March 4, 2025 • 23 mins
A candid exploration of the complexities of childhood shapes our character and future pathways. Our discussion showcases the interplay of love, addiction, and healing, revealing thought-provoking insights into coping with difficult family dynamics.
• Acknowledgment of the complexities surrounding childhood experiences
• Exploration of memories—both the joyful and the painful
• Discussion on the impacts of addiction on both individuals and families
• Insights on resilience and transformation through adversity
• Importance of seeking help and recognizing addiction as a challenge
• Encouragement for listeners to embrace their experiences for healing
If you need someone to talk to about your struggles, don't hesitate—there are help lines available and people who care.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to another episode of Two Generations One
Mic.
Please, guys, if you haven'tdone it, follow us on every
single social media platformYouTube, tiktok, instagram,
facebook.
The handle is at TwoGenerations One Mic, just like
our logo, and also follow usalong to keep interacting with
us, and we really appreciate allthe support.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Yeah, it's actually totally free.
So that's good, and we want theideas, because people always
hit us up privately and say youshould do an episode about this,
you should do an episode aboutthat.
If there's something you wantto hear us do an episode about,
we're more than happy to lookinto that and enjoy and engage
with you in the conversation.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Yeah, absolutely.
Today's episode is not such afun one, but I think we thought
about talking about this.
I think the other day we weretalking about rough childhoods
and I got to say I am lucky.
And I got to say I am lucky,I'm one of those lucky kids that
(01:06):
I think I had a pretty normalchildhood per se.
I mean, I was the only child,so I really never had to deal
with siblings or anything else.
(01:28):
My dad was a great dad, my mom alittle bit of a rough mom, like
Latin crazy mom, but stillnothing, nothing too crazy, and
at least she's consistent.
Yeah, at least she's still.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
she's still a crazy Latin mom, so I can vouch that
she still treats you like you're10 years old.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
I mean she, I don't have kids, so she says that when
you have kids they're alwaysyour babies until the end.
I guess I don't know.
But yeah, like I think I had apretty normal childhood.
I mean I was bullied in school,but that's a whole other story,
and we were talking about thatand after all these years we've
(01:58):
been together, it came up.
You don't talk a lot about it,but you talk enough about it
that I'm always wondering howwas your childhood growing up
the way you did?
Speaker 2 (02:14):
well, you know I don't talk about it a lot.
I don't even really talk aboutit with friends, or you know
probably a lot of friends thatlisten or watch, that wouldn't
even know this about mychildhood growing up, but it was
not, especially my earlierchildhood.
It was not pleasant.
So I was adopted when myadopted parents were in their
(02:36):
late 40s, early 50s, you know,and they adopted me as a baby.
Um, and they adopted me as ababy and you know I've heard all
kinds of stories about you know, like I, I searched forever to
find out.
You know my real parents arebiological parents and all that
stuff and, um, you know, allthat entailed and that wasn't a
lovely thing either.
(02:56):
You know that I that I ended upfinding out kind of what, uh,
the biological mother was allabout.
But the adopted parents, youknow they were older and so you
know and I'm old now.
So it's like you know, whenthey had me or when they got me
(03:17):
adopted as a baby and I don'teven know how legal that was at
the time it's like they justpaid for the ladies to have the
baby and they did some thing andthey paid the bills and this
and that and the other.
They had some lawyer drafted thething and I don't know if it
was just like a thing she soldme.
I have no idea how it went downand at that time you're talking
about the early 60s that thingswere different, people didn't
(03:42):
keep track of things and it wasjust a different time.
But I'm not saying that myadoptive parents didn't love me,
of course my father I alwayswas very much closer to my
father.
My mother and I were not reallyclose when I was younger,
growing up, and there was a lotof reason for that.
(04:03):
You know they she was.
Uh, when I was young, she was araging alcoholic.
I mean a raging alcoholic andit was bad.
So I remember, cause I grew upin Texas and you know they
didn't sell um, they didn't sellwhiskey.
They still don't, I think theystill don't they.
They still don't sell alcoholon Sundays.
It's like Jesus.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Christ, what year is it?
Oh, they don't.
Yeah, no, no, they don't.
I just remember that I was likewhat year are we in?
Only beer and wine?
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Yeah, only beer and wine in Texas and the stupid
liquor laws they have here.
But anyway so—.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Hey, you have to praise the Jesus to do that.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
So anyway, so we—on Sundays they would literally—my
mother would—I.
I remember she drank OldGrandad, which is a whiskey.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
That was the name of the whiskey.
That's the whiskey Old Grandad.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
I think.
I think they still sell it, Idon't know, but anyway, we used
to go on Sundays to thebootlegger is what it was called
.
He would sell her whiskey on aSunday, and so she would go
there to get her what was thatit's called a bootlegger.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Like a hidden.
It's called a bootlegger.
Like a hidden.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Yeah, it was like a hidden thing.
We had to go there and theywould sell, but was it like a
store?
No, it wasn't like a speakeasy.
It wasn't like the coolspeakeasies of now.
No, it wasn't a store, it wasjust a guy's house.
He would just pull up to hishouse.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
It was like a dealer right.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Like a drug dealer.
Yeah, he on Sundays.
That was way back then.
God, you know that was crazy,but that was just one of the
things there.
But she would get so drunk andmy dad would drink too, but not
to the point.
He was trying to always stopher from going too far, to slow
down and she would just getcrazy.
(05:41):
And I remember, I have thesehorrible memories of being I was
probably five, six years old,but I still remember it Five,
six, seven years old where shewould get into fights and like,
oh, you're not going to go getme, and she would literally pull
giant cleavers or knives out ofthe thing and go after him and
she tried to stab him one night.
(06:02):
I mean, I'm a little kid justwatching this all go on in front
of me.
He's trying to calm her down,she's swinging a cleaver at him.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
So she was not the alcoholic that just fell asleep.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
No, she was the violent.
Let's fight alcoholic.
That's what she was.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
And so she would.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
She tried to like attack my father and he was
trying to like fend her off andshe fell down, broke her arm
that night.
There were times where she hadalcohol poisoning twice.
She almost died.
We had to go to the hospital.
She was in the hospital for aweek because she had alcohol
poisoning.
It was so bad.
When I was still in junior highI had made the Honor Society and
(06:39):
it was the ceremony of beinginducted into the Honor Society,
and I remember I didn't get togo to that ceremony because she
was so drunk on the couch that Ithought she was going to
overdose and I was taken care of.
She was throwing up on thecouch all day so I couldn't even
go to school.
I had to just stay home andtake care of her.
So I missed my ceremony becauseI was taking care of her.
Also, when I was about seven toeight years old, I remember
(07:03):
going to the beach with her inGalveston and a bunch of her
friends.
My dad wasn't there with us andwe went to a camp on the beach
in Galveston.
She got so drunk at the thingshe just walked into the ocean
in the pitch black oh my goshand I'm walking down the beach
just crying and screaming.
I think she's dead oh god, and Icouldn't find anybody to help
me because I didn't know.
She just walked into the oceanin the dark and and came back
(07:27):
later.
But it was like I mean that's alot for a six-year-old to have
to process and uh and that wasrough.
There were a lot of those typeincidences that happened.
You want to know why I'm soclaustrophobic to this day.
Because when I was seven yearsold.
I didn't want to take a nap orsomething, and she was trying to
make me take a nap and Istarted crying.
(07:47):
But she was so drunk in themiddle of the afternoon that she
literally held me down with apillow over my head and my arms
and I couldn't breathe.
I thought I was going to die.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
But she had me trapped underneath the pillow to
make me shut up from crying.
Yeah, Now, until sometimes,until this day.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
sometimes I lean on top of you and you're like no,
no no, no, no, Like, if I'munderneath the covers and I've
how many times I've told youthat you come and jump on me
while I'm under the covers I'llthrow you off the bed because, I
have this fear that that'sgoing to happen to me again, and
so you know it's.
You know I was never a.
You know woe is me.
You know.
You know I had this horriblething.
You know she that's, that's alot of the way she was growing
(08:24):
up when I was a kid and so shewouldn't go to the baseball
games and things like.
My dad was at every one of mybaseball games as a kid and all
that stuff always there andalways.
You know, my dad was alwaysaround and even though he worked
and everything else, he neverhit me.
My mother loved to get drunkand, you know, beat me with a
belt and things like that.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Well, my mother beat me too.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Yeah, but this was I don't know.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
And she wasn't even drunk, so I don't know what's
worse.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
I don't know it was a rough time, but you know, I
have to give her this is thatshe realized that she was what
she was doing.
It took her almost dyingseveral times and what was going
on, but she realized that whenI was a mid-teenager probably 15
(09:11):
, 16, something like that,Anyway, she went to AA and she
went to get help.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Or, as I call it, aa.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Yeah, anyway, she went to AA and she went to get
help, or as I call it, aa, yeah,aa, she went to AA, but she
went to AA yeah.
And she ended up.
You know I have to give it toher for having such a horrible
younger childhood.
That still affects me today.
You know some of those memoriesto by the time I was about 15,
(09:39):
for the rest of her life she wasan AA and she was sober for
30-something years and she endedup helping thousands of women
get off alcohol.
And ended up speaking atconventions for thousands of
women and that she helped andgot them sober and got them to
(10:01):
help their lives and changedtheir life.
And she was a completelydifferent person when she was
sober drunk, sober two differentpeople.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
Well, most people are like that.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
She continued to.
Basically, that was her penanceto not only get better, but to
help other people get away fromwhat she was trapped, and so I
was very familiar with AA andall that.
And I think maybe it was likewhen I was 14, 13, 14, maybe I'm
trying to think back becauseshe made us all jump in back,
(10:33):
because she made us all jump in.
So when you do that, there's AA, which for the alcoholic,
there's the Al-Anon, which isfor the spouse.
You go to meetings, the spousegoes to meetings.
My dad went to some of thosemeetings to learn how to deal
with that and then there'sAlateen.
So as teenagers we had our ownmeetings.
(10:53):
But remember, this is the 70s.
This is the early 1970s early tomid-1970s.
So we were in meetings withteenagers in a small little room
, smaller than this, andeverybody's smoking.
I'm like, oh, you've got to bekidding me.
You're all teenagers and you'resmoking in this tiny little
(11:13):
room with no windows.
Are you trying to kill me?
And it was like I would mymother's like why don't you go
into those meetings?
I don't know.
Because they're killing me withcancer.
I don't want to sit in thereand breathe their stupid
cigarette smoke.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Well, that's something that that's why you
hate.
But you know what?
Sorry to interrupt you.
So I it's very interestingbecause you grew up in a
household where both of yourparents smoked yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
With the windows closed.
Oh my God.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
And you hate smoking with a passion.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
I do.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Yet you grew up with an alcoholic mother, but you
still like to drink.
I do, Most people.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
Because I'm not an alcoholic.
You're an alcoholic or you'renot an alcoholic.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
No, but a lot of people that grow up with
alcoholic parents.
I've met people that they don'tdrink because they say, oh, I
grew up like looking at myparents or like my mother or
like a sibling or something,like an alcoholic like next to
them and they saw how that wasdestroying them, that they
really don't care about thealcohol.
(12:14):
But I mean also, she was notyour birth mom, so you could
have another trait from yourmom's side, which also had other
kind of addictions, I'mguessing.
Or we don't know that, becauseyou were adopted.
So is there like did they eversay, or was that a reason why
she was drinking?
Like you know, a lot ofalcoholics do it to get out of
(12:35):
reality, because at some pointthat's how they start and then
they just start building that up.
Was that something that shesaid I'm going to become an
alcoholic to escape something?
Or she was just all youremember is she's always been
drinking.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Well, first of all, if you're in that, they don't
say that AA doesn't teach youthat you don't just become an
alcoholic, it's a disease.
They say it's a disease andthat it was always hidden inside
her that she had this trait.
And again, remember, I saidthey were old, they were older,
so they met.
(13:11):
They had a great story.
Meeting.
I mean my parents met literallylike something you'd see in a
movie.
My dad was in.
This is my adopted parents.
But my dad was living in NewYork City at a high school with
five friends and Pearl Harborhappened and him and all his
friends went down and joined theArmy.
So he went to war, he fought inWorld War II and he met my
(13:37):
mother in the USO show.
She was a singer in the USO andso they were recording out.
Her and her brother recordedalbums.
There was all kinds of albums.
She was in the 1940s and 50s.
She was a big singer and artistand did all that stuff.
But I mean at that time theywere drinking a lot.
Back then in the 40s, 50s, 60sthey were pounding alcohol.
They were drinking a lot backthen in the 40s, 50s, 60s they
were pounding alcohol.
I remember everybody comingover and just everybody's, all
(13:57):
the adults just like watch MadMen.
They were just pounding thatalcohol so there wasn't a lot of
like governor on that.
So you know she had that andshe couldn't control it.
You know she I drink, yeah, Ido.
I don't have the thing where Ineed to drink like that, Like
(14:20):
will she wake up and need todrink as soon as she woke up?
Not necessarily no, but youknow she'd go from that to, you
know, just passed out drunk bymidday on the couch.
I mean, it was when I waslittle, yeah, but you know again
, the fights and the big fightsand everything were all at night
, like late night.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
I perceived as late night.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
I was like six or seven, so to me it was late
night, I have no idea.
But the again it's not all bad.
She did turn herself around andand and and got the help and
and changed her life.
She lived, ended up living.
She passed away.
Both of my parents passed awayin the same year.
My mother died when she was 85.
(15:02):
81 or 80, 81, I think.
And my uh, my father, he'd uh,not not to anyone.
She was 81 years old and so, um, she died and my father, uh,
passed away.
I moved my father in to livewith me and he passed away seven
months later.
But, uh, he was three yearsolder, so he was 83.
(15:23):
And this man again smoked mostof his life, had four heart
attacks, smoked from the time hewas a teenager all the way up
until the doctor was like quitsmoking, and he was still.
He already had four heartattacks.
He's still sneaking cigaretteshere and there, but he made it
through life like that.
And she actually had to stopsmoking because she had a brain
aneurysm in the 80s and so shehad to have brain surgery.
(15:44):
She made it through that.
So I mean, this womanphysically made it through a lot
of stuff.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
You would think that she would have died from
cirrhosis or something.
Right yeah, the liver.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
You would think so, but yeah, no, she didn't.
But you know, she physicallymade it through a lot of
different things.
But you know, I think if youhave an addiction it's an
important thing to seek help.
You know, I see a lot Identifyyeah identify the problem.
Yeah, that's what the otherthing is.
The first thing is identify.
You have a problem.
You have to realize that youcan't get help until you realize
you have a problem.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
And this is, I think, for everything right, like if
you feel like you're depressed.
I mean we're humans, right,like we have emotions, but
sometimes you have to identify,like, how depressed you are,
like seek help.
It's OK to seek help, like Itell you that all the time I
have we have our psychiatristsin Europe, right, that it's not.
(16:36):
It's not that you're crazy, butsometimes it makes a whole
difference between you got itafter COVID, you started having
panic attacks, right, and I toldyou please, let's go see the
psychiatrist and you were likeno, no, I don't want to be on
pills, I'm like babe, but it'snot normal that you're just
walking down the street andsuddenly you have a panic attack
(16:57):
and you're on some medicationthat helps you your anxiety and
panic attacks Like mine.
I also have anxiety with otherkind of depression-related
issues and I take medication forthat and it's okay.
I think it's important, like yousay, identify that you have a
problem and seek help because Icould be coping Instead of
(17:17):
taking my pills, I could becoping with alcohol.
That's what I was asking about,your mom.
A lot of people actually do notseek professional help and try
to cope with their issues, theirproblems or their depression
with alcohol or drugs oreverything else, and then you
become addicted to that Right,which is horrible.
I mean alcohol.
I can't, when you have ahangover like what would you
(17:41):
want to just keep going over andover and over with that?
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Yeah, I, I don't.
I don't't know if she wasdrinking because of issues.
I do know that she had.
Before she adopted me, she hadhad six miscarriages, but I
don't know.
Was she drinking to cope withthe fact that she was trying to
be a biological mother and couldnot get pregnant.
(18:04):
Or while she was pregnant.
All those times was she stilldrinking and smoking?
Speaker 1 (18:11):
And that triggered all that.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
I don't know.
I never ask about any of that.
I was way too young at the time.
I didn't ask any of thosequestions, but I mean, you look
back and you try to analyze it.
I don't know which one waswhich, but I certainly can
understand.
Like I said, I've never hadpanic attacks in my life and
after COVID Unless you were in aclosed space.
(18:33):
Yeah, unless I was in a closedspace.
You know, COVID rewired a lotof people's brains and bodies
and everything else, and soafter having COVID twice, that
was weird.
I remember like when it startedhappening to me we were living
in New York.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
And it happened once in our kitchen, in our apartment
.
But it also happened and Ithought, okay, well, maybe it's
in the apartment I just feltclosed in or whatever.
But then it happened in CentralPark.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Well, to be fair, that's a scary place with a lot
of scary people.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
No, but we were walking.
We loved the park.
We used to walk the park everyday with the puppies.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
That was in the middle of the day, the middle of
the day and we were justwalking.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
It was a beautiful day and we were walking under
some like terrace, portico, kindof thing.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Kind of like a tunnel .
Yeah, yeah, it wasn't even atunnel.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
No, it was like the wooden structure right, yeah,
like a structure by the lake,Right by the lake, and all of a
sudden it felt like thestructure was closing in on me.
It was freaking me out and Iwas like I'm not a person that
gets freaked out, I don't getscared with things and I don't
get freaked out over things andthat really I started.
It was like this weird feelingwhere it was closing in on me
(19:38):
and I'm like, oh my God, we'rehaving this panic attack here
again and again.
That never happened beforeCOVID.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Never happened to me ever before COVID.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
So, and again, that never happened before COVID,
never happened to me ever beforeCOVID.
So you know, that was the thingthat was so freaked out to me
and you got me on the medicationand I was like, okay, well,
yeah, I made you go through itbecause I saw you Every day.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
You were waking up and I could see the anxiety
filling you up and I was likethis is babe.
I love you with all my heartheart, but you're acting like a
lunatic.
I can't, I can't, I can't takethis.
You're not just not you and,and, and.
We took you to a psychiatristand, yeah, he said, yeah, like
you're having this pattern, andand again you could be fine
(20:20):
today and suffer from depressionnext year.
Like it's just chemicalimbalances in your brain.
That happens to everybody.
Right, it's a lot of studiesthat have to be done again about
our brain and chemicals in ourbrain, but I really I appreciate
that you listen to me and we'reon the medication now.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Yeah, I think if you have any kind of addiction or
any kind of problems or you'refeeling alone, suicidal,
whatever, please seek help.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
There are a lot of things that there's a lot of
help lines, a lot of help linesand stuff that you can call,
that don't even cost any money.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Just call and talk to someone.
Or, if you're call a friend,someone that's a true friend,
that will talk to you and helpyou and maybe help you get the
help that you need to get.
And I have a lot of peoplefriends of mine on Facebook and
people I know that have had todeal with alcohol issues and
have sought ways to, through AAor whatever their way is.
(21:17):
They've gotten sober and aredoing fine, doing fantastic,
they feel much better, having agreat life, and they didn't need
that.
So if that's you, then pleaseget the help you need.
But people have problems.
People can overcome thoseproblems and hopefully have a
better life, and that's what mymom ended up doing.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
And God bless your dad, babe.
Oh my gosh, I never met thatguy and I wish I would have met
Andrew.
But wow, like, pulled throughthat till the end and still
loved that woman after she triedto kill him several times when
she was drunk, and the fact thatshe died because she was gone.
(21:57):
Yeah, Like that's.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
Well, he knew her since, like I said, since, World
War II, since World.
War II and you know, his lastfew months of his life where he
would just.
I had a house in Dallas at thetime and he would just sit out
on my back porch and look at thepool and stare at the
waterfalls and just sit thereand just I could see it.
He was miserable, you know.
He'd spent 50-something yearswith this woman and like she was
(22:22):
gone and so he didn't know whatto do at that point and he
passed away, like I said, sevenmonths later.
But it was like it was aninteresting story, an
interesting time and, like Isaid, it's a great lucky for me
that they adopted me, becauseGod knows what would have
happened to me if they didn't.
But so everything is a gamble.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
It didn't turn me into a serial killer, it didn't
turn me into a lunatic A littlebit of a lunatic sometimes Shit
happens in this world, and if ithappens, it happens.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
So, anyway, speak of happening.
This is happening every Tuesdaymorning, 6 am, central Standard
Time a brand-new episode.
They're not all depressingHopefully this wasn't that
depressing, and it's on YouTube.
Subscribe for free.
Also every other podcastplatform we are there.
Welcome to another episode of Two Generations One
Mic.
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Speaker 2 (00:27):
Yeah, it's actually totally free.
So that's good, and we want theideas, because people always
hit us up privately and say youshould do an episode about this,
you should do an episode aboutthat.
If there's something you wantto hear us do an episode about,
we're more than happy to lookinto that and enjoy and engage
with you in the conversation.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Yeah, absolutely.
Today's episode is not such afun one, but I think we thought
about talking about this.
I think the other day we weretalking about rough childhoods
and I got to say I am lucky.
And I got to say I am lucky,I'm one of those lucky kids that
(01:06):
I think I had a pretty normalchildhood per se.
I mean, I was the only child,so I really never had to deal
with siblings or anything else.
(01:28):
My dad was a great dad, my mom alittle bit of a rough mom, like
Latin crazy mom, but stillnothing, nothing too crazy, and
at least she's consistent.
Yeah, at least she's still.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
she's still a crazy Latin mom, so I can vouch that
she still treats you like you're10 years old.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
I mean she, I don't have kids, so she says that when
you have kids they're alwaysyour babies until the end.
I guess I don't know.
But yeah, like I think I had apretty normal childhood.
I mean I was bullied in school,but that's a whole other story,
and we were talking about thatand after all these years we've
(01:58):
been together, it came up.
You don't talk a lot about it,but you talk enough about it
that I'm always wondering howwas your childhood growing up
the way you did?
Speaker 2 (02:14):
well, you know I don't talk about it a lot.
I don't even really talk aboutit with friends, or you know
probably a lot of friends thatlisten or watch, that wouldn't
even know this about mychildhood growing up, but it was
not, especially my earlierchildhood.
It was not pleasant.
So I was adopted when myadopted parents were in their
(02:36):
late 40s, early 50s, you know,and they adopted me as a baby.
Um, and they adopted me as ababy and you know I've heard all
kinds of stories about you know, like I, I searched forever to
find out.
You know my real parents arebiological parents and all that
stuff and, um, you know, allthat entailed and that wasn't a
lovely thing either.
(02:56):
You know that I that I ended upfinding out kind of what, uh,
the biological mother was allabout.
But the adopted parents, youknow they were older and so you
know and I'm old now.
So it's like you know, whenthey had me or when they got me
(03:17):
adopted as a baby and I don'teven know how legal that was at
the time it's like they justpaid for the ladies to have the
baby and they did some thing andthey paid the bills and this
and that and the other.
They had some lawyer drafted thething and I don't know if it
was just like a thing she soldme.
I have no idea how it went downand at that time you're talking
about the early 60s that thingswere different, people didn't
(03:42):
keep track of things and it wasjust a different time.
But I'm not saying that myadoptive parents didn't love me,
of course my father I alwayswas very much closer to my
father.
My mother and I were not reallyclose when I was younger,
growing up, and there was a lotof reason for that.
(04:03):
You know they she was.
Uh, when I was young, she was araging alcoholic.
I mean a raging alcoholic andit was bad.
So I remember, cause I grew upin Texas and you know they
didn't sell um, they didn't sellwhiskey.
They still don't, I think theystill don't they.
They still don't sell alcoholon Sundays.
It's like Jesus.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Christ, what year is it?
Oh, they don't.
Yeah, no, no, they don't.
I just remember that I was likewhat year are we in?
Only beer and wine?
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Yeah, only beer and wine in Texas and the stupid
liquor laws they have here.
But anyway so—.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Hey, you have to praise the Jesus to do that.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
So anyway, so we—on Sundays they would literally—my
mother would—I.
I remember she drank OldGrandad, which is a whiskey.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
That was the name of the whiskey.
That's the whiskey Old Grandad.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
I think.
I think they still sell it, Idon't know, but anyway, we used
to go on Sundays to thebootlegger is what it was called
.
He would sell her whiskey on aSunday, and so she would go
there to get her what was thatit's called a bootlegger.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Like a hidden.
It's called a bootlegger.
Like a hidden.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Yeah, it was like a hidden thing.
We had to go there and theywould sell, but was it like a
store?
No, it wasn't like a speakeasy.
It wasn't like the coolspeakeasies of now.
No, it wasn't a store, it wasjust a guy's house.
He would just pull up to hishouse.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
It was like a dealer right.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Like a drug dealer.
Yeah, he on Sundays.
That was way back then.
God, you know that was crazy,but that was just one of the
things there.
But she would get so drunk andmy dad would drink too, but not
to the point.
He was trying to always stopher from going too far, to slow
down and she would just getcrazy.
(05:41):
And I remember, I have thesehorrible memories of being I was
probably five, six years old,but I still remember it Five,
six, seven years old where shewould get into fights and like,
oh, you're not going to go getme, and she would literally pull
giant cleavers or knives out ofthe thing and go after him and
she tried to stab him one night.
(06:02):
I mean, I'm a little kid justwatching this all go on in front
of me.
He's trying to calm her down,she's swinging a cleaver at him.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
So she was not the alcoholic that just fell asleep.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
No, she was the violent.
Let's fight alcoholic.
That's what she was.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
And so she would.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
She tried to like attack my father and he was
trying to like fend her off andshe fell down, broke her arm
that night.
There were times where she hadalcohol poisoning twice.
She almost died.
We had to go to the hospital.
She was in the hospital for aweek because she had alcohol
poisoning.
It was so bad.
When I was still in junior highI had made the Honor Society and
(06:39):
it was the ceremony of beinginducted into the Honor Society,
and I remember I didn't get togo to that ceremony because she
was so drunk on the couch that Ithought she was going to
overdose and I was taken care of.
She was throwing up on thecouch all day so I couldn't even
go to school.
I had to just stay home andtake care of her.
So I missed my ceremony becauseI was taking care of her.
Also, when I was about seven toeight years old, I remember
(07:03):
going to the beach with her inGalveston and a bunch of her
friends.
My dad wasn't there with us andwe went to a camp on the beach
in Galveston.
She got so drunk at the thingshe just walked into the ocean
in the pitch black oh my goshand I'm walking down the beach
just crying and screaming.
I think she's dead oh god, and Icouldn't find anybody to help
me because I didn't know.
She just walked into the oceanin the dark and and came back
(07:27):
later.
But it was like I mean that's alot for a six-year-old to have
to process and uh and that wasrough.
There were a lot of those typeincidences that happened.
You want to know why I'm soclaustrophobic to this day.
Because when I was seven yearsold.
I didn't want to take a nap orsomething, and she was trying to
make me take a nap and Istarted crying.
(07:47):
But she was so drunk in themiddle of the afternoon that she
literally held me down with apillow over my head and my arms
and I couldn't breathe.
I thought I was going to die.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
But she had me trapped underneath the pillow to
make me shut up from crying.
Yeah, Now, until sometimes,until this day.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
sometimes I lean on top of you and you're like no,
no no, no, no, Like, if I'munderneath the covers and I've
how many times I've told youthat you come and jump on me
while I'm under the covers I'llthrow you off the bed because, I
have this fear that that'sgoing to happen to me again, and
so you know it's.
You know I was never a.
You know woe is me.
You know.
You know I had this horriblething.
You know she that's, that's alot of the way she was growing
(08:24):
up when I was a kid and so shewouldn't go to the baseball
games and things like.
My dad was at every one of mybaseball games as a kid and all
that stuff always there andalways.
You know, my dad was alwaysaround and even though he worked
and everything else, he neverhit me.
My mother loved to get drunkand, you know, beat me with a
belt and things like that.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Well, my mother beat me too.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Yeah, but this was I don't know.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
And she wasn't even drunk, so I don't know what's
worse.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
I don't know it was a rough time, but you know, I
have to give her this is thatshe realized that she was what
she was doing.
It took her almost dyingseveral times and what was going
on, but she realized that whenI was a mid-teenager probably 15
(09:11):
, 16, something like that,Anyway, she went to AA and she
went to get help.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Or, as I call it, aa.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Yeah, anyway, she went to AA and she went to get
help, or as I call it, aa, yeah,aa, she went to AA, but she
went to AA yeah.
And she ended up.
You know I have to give it toher for having such a horrible
younger childhood.
That still affects me today.
You know some of those memoriesto by the time I was about 15,
(09:39):
for the rest of her life she wasan AA and she was sober for
30-something years and she endedup helping thousands of women
get off alcohol.
And ended up speaking atconventions for thousands of
women and that she helped andgot them sober and got them to
(10:01):
help their lives and changedtheir life.
And she was a completelydifferent person when she was
sober drunk, sober two differentpeople.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
Well, most people are like that.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
She continued to.
Basically, that was her penanceto not only get better, but to
help other people get away fromwhat she was trapped, and so I
was very familiar with AA andall that.
And I think maybe it was likewhen I was 14, 13, 14, maybe I'm
trying to think back becauseshe made us all jump in back,
(10:33):
because she made us all jump in.
So when you do that, there's AA, which for the alcoholic,
there's the Al-Anon, which isfor the spouse.
You go to meetings, the spousegoes to meetings.
My dad went to some of thosemeetings to learn how to deal
with that and then there'sAlateen.
So as teenagers we had our ownmeetings.
(10:53):
But remember, this is the 70s.
This is the early 1970s early tomid-1970s.
So we were in meetings withteenagers in a small little room
, smaller than this, andeverybody's smoking.
I'm like, oh, you've got to bekidding me.
You're all teenagers and you'resmoking in this tiny little
(11:13):
room with no windows.
Are you trying to kill me?
And it was like I would mymother's like why don't you go
into those meetings?
I don't know.
Because they're killing me withcancer.
I don't want to sit in thereand breathe their stupid
cigarette smoke.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Well, that's something that that's why you
hate.
But you know what?
Sorry to interrupt you.
So I it's very interestingbecause you grew up in a
household where both of yourparents smoked yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
With the windows closed.
Oh my God.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
And you hate smoking with a passion.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
I do.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Yet you grew up with an alcoholic mother, but you
still like to drink.
I do, Most people.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
Because I'm not an alcoholic.
You're an alcoholic or you'renot an alcoholic.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
No, but a lot of people that grow up with
alcoholic parents.
I've met people that they don'tdrink because they say, oh, I
grew up like looking at myparents or like my mother or
like a sibling or something,like an alcoholic like next to
them and they saw how that wasdestroying them, that they
really don't care about thealcohol.
(12:14):
But I mean also, she was notyour birth mom, so you could
have another trait from yourmom's side, which also had other
kind of addictions, I'mguessing.
Or we don't know that, becauseyou were adopted.
So is there like did they eversay, or was that a reason why
she was drinking?
Like you know, a lot ofalcoholics do it to get out of
(12:35):
reality, because at some pointthat's how they start and then
they just start building that up.
Was that something that shesaid I'm going to become an
alcoholic to escape something?
Or she was just all youremember is she's always been
drinking.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Well, first of all, if you're in that, they don't
say that AA doesn't teach youthat you don't just become an
alcoholic, it's a disease.
They say it's a disease andthat it was always hidden inside
her that she had this trait.
And again, remember, I saidthey were old, they were older,
so they met.
(13:11):
They had a great story.
Meeting.
I mean my parents met literallylike something you'd see in a
movie.
My dad was in.
This is my adopted parents.
But my dad was living in NewYork City at a high school with
five friends and Pearl Harborhappened and him and all his
friends went down and joined theArmy.
So he went to war, he fought inWorld War II and he met my
(13:37):
mother in the USO show.
She was a singer in the USO andso they were recording out.
Her and her brother recordedalbums.
There was all kinds of albums.
She was in the 1940s and 50s.
She was a big singer and artistand did all that stuff.
But I mean at that time theywere drinking a lot.
Back then in the 40s, 50s, 60sthey were pounding alcohol.
They were drinking a lot backthen in the 40s, 50s, 60s they
were pounding alcohol.
I remember everybody comingover and just everybody's, all
(13:57):
the adults just like watch MadMen.
They were just pounding thatalcohol so there wasn't a lot of
like governor on that.
So you know she had that andshe couldn't control it.
You know she I drink, yeah, Ido.
I don't have the thing where Ineed to drink like that, Like
(14:20):
will she wake up and need todrink as soon as she woke up?
Not necessarily no, but youknow she'd go from that to, you
know, just passed out drunk bymidday on the couch.
I mean, it was when I waslittle, yeah, but you know again
, the fights and the big fightsand everything were all at night
, like late night.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
I perceived as late night.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
I was like six or seven, so to me it was late
night, I have no idea.
But the again it's not all bad.
She did turn herself around andand and and got the help and
and changed her life.
She lived, ended up living.
She passed away.
Both of my parents passed awayin the same year.
My mother died when she was 85.
(15:02):
81 or 80, 81, I think.
And my uh, my father, he'd uh,not not to anyone.
She was 81 years old and so, um, she died and my father, uh,
passed away.
I moved my father in to livewith me and he passed away seven
months later.
But, uh, he was three yearsolder, so he was 83.
(15:23):
And this man again smoked mostof his life, had four heart
attacks, smoked from the time hewas a teenager all the way up
until the doctor was like quitsmoking, and he was still.
He already had four heartattacks.
He's still sneaking cigaretteshere and there, but he made it
through life like that.
And she actually had to stopsmoking because she had a brain
aneurysm in the 80s and so shehad to have brain surgery.
(15:44):
She made it through that.
So I mean, this womanphysically made it through a lot
of stuff.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
You would think that she would have died from
cirrhosis or something.
Right yeah, the liver.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
You would think so, but yeah, no, she didn't.
But you know, she physicallymade it through a lot of
different things.
But you know, I think if youhave an addiction it's an
important thing to seek help.
You know, I see a lot Identifyyeah identify the problem.
Yeah, that's what the otherthing is.
The first thing is identify.
You have a problem.
You have to realize that youcan't get help until you realize
you have a problem.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
And this is, I think, for everything right, like if
you feel like you're depressed.
I mean we're humans, right,like we have emotions, but
sometimes you have to identify,like, how depressed you are,
like seek help.
It's OK to seek help, like Itell you that all the time I
have we have our psychiatristsin Europe, right, that it's not.
(16:36):
It's not that you're crazy, butsometimes it makes a whole
difference between you got itafter COVID, you started having
panic attacks, right, and I toldyou please, let's go see the
psychiatrist and you were likeno, no, I don't want to be on
pills, I'm like babe, but it'snot normal that you're just
walking down the street andsuddenly you have a panic attack
(16:57):
and you're on some medicationthat helps you your anxiety and
panic attacks Like mine.
I also have anxiety with otherkind of depression-related
issues and I take medication forthat and it's okay.
I think it's important, like yousay, identify that you have a
problem and seek help because Icould be coping Instead of
(17:17):
taking my pills, I could becoping with alcohol.
That's what I was asking about,your mom.
A lot of people actually do notseek professional help and try
to cope with their issues, theirproblems or their depression
with alcohol or drugs oreverything else, and then you
become addicted to that Right,which is horrible.
I mean alcohol.
I can't, when you have ahangover like what would you
(17:41):
want to just keep going over andover and over with that?
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Yeah, I, I don't.
I don't't know if she wasdrinking because of issues.
I do know that she had.
Before she adopted me, she hadhad six miscarriages, but I
don't know.
Was she drinking to cope withthe fact that she was trying to
be a biological mother and couldnot get pregnant.
(18:04):
Or while she was pregnant.
All those times was she stilldrinking and smoking?
Speaker 1 (18:11):
And that triggered all that.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
I don't know.
I never ask about any of that.
I was way too young at the time.
I didn't ask any of thosequestions, but I mean, you look
back and you try to analyze it.
I don't know which one waswhich, but I certainly can
understand.
Like I said, I've never hadpanic attacks in my life and
after COVID Unless you were in aclosed space.
(18:33):
Yeah, unless I was in a closedspace.
You know, COVID rewired a lotof people's brains and bodies
and everything else, and soafter having COVID twice, that
was weird.
I remember like when it startedhappening to me we were living
in New York.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
And it happened once in our kitchen, in our apartment
.
But it also happened and Ithought, okay, well, maybe it's
in the apartment I just feltclosed in or whatever.
But then it happened in CentralPark.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Well, to be fair, that's a scary place with a lot
of scary people.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
No, but we were walking.
We loved the park.
We used to walk the park everyday with the puppies.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
That was in the middle of the day, the middle of
the day and we were justwalking.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
It was a beautiful day and we were walking under
some like terrace, portico, kindof thing.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Kind of like a tunnel .
Yeah, yeah, it wasn't even atunnel.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
No, it was like the wooden structure right, yeah,
like a structure by the lake,Right by the lake, and all of a
sudden it felt like thestructure was closing in on me.
It was freaking me out and Iwas like I'm not a person that
gets freaked out, I don't getscared with things and I don't
get freaked out over things andthat really I started.
It was like this weird feelingwhere it was closing in on me
(19:38):
and I'm like, oh my God, we'rehaving this panic attack here
again and again.
That never happened beforeCOVID.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Never happened to me ever before COVID.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
So, and again, that never happened before COVID,
never happened to me ever beforeCOVID.
So you know, that was the thingthat was so freaked out to me
and you got me on the medicationand I was like, okay, well,
yeah, I made you go through itbecause I saw you Every day.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
You were waking up and I could see the anxiety
filling you up and I was likethis is babe.
I love you with all my heartheart, but you're acting like a
lunatic.
I can't, I can't, I can't takethis.
You're not just not you and,and, and.
We took you to a psychiatristand, yeah, he said, yeah, like
you're having this pattern, andand again you could be fine
(20:20):
today and suffer from depressionnext year.
Like it's just chemicalimbalances in your brain.
That happens to everybody.
Right, it's a lot of studiesthat have to be done again about
our brain and chemicals in ourbrain, but I really I appreciate
that you listen to me and we'reon the medication now.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Yeah, I think if you have any kind of addiction or
any kind of problems or you'refeeling alone, suicidal,
whatever, please seek help.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
There are a lot of things that there's a lot of
help lines, a lot of help linesand stuff that you can call,
that don't even cost any money.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Just call and talk to someone.
Or, if you're call a friend,someone that's a true friend,
that will talk to you and helpyou and maybe help you get the
help that you need to get.
And I have a lot of peoplefriends of mine on Facebook and
people I know that have had todeal with alcohol issues and
have sought ways to, through AAor whatever their way is.
(21:17):
They've gotten sober and aredoing fine, doing fantastic,
they feel much better, having agreat life, and they didn't need
that.
So if that's you, then pleaseget the help you need.
But people have problems.
People can overcome thoseproblems and hopefully have a
better life, and that's what mymom ended up doing.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
And God bless your dad, babe.
Oh my gosh, I never met thatguy and I wish I would have met
Andrew.
But wow, like, pulled throughthat till the end and still
loved that woman after she triedto kill him several times when
she was drunk, and the fact thatshe died because she was gone.
(21:57):
Yeah, Like that's.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
Well, he knew her since, like I said, since, World
War II, since World.
War II and you know, his lastfew months of his life where he
would just.
I had a house in Dallas at thetime and he would just sit out
on my back porch and look at thepool and stare at the
waterfalls and just sit thereand just I could see it.
He was miserable, you know.
He'd spent 50-something yearswith this woman and like she was
(22:22):
gone and so he didn't know whatto do at that point and he
passed away, like I said, sevenmonths later.
But it was like it was aninteresting story, an
interesting time and, like Isaid, it's a great lucky for me
that they adopted me, becauseGod knows what would have
happened to me if they didn't.
But so everything is a gamble.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
It didn't turn me into a serial killer, it didn't
turn me into a lunatic A littlebit of a lunatic sometimes Shit
happens in this world, and if ithappens, it happens.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
So, anyway, speak of happening.
This is happening every Tuesdaymorning, 6 am, central Standard
Time a brand-new episode.
They're not all depressingHopefully this wasn't that
depressing, and it's on YouTube.
Subscribe for free.
Also every other podcastplatform we are there.
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