A special Thanks
		I would like to thank John Rzeznik for his article in Teen people in April. I know many of you would not care about this but I do. I agree with him when he says alcoholism in an actual illness not a character flaw. I know this from experiance and can relate to MANY of the things he states in his article. For one as I grew up both of my parents were alcoholics (to this day they still drink way too much). When they got drunk however they were both two totally different people. My dad would get violent. Which usually ended up with him beating up me or my brother Steve. He had broken my brother's leg, thrown a 20 gallen fish tank on him, putting holes in the walls. My brother would end up with crutches and black eyes only because he would fight back. I was too afraid to firght back. I would often get locked in closets for hours or thrown down my cellar stairs. I remember the worst night was when I just broke a glass my dad flipped on me and threw me down the stairs and locked me there for the night. I slept on the stairs looking up towards the door at the cracks where the light peeped through until I fell asleep. I wouldn't go down there for a year afterwards I was so scared. It wasn't this bad and sometimes it was worse like when my brother and my dad had knives at eachother. But it hasn't happend for years only until my brother got bigger than my dad so my dad didn't pick on him only me. Butthe last time he did my brother beat the shit out of him so hard and said if my dad ever touched me again he would kill him. My mom on the other hand is untolerable. I remeber (like John said in his article he also had to do) I had to drag her in her room and dress her and put her to bed. I was six years old. She also would scream like a little kid not wanting to go to bed. It was sick. They would throw huge parties and I remember I would wake up ( usually for some reason my mom and dad would get in a fight and my mom would be so drunk not even caring and take over my bed making me sleep on the floor) we would wake up after these parties and there would be people sprawled all over out living room, backyard, people who we didn't know and our parents didn't know. And every morning it would be me and my brother who would go pick up the beer cans in the yard because our parents were too hung over to do it themselves. Like I said earlier whoever doesn't realize that alcolism is an illness it really is. I'm sure my parents would have loved to prevented it in their lives earlier, but they were young parents,who never finished high school and they never grew up. Alcoholism resulted in them not being able to keep a job at small places and we would end up having my grandparents buy us grocery's and buying all our clothes at the salvation army. But now they have cleaned their act up a little bit my mom went back to college and is doing great. They both have pretty good jobs and they get by ok. They still drink a lot but have quieted down a bit. And also like John said when he smells whiskey it sends shivers down his spine. I can say the same here. Again thank you John wherever you are for sharing that article. I wish I could only thank you in person. Thanks for making me realize there's more people out there who went through the same ordeal. if you want to read John's article from teen people click here