Hate: the root of addictions

Hate: the root of addictions
I came into the world in 1949. My parents had a daughter who was 6 years older than me. My father was a radio and TV repairman.The US army had trained him to be a radar technician during world war II, and he transferred the skills to civilian life. According to my parents, Peoria was a rather dismal depressed area at the time, and my father moved the family to southern California.
My early memories are fragments, snippets here and there. I remember asking my father if there was a God when I was very small. His answer was ? I believe in a Supreme being?. But that is not to say our home was a religious one. At some point in my very early years I remember attending a Calvary Baptist Church with my parents, and even going to Sunday school. But my parents stopped going to Church for reasons which are not known to me. I do remember attending Sunday school but I was so young I cannot remember much of what went on. I do remember getting a gold star for attendance but very little else.
Despite their occasional attendance at church, my home environment was less than Godly. Like many homes there was a war going on between Mom and Dad (if you were lucky enough to even have a Dad) and I became a casualty of that war.
One morning when I was about 5 years old my younger brother (3 years old at that time ) and I were playing with wooden blocks in our bedroom. Vaguely I recall Mom and Dad had been fighting.Dad left the house and my brother and I continued playing with the wooden blocks. Mom came into the bedroom screaming, ?I told you kids not to play with those blocks?. My brother said ?run? and we both ran into different parts of the house. Mom cornered him in the service porch and I heard the screams as she beat him. Then she came flying into the living room in a rage ?Now, its your turn? she said. And ,indeed,it was my turn.
She held me tight with one arm and hit me with full force as I looked into her face. And it was a look of hatred I saw there. The beating seemed like it lasted forever. Every time she hit me my hate started to grow more intense..Her face was burned into my memory with hate. Finally, it was over and I crumpled to the ground in relief.
That evening my Father came home. Mom met him at the door and said:. ?The children have been really bad today?. Dad pointed to my bedroom and said in a loud disapproving tone,?Go to your room?.I was sent to my room for punishment. In my room I thought of the injustice of what was happening and I was filled with a consuming hatred toward my father. In one day Mom had introduced me to injustice, corrupted me with a spirit of hate, and turned me against my father.
The next day I woke up and came out of my room. Dad was at work. Mom asked me if I was going to be good and I responded ?Yes?. Her answer was ? I thought you would say that?. That was the worst time but there were others. I remember the day I went to a drug store with Mom. I was touching items on the shelves as she shopped. As we left the store she told me ?You?ve been bad so Im not taking you home?. She left me standing at the back door, got in her car, and drove off. I cried intensely at the thought of being abandoned. I remember someone leaving the store exclaiming ?Look at that little boy crying?. After several minutes she came back and picked me up.
Another time I apparently wandered away from home. I remember sitting on curb at the end of the block. My mom suddenly appeared. ?There you are? She said. And then she attacked. I don?t remember much but pain and flailing arms and elbows and being dragged home in tears.
It is true that the course of a man?s life is determined by his early years. I don?t want this to sound like blame for it is not. It is truth, and an understanding of causes. These kind of traumas in childhood change the course of a persons life. Most of these memories were repressed out of my consciousness mind in order to cope.In later years the drugs would literally obliterate all memory of them. .
Have you ever seen the cruelty of children and wonder how they got that way?
When I was about 10 years old an incident happened that is worth telling. It was popular at that time to ?pants? someone. A group of boys would find someone they didn?t like and pants them to humiliate them. I was with a group of boys who ran across a boy in our neighborhood, Jim T., and they decided to ?pants? him. After they got him down on the ground they pulled his pants and underwear down exposing his genitals. I was already a smoker and I was seized by the impulse to burn him on the genitals with a lite cigarette and proceeded to do so. His faced grimaced in pain and he burned with resentment towards me. He had the same look of hate on his face that I had when my mom was beating me. I had become what I hated:. An agent of cruelty and injustice.


Deep seated resentment like this are the root cause of addiction. In later years when I
Experimented with drugs I found a tremendous sense of relief from my inner turmoil,
And the experimentation became something much more than experimentation as a result.
And does anyone doubt (despite the pleas of those like Art Linkletter) that the roots of
Alcoholism/ addiction are in the home and of hatred of wicked parents? How can a few
hours of D.A.R.E. or just say no campaigns (however well meaning) undo the abuse and
trauma suffered by children at the hands of their parents?

?2004 Christianrecovery.blogspot.com
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