In my family alcoholism, and its darkness, runs rampant and destructive as a river in full flood. As a child, my small ears listened deep as my father berated my mother. My dad’s cronies backed me into corners with lechery in their eyes as words I didn’t understand, but felt creep across my skin like ice, came from their mouths. I watched my oldest brother strangled into unconsciousness. His skull was fractured, ribs broken. He had seizures for years after. It was my brother who was shamed for being beaten, never my father for getting blackout drunk and trying to kill him—repeatedly.  Guest Blog by Stephanie K. Nead.

 Guest Blog by Stephanie K. Nead

These are some of my childhood memories of alcohol. No laughing easy times, no fun and games. Deadly serious. My mother was forever worried. We children lived in fear.

Many years later, I met Karen. She was my physical therapy assistant. I loved her kindness, creativity,  deep caring and awesome sense of humor. Amidst busy lives, we were becoming friends. In one of our casual chats, Karen mentioned she was writing on the topic of drunk driving. Assuming that she too had been hurt by a drunk, I let fly with my gut response, something akin to “The tragedy is the drunk survives while everyone else dies! Should be the other way around.” Karen became very, very quiet. 

After that day, while friendly, kind and helpful, Karen was professional and distant. I knew I’d hurt her but had no idea exactly how. 

Then one day, years later, came Karen’s first blog post for her book. Karen, my wonderful Karen, had been the drunk driver in an accident that claimed the life of her husband and the other driver, and left her two daughters without their mother and step-father when she went to prison. I could not imagine the courage it took to invite everyone in the world to read her story. I was awestruck. I wrote her. I apologized for judging and hurting her. I also explained that my knee-jerk response arose out of my childhood experience with alcoholics. Karen responded with grace and curiosity. We corresponded and she invited me to write this piece.

I’d heard Karen speak of her husband, what a gorgeous, glorious rogue he was, her eyes sparkling with love. I knew she had daughters and I knew those relationships had their struggles, but what mother-daughter relationship doesn’t? I never imagined the nerve I hit when I “went off” on Karen. She was one of “them?!” Ah, can we never escape the us and them? A lesson for me in empathy. As it turned out, Karen, like me, was hurt by a drunk driver. That person just happened to be herself. She was and is exactly all I’ve known her to be, yet she is human and made a horrible mistake that took two lives and irrevocably changed many more. 

When I was in college, my dad, drunk, hit a car filled with a mother and four children. He tried to get sober then. His voice quavered as he told me, “When I lost control and saw my car moving into them, all I could see was your mother and you kids.” He tried to quit. I know he really wanted to, but he was one of those drunks the Big Book of AA refers to when it says “…some won’t quit, some can’t quit.” My dad couldn’t. 

A lifelong atheist, at the end of his life my dad turned to Catholicism. I hope, for his sake, that by the time he died he felt he was forgiven for the things he did, even those he might not have fully remembered. I also know that for the rest of us the damage was done. It is a legacy I have had to live with and resolve. I always will. Just as Karen’s girls will live their lives with the legacy of the night their parents got into a car and drove drunk. 

What I’ve learned is that holding onto judgment does no one any good. To be honest, some of my childhood memories still make me feel angry. Forgiveness doesn’t come overnight or all at once. It’s bits and pieces. With effort and time, forgiveness and healing deepen. Holding onto my wounds and my pain only leads me to hurt others who have suffered their own faults and paid their own price. They do not deserve the burden of my anger and judgment. 

What Karen shares in this book are many stories like her own — of people doing their best in life, making huge, horrifying, irrevocable mistakes that destroy their own lives and change forever the landscape of multiple lives and hearts. They do not deserve my wrath. We can comfort each other or condemn each other, but either way, we are all in this together. We have all been the wounded and the wounding. Most of us are mostly good. None of us is perfect. We all deserve forgiveness.  Guest Blog by Stephanie K. Nead

Stephanie K. Nead

Sequim, WA 2019

Guest Blog by Stephanie K. Nead

Guest Blog by Stephanie K. Nead