I did most everything she asked of me or suggested that I do. I lost myself trying to please her. Granted I didn’t learn until years later that her being the child of an alcoholic she was from a dysfunctional family herself, and was just doing the best job that she knew to do. She was clueless that anything was wrong. I certainly had no idea I was cheating myself of growing up without healthy emotions. I know now the codependency between the two of us was really not good. I never knew how to stand up for myself because my mind was so busy wondering how to please her. Can anyone relate?