Breaking the Chains, Facing the Ghosts, Changing the Story of Generational Alcoholism

Because of booze, I almost missed my opportunity to rewrite our family's story, and, ultimately, heal our family's legacy.

Photo by Clovis Wood Photography on Unsplash

I’m not drinking alcohol today. I didn’t drink yesterday. I have no idea if I will drink tomorrow. I have never been to an AA – Alcoholics Anonymous – meeting, although I know it’s 17 months since my last drink. So, what’s the big deal? Hang on…

I love Mel Robbins. More specifically, I love the Mel Robbins Podcast. Several of my clients adore Mel Robbins and turned me on to her show, and this week Mel interviewed author and coach Rachel Hart, titled Change Your Relationship With Alcohol - How to Control your Urge to Drink. You should listen.

Driving home from Trader Joe’s, listening to Mel and Rachel, I realized that I had finally taken the advice I’ve counseled my clients for years: To change your life, you need to change your story. And sadly, my story since childhood is wrapped around booze.

Levittown, PA, a Philadelphia suburb. I smoked my first cigarette behind Walter S. Miller Elementary School when I was eight. My parents smoked several packs a day and drank a bunch, too. By nighttime, when they were too incoherent to notice, I grabbed a few cigarettes right before their eyes. I hated the effects of their drinking, but I loved smoking. Although I became an athlete, I also hung out with kids like me. Kids from broken homes who were also abused, neglected, and demeaned. Neighbor parents and teachers labeled us juvenile delinquents, which for some reason, felt noble.

When he was home, my father hid his liquor around the house. My brother and I would run to our bedroom window to watch my father hunt for his bottle, sneaking into the backyard bushes, thinking no one was watching him. Another time, early in the morning, while I was taking out the trash, my father’s head popped up after hiding his bottle under the driver’s seat in his blue Corvair. With no outward evidence of surprise, Dad looked straight at me with a look that said, “Don’t you dare say a fucking word, or you know what will happen,” and then, like a rodent escaping into his burrow, disappeared under the dashboard. I never said a word.

On the verge of my parent’s acrimonious divorce, I was kicked out of my house at 17. Homeless for a while, I hung out with kids mostly older than me. Not everyone smoked, but everyone drank—a lot. Weed was prevalent, but because it was illegal, it wasn’t celebrated like booze.

For several years, I didn’t drink. Too stark a reminder of what I found as a kid returning home at the end of the day. I grew to hate the smell of scotch breath, slurred words, passed-out half-naked parents, violent threats, inappropriate sexual innuendos, and parental authority from someone exercising corporal punishment while hopelessly inebriated. Drunk parents fucking suck.

When I was 20, I got a job at a radio station and moved to Des Moines, Iowa. After enough time and distance from my parents, I quit smoking and started drinking. “Not like them,” I told myself, and that became true. Now I started developing the habit of drinking like me. Too much, on weekends, mixed with Valium. Not good.

Two years later, I kicked Valium. One year later, I moved to Kansas City to work at the Midwest’s leading Rock and Roll radio station, KY102. Every day was a sex, drugs, and rock and roll party. I skipped the drugs and replaced them with booze. New Year’s Eve. Small dive bar. Sat with another guy I worked with and discovered Boilermakers, a shot of bourbon followed by a glass of beer. One after the other. Midnight, last call, one more Boilermaker, and I drove home. In a snowstorm. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Woke up the next morning and couldn’t find my glasses. Did I drive home without my glasses? No, I found them, but what an asshole move.

And that’s the way I drank. Somehow I convinced myself that my drinking was cool. Drunk at a party, made out with someone I didn’t know, maybe missed the toilet when I peed, said foolish things to people I should have cared about, and then drank and drove. “No, no, I’m okay,” I would say, and here’s the sad part, I thought I was.

Moved to New York City. Worked at a television network. Started drinking martinis. And Old Fashioneds. Pinã Coladas, Manhattans and Cosmopolitans. And wine. Aperitifs to cocktails to wine to after-dinner drinks. I rationalized, “At least I don’t do cocaine like some friends.” Thank God I wasn’t like my parents.

Left the network and started a public relations firm. Hired young adults who worked hard and played hard. Plus, many clients from out of town acted like college freshmen when they came to New York City.

“Show us a good time,” they would say, and I obliged. I tried to hide the amount I drank, and when I came home liquored up, I told my wife, Candace, that I only had a few drinks and it was my job to keep our clients happy. Now I had become a liar and a bullshitter. Happy Hours. Celebrating a new client. Rationalizing a lost client. Hosting retainer clients. Holidays. Promotions. Birthdays. Fuck it, the day ends in Y; let’s have a few to blow off steam. I always paid, and everyone acted like they loved me. Thank God I was popular, not like my parents.

For the first half of my children’s life, we raised them on Park Avenue in New York City. Wonderful private schools and all the perks of privilege. I was so proud that I had taught my children how to make the perfect martini. Antique silver martini shaker from London, freshly frozen filtered ice cubes, the best vodka, Italian vermouth, Spanish queen olives, and heavy Waterford Crystal martini glasses from Ireland. It was a fun production, and wasn’t I the good parent refusing them a sip of the intoxicating concoction we had just created?

What the fuck was I thinking? Did I teach my children to fish? Did I teach them how to play ball? Ice skate? Throw a Frisbee? Did I teach my children a foreign language or a craft? Did I teach them time management? Did I help them with their math? Did I take them to religious training at the temple or church? No, I taught my children to order bagels, hail a taxicab, and make martinis. 

I didn’t know it, but Candace was fixing to leave me. I was blind to her torment. She’d had it. Two young kids, exhausted, trying to juggle the household, her aging parents, and me. Me and all my baggage. Times were tough. We were over-extended. And I drank to checkout.

One night, after celebrating a friend’s 40th birthday, I woke up to go to the bathroom, and this feeling swept over me. I had lost the taste for alcohol. It was strange and freeing. I chose not to drink. Not a drop. I got therapy, rebuilt our marriage, reconnected with the kids, closed the business, and moved out to our little cottage on the eastern end of Long Island. I was gardening and started my book.  For five years, I didn’t drink. And then, one hot summer day, in Washington, D.C., at the Hay Adams Hotel, I wanted a martini. A cold vodka martini. It tasted so good. And like that, I was drinking again.

By now, we were living in Sag Harbor, New York—the Hamptons. Drinking was part of our culture. You never know how many friends you have until you live in the Hamptons.

Cocktails by the pool. Beers after clamming. Wine at the beach. Charity events with designer booze. And like before, I drank and drove. Often with my family in the car. Candace would ask if I wanted her to drive. I made enough of a scene that she backed down, and I drove home. Thank you, Lord, for looking out for us. And shame, shame, shame on me.

I was so proud of myself, often saying, “I drink responsibly. My children have never seen me drunk.” Liar. Yes, they had, I just wasn’t wasted, slurring my words, throwing tantrums, or hurting people. “Thank God,” I deluded myself, thinking, “I’m just a little tipsy, unlike my parents.”

Candace stopped drinking before me. She was never a heavy drinker and decided to be healthy and stopped. My favorite son, Connor, went to college in Massachusetts and never moved back home. Favorite daughter, Molly, went off to college in Pennsylvania and did come back home. Still, with little opportunity for a professional career in the Hamptons, she moved to Washington, D.C. Empty nest, two dogs, and too many opportunities ahead to retire; in the summer of 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, Candace and I moved to Austin, Texas.

Shit, I felt alone. My family’s universe no longer revolved around me. Candace returned to her art as a contemporary painter, her childhood love. Connor spent six years at a social media company, met his fabulous wife, Nina, moved to another social media company, earned his MBA, and now works in Austin at a large tech company. They recently gave us a beautiful grandson, Jack. Molly stayed in DC with her incredible boyfriend, Joey, and will be married in September.

July 2021, Candace flew to DC to spend a week with Molly. I got up the courage and dialed into my first ACA meeting. For an hour, I heard similar origin stories, with many folks revealing they were also in AA, The Beverage Program. “I'm glad that’s not my problem,” I thought. “I’m not addicted to the drink.”

I read The Body Keeps Score, Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Dr. Bessel van der Kolk. I began regularly attending ACA meetings. I read and reread the Laundry List, 14 Traits of an Adult Child of an Alcoholic, The Problem, The Solution, and The ACA 12 Steps. 

My God. 

I, like millions of other children who grew up in alcoholic and severely dysfunctional families, became emotionally arrested, suppressing what should have been a normal, loving childhood. Instead, we created inauthentic personas and belief systems to survive this hell; physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Today, we are adults stuck in childhood trauma and internal, excruciating pain, trying to navigate our lives with whatever coping mechanisms we adopted as children, which didn’t work then, and certainly doesn’t work now. For me, I drank.

It sounds so simplistic and reductive, yet I am, we are, suffering from PTSD.

February 5, 2021. Our neighbors had us to dinner. Candace didn’t drink, I did. Mojitos, or was it Margaritas? I don’t remember. Then wine. Lots of wine. And then drunk. Not stupid drunk, just not sober. Again. 

This time, something snapped. I am never going to heal, I am never going to claim my authenticity, and I am never going to feel good about myself if I continue drinking. And with that reality, I stopped.

I downloaded the app Sober Sidekick. I upped my prayers and meditation. After 30+ years, I started training again in Seido karate. I began therapy (again). And I sat down individually with Candace and each of my children, asking for reconciliation and their forgiveness, using the traditional Hawaiian Ho’oponopono Prayer: “I am so sorry. Please forgive me. I love you. Thank you.”

I loved Dive Bars. I loved making cocktails. I loved visiting our friends, Marc and Agnes Lurton, at their vineyard, Chateau Reynier, in Bordeaux, France. I loved dry white wines and dense, meaty reds. I loved Austin-based craft beers, Kentucky bourbon, and premium potato vodkas. I loved saying that my first drink in the evening helped take the edges off the day’s corners. And I was so proud that I didn’t day drink, tailgate, pregame, hurt anybody, or get addicted. But I was full of shit. I was running from my demons. And now, it’s time to face my ghosts and stop this con. Or, more accurately, now it’s time to start. New. Fresh. Clean. Sober. And yes, scared. Frightened. Sad for my stupid mistakes. Angry that I came so close to ruining a perfectly wonderful marriage and nearly destroying a relationship with my children.

My mother was a holocaust survivor. My father, I suspect, was either gay or gender-conflicted. Regardless, they, too, had miserable childhoods, growing up to become miserable adults. My parents drank for myriad reasons; the results were, and still are, generationally devastating. Now for me, I choose to break the dysfunctional chain of the past and begin creating a new reality filled with love, compassion, kindness, peace, tenderness, harmony, fellowship, laughter, happiness, and joy. 

I am 530 days without alcohol. I changed my family’s story. I broke the chain. I am happy and alive. I am not going to drink today. That’s the best I can do.

Robbie Vorhaus

Robbie Vorhaus is a heart-centered critical issues advisor, supporting global leaders to successfully navigate consequential crises, reputational issues, and communications challenges. Robbie is a media contributor, best-selling author, entrepreneur, ordained minister, and LGBTQ-friendly wedding officiant based in Austin, Texas. He is happily married to the artist, Candace Connors Vorhaus.

Resources

Dana Leigh Lyons - Sober Soulful Substack - Someone dedicated to our path. You’ll want to hug her.

Alcoholics Anonymous - The one and only.

Sober Sidekick - Awesome sobriety app founded by Chris Thompson, a wonderful human being.

Mel Robbins - Fabulous human, must-listen podcast, curses like a pro.

Rachel Hart - If you want to take a break from booze, Rachel’s your gal.

The Body Keeps Score, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma, by Bessel van der Kolk M.D.

Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Families - If you suffered any trauma in childhood, ACA is worth checking out.

Seido Karate

Sun Dragon Martial Arts - My wonderful dojo in Austin, TX

PTSD Self-Assessment - A resource to consider if you suspect you may be suffering from PTSD.

Chateau Reynier - 122-Year-Old classic vineyard in Grezillac, in Bordeaux’s Entre-Deux-Mers region, run by our friends Marc, Agnes, and Pauline Lurton.