--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Rick Archer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I really appreciate these posts. My dad was an alcoholic too. > He never abused any of us sexually, but he did so verbally and > emotionally for many years. Drove my mother to the mental hospital. > I think the stress of WWII drove him to drink. He was traumatized > by it all his life. Dwelling on his positive qualities helps me > to forgive him. He was a sensitive, intelligent man - a professional > artist. Very creative, an excellent cook, an organic gardener way > back in the 1950's, appreciative of music, took me skiing, on > Boy Scout camping trips, etc. So many good qualities. But a > real SOB when drunk.
This is fascinating to me. I didn't come from an alcoholic or abusive family (my parents barely drank at all, and were incredibly supportive of me all my life), but just FYI, Rama (Frederick Lenz) gathered some stats on his students, and found that a large number of them (higher than would be suggested by national statistics) came from families of alcoholics and a surprising number suffered from sexual abuse as children. He also found that this was more pronounced in his second- and third-generation students (that is, the younger ones) than it was in his original set of students (who were of a comparable age to many of the people here). I have also encountered similar statistics being talked about in Buddhist groups, especially in Zen monasteries. I don't have any suggestion for why this might be a trend, but it seems to be.
