This book is written from the perspective of a person who grew up in the home of an alcoholic. Although much older now, I will always be the child of an alcoholic. My father died because of his addiction, and I truly never realized the pain he was in until he passed away. In this book, it is my intention to share some of the experiences I had growing up in the home of an alcoholic, through and including his death. If you are facing an issue like this or have experienced this in your life, you will likely understand what it is like to be a part of a relationship like this. What you may not understand is that even though it may appear that nothing matters to them other than alcohol, there is a knowledge deep inside the person that really does know the truth and really wants the relationship but is scared to leave the deceitful friend behind. It is my hope to touch the life of someone who is concerned about this issue and to give them encouragement to not let the life of someone they love be lost.
From A Child's Perspective
AlcoholismBy Lars P. HersomBalboa Press
Copyright © 2012 Lars P. Hersom
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4525-5319-1Contents
CHAPTER 1 - WHO WAS HE?.................................1CHAPTER 2 - THE HOME....................................7CHAPTER 3 - THE FAMILY..................................11CHAPTER 4 - THE HOSPITAL................................15CHAPTER 5 - THE FUNERAL.................................17CHAPTER 6 - THE NOTES...................................22CHAPTER 7 - THE END (... OR IS IT?).....................38
Chapter One
WHO WAS HE?
"Hi, my name is Bub Hersom, and I'm an alcoholic." I can only imagine that this is the way the meetings for alcoholics started out. Sometimes I feel like I can almost sense the gut-wrenching, twisting feelings that I can only imagine he may have felt in saying these things or even the embarrassment and humiliation of having to attend a meeting like this.
This story is being told "from a child's perspective." By that I mean, from my perspective, because I am the child of an alcoholic; though now an adult, I was raised in the home of an alcoholic. At any age, I will always be the child of an alcoholic, and the words you are reading are my perspective of growing up with an alcoholic father.
My father was born Wilbert Amos Hersom. He somehow was tagged with the nickname "Bub" early in his life. I believe it was one of those names that a friend started calling him on a random basis that just stuck, so his "known" name was Bub Hersom. In fact, many of his friends from later in his life may well not have even known his real name.
First of all, I want to say that my dad was a kind-hearted, do-anything-for-a-friend, kind of guy who never assaulted me or behaved in any type of violent manner like some may have experienced. Nonetheless, his addiction to alcohol eventually cost him his marriage, his relationship with his children, his relationship with his grandchildren, the destruction of his home, the loss of friendships, loss of respect, and ultimately ... his life. Basically, everything that at one point in his life meant the world to him, was given up for alcohol. Some may ask or say that if it all meant that much to him, he wouldn't have kept doing it, he would have quit, or it can't be that hard. I'm here to send you the message and to tell you that from my perspective and my experience, alcohol ruined his life on every level and then, ultimately, killed him. Alcohol stole my dad from me and from all of us who loved him at the very young age of only 54!
Is it possible that the alcoholic can't see this ... or is it that they see it, but they simply cannot or will not choose to get past it? In the pages coming up, I will show you that he knew exactly what he was giving up and still could not/would not change.
It was February of 1999. I was at home with my wife and four children. The telephone rang. I don't usually answer the phone in the evenings, but for some reason I did this night, instead of my wife or boys answering.
The person on the other end said something like, "Hello, is this the home of Lars Hersom?"
"Yes."
Somehow, some way, I think I knew or felt at that moment that there was something odd about this call, and I was privately, in some small way, praying that it wasn't about my dad. After all, I love this man, it just couldn't be! The person on the other end then introduced himself as a police officer and asked to speak to Lars.
I said, "This is Lars. What is going on?"
He told me, "I'm sorry to be the one to call, but your father passed away and was found at his home."
I dropped to my knees and cried out, "NO.....NO!"
I asked if they knew what had happened, and the officer politely told me that there appeared to not be a struggle of any kind and that Dad had passed away on the couch. This was horrible and—little did I know at the time—only the beginning of the eye-opening experience yet to come.
I was raised in a decent, clean home in a small, rural Iowa community of under 1,000 people. Our home was well-kept, and we were what I would consider a normal mom, dad, and two kids type family. Things that seemed normal to me at the time apparently are not or were not really normal. For example, when I would get home from a basketball, football or baseball game, I never went directly home. I would go to the bar because that is where my dad was. That is where he always was. I would play in pool (billiard) tournaments and cribbage tournaments at the bar, all of which I thought was a normal upbringing.
Some may ask how this has affected my life as far as alcohol goes. I have always taken the position of leading by example for my family and have tried to do the right things in my life as much as I can. With this in mind, I have chosen to not follow the same path as my dad. I am not saying that I never drink. I'm saying that it is rare and it certainly has no control of me or any aspect of my life.
Several years before the event of his death, my mother left him, and for good reason. I never blamed her for leaving. In fact, it makes sense when all is considered. I have to commend her for having the courage to stand up to him and make a decision to move on. I have to believe that she most likely had done all she could to help him and convince him to change. Perhaps the perception I had of our seemingly decent life was covered up ... or we, as children, were protected from the reality of these issues by our mother. Looking back, the addiction likely had an effect on my life well before I realized anything was wrong. I'm sure this blindness comes from growing up so close to the issue.
At one point Dad found some woman much younger than him to move in with him, which I never really understood, but I think it was likely due to the hurt that was left behind when he lost his love. This lasted for only a short period of time, and then he was alone again.
I felt sorry for him because I know he still loved my mother but just did not have the ability to make the changes needed to save his marriage and get things back in order. I wanted to help him and had many conversations, seemingly playing the reverse role as the parent trying to keep a child on the right path. From my perspective, I was worried and concerned and tried to help him move in the right direction. In the end, nothing I could say, would make a difference or get through to him. It is quite painful to learn that your words don't get through when you love someone so much and you want to help.
Any time I called to try to see about stopping by the house, it was never a good time for that. Once in a while, he would accommodate my family and me and meet us in a neutral town for dinner, but never anything at the home I grew up in.
After that heartbreaking phone call from the police, I called the funeral home and asked about where my dad's body was. I was again assured that it appeared to be a peaceful passing and that his body was with them. We went over the details as far as facial hair and how to cut his hair, glasses or not, what to wear ... what to wear??? My dad had no suit, and I wasn't sure what to do. The funeral parlor representative was a friend of our family and said that he thought he had an old suit we could use if I wanted it, so we did.
Then there were the flower arrangements, where to have the funeral, what about food, who can speak, what church did he go to.... did he even go to church anymore and so many more things that I was overwhelmed at some points.
We decided to have his funeral in the funeral home because it would cost less so we purchased the least expensive casket that we could find and went to no expense that we didn't have to do. He had no pre-arranged or pre-paid funeral arrangements or costs, but then again, who would at 54 years old? Since all the costs had to be the burden of the family because Dad had no money whatsoever, we did everything as inexpensively as possible, and it still cost over six thousand dollars. We had financial help from friends and relatives, which was a blessing in its own right.
Did I mention that my dad was 54 years old? That's correct. Let me spell that out for all so it is clear: he was only FIFTY-FOUR YEARS OLD! I am 50 as I sit writing this and simply cannot imagine losing life at such a young age, especially from a self-inflicted disease such as alcoholism.
After the news of my father's death, I immediately called my brother who lived out-of-state to tell him what had happened. He arrived a few days later, to find that nearly all the arrangements were already made. My mother, who had been married to my dad for almost 25 years, was out of town, and we had no way of reaching her. (This was before cell phones were so common.) She was not planning to be back in the area for over a week. By then, the funeral would be over, and Dad would be buried. In hindsight, we all believe that this was the way it was meant to be.
To summarize who my dad was to me, he was bigger than life, as a father typically is—or should be—to his son. I grew up seeing people respect him for who he was and for how he acted. He held a high level of integrity and always did what he said he would do. He was the disciplinarian in our family and was a good steward in the community we lived in. All this was good until the alcohol changed him.
When he started to spend less time with his family and lost his relationship and marriage to the woman he loved, he could not sustain any type of relationship other than that of one with his drinking buddies. He lost his zest for life and ultimately lost his God-given life. What was once so wonderful had been lost due to a relationship with alcohol that became more important than all these beautiful things.... so very sad.
Chapter Two
THE HOME
I find myself amazed at how a simple drink can literally destroy a person's life. It is hard to believe that this seemingly innocent beverage can eventually become more important to a person than life, than the love for another person, than any relationship with a son, daughter, wife, mother, father or friend. The power of this drug can be larger than life itself.
Growing up my home was a safe, good, clean and wonderful place to be. I never felt threatened in any way and always felt loved and a part of a family. It was what I would consider a basic middle-class home in a very small community of fewer than a thousand people in northwest Iowa.
We had the typical activities going on, such as barbecues in the summer, playing catch with baseballs and footballs, and so on. My dad taught me how to throw a ball, how to pitch a baseball, how to bat, how to catch, how to tie a knot, make a rope, drive a car, bowl, handle a gun safely, hunt, fish, shoot, worship and to be a person of integrity. He instilled in me many qualities of goodness; it is hard to imagine the changes that were ahead in his life and how these would affect those of us who loved him.
After the call from the police about my dad's death, I received another call about his dog. This dog was quite simply mean. I mean, vicious. No one could go near the dog or my dad if the dog was around. At one point, my dad had a fire in his car, and he had to get a new one. I helped by taking him to a car dealership and picking out something that would work for him. Apparently, after getting the new vehicle and driving it for a period of time (a year or so), the car was repossessed; by then, the dog had destroyed the inside of the vehicle.
When the police called about the dog, they asked me what I wanted to do with it. They told me how it was difficult for them to even get into the house to reach my dad and that they finally got the dog locked up in my dad's car but did not know what to do with him. I asked if they had a place they could take him or if there were any shelters around that would take him because I did not want him anywhere near my home. They said they would take care of it and that was the last I heard of it.
I went to the house the next day to see about cleaning things up and seeing what I had to deal with. I was so completely stunned, disappointed, amazed and shocked at what I saw, that I broke down in tears and shook my head in disbelief. After a quick trip through the house, I headed to the store to get garbage bags and called the city to arrange for a large dumpster to be delivered to the house. It was simply one of the most disgusting and filthy things I have ever seen. I was so surprised at how the home could deteriorate from what I had grown up in to a condition that would be condemned for the toxic waste and filth lying around. It is hard to believe that alcohol could actually take a person from where he was to a place like this and that he had changed his tolerance for this type of behavior to one of acceptance of this low of a quality of life.
There was barely a path through the house with literally piles and piles of garbage sitting around. Empty food containers, open cans of soup partially gone, garbage everywhere ... it was truly disgusting. He had put carpet in the kitchen for some odd reason and apparently had experienced a grease fire by the stove which had been put out by a blanket which was still stuck to the carpet and had never been cleaned up. Who knows how long it had been there?
As I picked up the garbage in the living room, I was repeatedly startled by many large mice that had been living in the garbage. I eventually took out over 40 large garbage bags full of trash just to reach a point of being able to walk through the house.
When I reached the kitchen area, I opened the cupboards to start throwing away the old boxes of cake mix and other boxed food items. The top shelf was lined with these types of boxes. I was shocked when I started grabbing boxes to throw away to find that they were all empty! Mice had eaten the backs of the boxes and the contents. Mice had taken over the home that I had grown up in!
Remember the statement about having a dog? Well, he was a large dog similar in size to a German shepherd. The dog had made the second story of the house (where my former bedroom was), the place to go to the bathroom. The entire upstairs of the home was filled with dog feces, and the carpet was obviously soaked with urine. The house smelled so bad that you could hardly breathe. I had to wear a mask to help with the smell and rubber gloves to be sure nothing got on my hands. It was the saddest, most embarrassing and humiliating moment of my life. I am once again left speechless of the deterioration of the quality of life due to the addiction to alcohol.
I had been told by my attorney that I did not have to do anything with the house. I could just go in, get anything I wanted, and walk away.......but I couldn't. For some reason, I felt like I had an obligation to at least clean it up a little so it wasn't so hard to handle what his life had become. I still, to this day, cannot imagine how this could have happened to him. It is simply unbelievable.
The next day, I took my wife and my two oldest children to the house to show them what can happen to a person if they become involved in the use of alcohol or any addictive drug. I spent time with them explaining the details of what had happened and how alcohol had ruined the life of such a wonderful, good person. While these young boys are now grown and are on their own, they still have memories of this issue and understand the negative impact that addiction to any drug can have on a person's life.
During the cleanup of the house, I filled over 40 of the largest leaf-type garbage bags with garbage and filled at least four large metal dumpsters with junk that had accumulated in the house. I spent as much time crying when cleaning up as I did just working. The entire time I was at the house, I was in complete astonishment of the condition everything was in. I still cannot get over how bad it was.
Chapter Three
THE FAMILY
This house had absolutely no resemblance to the home I had grown up in ... once a home with loving people and an organized, clean environment. Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, Halloween, Fourth of July, Labor Day, Memorial Day and all other holiday celebrations of happiness and joy couldn't possibly have been held in this same home with the same people.....it just is not possible. From my perspective, this represented a disaster that I did not expect.
Our family was a simple, traditional family of a mother, father and two children. We had some other family members who lived in the same small community in the 1960's and early 1970's. They all moved away at various points, and we remained there. In the aftereffects of the addiction to alcohol, my mother has remarried and moved away, and both of us children have moved away as well. When my father passed away, he was the only family member left in the small community; hence, the mention in his (upcoming) notes about being lonely.
We were typical from the standpoint of participating in extracurricular activities, such as band, baseball, football and basketball. My parents attended many, if not all of the games and always supported us in the things we wanted to participate in.
After a game, it was typical to go to the bar to see Dad before going home. Whether an away game or a home game, whether it was 9 p.m. or 11 p.m., when the game was over, when the bus returned to town, I could almost always find him there. Amazingly, even though I spent a good portion of my life at the bar, I have never been a "drinker." Whether consciously or sub-consciously, I just never developed a desire for drinking or for being inebriated. I'm not saying that I have never taken a drink of alcohol, but I am saying that I have no interest in making it a habit.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from From A Child's Perspectiveby Lars P. Hersom Copyright © 2012 by Lars P. Hersom. Excerpted by permission of Balboa Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
