My life among alcoholics - Addiction, alcoholic, co-dependencies, divorce, illegitimate children, suizide, psychotherapies, self-help group E-Book

Rolf Horst

• Herausgeber: tredition
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 73

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

I have considered for a very long time whether I am writing another book about the problems and experiences in a family in which – also in the area – alcoholic, co-dependencies, divorce, illegitimate children and suicides are extremely widespread. In my first book on this topic "Inherited trauma – lived addiction" I have already told a part of my life story. In the present book, I report, not in chronological order, about the experiences with my addicted parents, siblings, relatives and my first wife. I dedicate a part of my time in a self-help group in which relatives were also welcome. I tell of my add to, the new foundation of a community and my exit. Furthermore, I report on my different psychotherapies and who or what helped me find my way again or better at all

Leseprobe

Rolf Horst

My life among alcoholics

Our neighbour had to go to the hospital for suspicion of meningitis and asked us whether we could take care of her dog named Wusel. Since we have a cat and a dog, Wusel couldn't go into our flat. So in the morning at six o'clock a round with our dog, one with Wusel. In total, we made five courses with the older dog.

That would have been well over a longer period of time if Wusel had not always done her big business – unfortunately often with diarrhoea – in her owners flat.

I managed the first morning somehow and cleaned up the mess, despite the urge to gag, with wet wipes. On the second day I almost vomited myself in the flat. I got a headache – unfortunately I noticed very late that it was a migraine attack. On the third day, the memories of my childhood came up with me. How was that the same? My mother was visiting the neighbourhood. My father was drunk in his bed and threw up. As a twelve to thirteen-year-old boy, I cleaned and washed him. I would have liked to vomit myself. And it was precisely this feeling that Wusel was shaken up again.

Rolf Horst

My life

among

alcoholics

 

Biographical narrative

 

The author: Rolf Horst was born in Bremen in 1960. He lives with his wife to a dog and a cat, both of whom come from animal welfare, near a small north German town. Nieke Horst, today 60, is Asperger Autist, Studied German Studies, French, Adult Education and Sport, practiced Japanese Rinzai-Zen along with the monastery in Japan for many years and, with her husband, developed her way of life of silence, simplicity and structure, which makes it possible to live on the edge of an abandoned, ignorant neurotypical society.

© 2025 Rolf Horst

ISBN Softcover:       978-3-384-60930-4ISBN Hardcover:       978-3-384-60931-1ISBN E-Book:       978-3-384-60932-8 

Printing and distribution on behalf of the author:tredition GmbH, Heinz-Beusen-Stieg 5, 22926 Ahrensburg, Germany.

The work, including its parts, is protected by copyright. The author is responsible for the content. Any utilization is not permitted without its consent. The publication and distribution are on behalf of the author to achieve under: tredition GmbH, Department "Impressumservice", Heinz-Beusen-Stieg 5, 22926 Ahrensburg, Germany.

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Prologue

I have considered for a very long time whether I am writing another book about the problems and experiences in a family in which – also in the area – alcoholic, co-dependencies, divorce, illegitimate children and suicides are extremely widespread. In my first book on this topic "Inherited trauma – lived addiction" I have already told a part of my life story. In the present book, I report, not in chronological order, about the experiences with my addicted parents, siblings, relatives and my first wife. I dedicate a part of my time in a self-help group in which relatives were also welcome. I tell of my add to, the new foundation of a community and my exit. Furthermore, I report on my different psychotherapies and who or what helped me find my way again or better at all.

I would like to thank my wife Nieke, who has always been there for me for over twenty years.

Seeks? Alcoholics, drunker or drinkers? According to my family, only the "homeless" from the train station were affected by this, but not our father.

Addiction is a gradual process that is usually not perceived by the personal environment and the person concerned does not know what to accuse them of. Alcoholics, I? I don't need that and can stop drinking at any time!

Many others are impacted by a person's addiction disease: partner, children, friends, relatives, neighbours, employers, health insurance companies, clinics, society.

It is the family members in particular who mostly adapt to the condition of the alcohol patient – co-dependency is called. As the son of alcoholic parents, I only understood this when I deal with the addiction - I myself have no disposition to addictive, my first psychotherapist confirmed that. But I had been married to a wet alcoholic for a few years.

Alcohol was always present in my parents' home. No matter whether in a liquid form on the table or as a replacement for brain fluid in the head. Alcohol influenced everything and everyone. Also, me as a child, only I didn't notice that back then. As well as? All adults participated and so it was completely normal for me. I couldn't imagine that it had been different in any family. Beer was part of everyday life. There was always a bottle or a full glass of it in the flat somewhere. And after all, beer was not alcohol – so they thought in the 1970s and unfortunately sometimes today. It was also normal for my parents to pour brandy in their breakfast coffee at the weekend. If I still had some, the thought of it would now be afraid of the neck hair as they did in my childhood. My father drove trucks and was travelling all over North-Western Germany. He also drank during working hours. Whenever he took a break, he ate a little something and drank his beer.

A box with twenty bottles then had to be fetched for the weekend, and it usually didn't last long. On Friday evening there was a map evening when my parents took turns playing with a neighbouring couple at our place and at theirs. Of course always with beer and often enough with a grain schnapps. There was always an occasion – but actually it didn't need it – to get a bottle out of the basement or from the fridge.

And often enough, his beer did not get along with the already little food he consumed. At some point, my father had been removed two thirds of the stomach because of his stomach ulcers, and this led to a difficult absorption and processing of the firm food. You can rinse with a beer if it only stays with a beer. But in the course of one evening, a sixth or more.

And the more my father had drunk, the more he overestimated his knowledge, strength, and his perseverance or stamina. He was born in 1925 and as a very young soldier in the second World War.

After it, he was no longer accessible for everything new and the "post-traumatic stress disorder" as a recognized clinical picture was not yet available. The German army has only been researching since the 1990s.

So how to deal with the trauma experienced? What to do when the memories and the terrible pictures are coming back?

Drink them away, drink so much until everything blurs in the head and the past only waves around in the fog. But what kind of future was that? Nobody thought about it.

Now and then drunk, that happens in every family, well and, that's why you are far from being an alcoholic. After all, he is not a bum from the train station. I got such answers from both my parents and my siblings when I had once again dared to talk about these unspeakable conditions in our family.

When the father was drunk, he always told the same war stories. Otherwise, neither his experiences nor that of my mother, who had to flee from Silesia with her mother and half-brother, were topic at our home.

When my mother's half-brother came to visit with his family, they all drunk and it got loud. He also drank more and more than he could tolerate, and then, drunk as he was, he tried to play with us children. It didn't take long and there were tears and shouts, mostly with his son and later also with his daughter.

If he was drunk, it always exaggerated. And he was often drunk. Whether with grandma, at home, with my parents or in the beer garden while drinking boots. Although he was my godfather, I didn't know anything about him. Not what he worked and not what thoughts tortured him.

But he suffered, just like my father and mother. Through the war, they all had traumatic experiences, regardless of whether they were on the front or on the run from their homeland. In any case, he was the first to put an end to his life through suicide.