The earliest time I remember really understanding addiction was not because someone explained it to me—it was because I lived inside the ripple effects of it. My first real realization was with my mom. I was in second grade when she crawled into my bed in the middle of the night, crying and smelling like alcohol. That smell—sharp, sour, sad—became the background music of my childhood.

Life with my mom was its own kind of storm. We never knew if she would be drunk, if we’d stay at home, or if we’d end up at my grandparents’ house for the night. Her moods were like a roulette wheel—happy drunk, sad drunk, angry drunk, or simply gone. Physically there, emotionally somewhere far, far away. There was no rhythm to that home. No safety. No consistency. Just chaos packaged in love that was too wounded to feel like love.

I figured out my dad was an alcoholic around age eleven, right after I moved in with him. It did not take long. The man used alcohol like a bandage for every emotion he did not know how to feel. Pain? Drink. Anger? Drink. Celebration? Drink. Boredom? Drink. It was his language. His comfort. His weapon. And when he drank, he could become cruel—especially toward his wives. I learned very quickly how unpredictable and dangerous a grown man with a bottle could be.

Life with my dad was a different flavor of chaotic—louder, sharper, abusive. The earliest memory I have of him abusing his wife, I was probably five. He was reading me a bedtime story, and she walked in drunk, nagging him about something. He told her to leave him alone because he was reading to his daughter. She didn’t. So he grabbed her arm, twisted it until she fell to her knees beside the bed, crying, and then… he just kept reading. Like hurting her was as normal as turning the next page. That moment imprinted something in me I’m still untangling today.

My dad left us home alone constantly—me, my cousins, neighborhood kids—all under the age of ten while he, my stepmom, and their friends were out drinking at a bar somewhere. The oldest kid maybe twelve, acting like the “adult” because there simply weren’t any responsible adults around.

And the addiction didn’t just warp my parents—it twisted my relationships with my siblings too. My dad’s abuse destroyed his relationship with his first wife, which fractured things with my older siblings. Three of them had a completely different mother than me, and when that marriage fell apart, so did the connection. Then on my mom’s side, her addiction took her life, leaving me and my brother split apart, living ten hours away from each other throughout our whole childhood.

By the time we were grown, resentment had tangled itself through every branch of my family tree. My dad’s older kids hated him. And because I was the youngest—and because he treated me differently—they resented me too. They thought I was “the favorite.” Maybe I was. Maybe he knew he was the only parent I had left, and he tried to compensate in the only broken way he knew how. It didn’t fix anything. It just drove the wedge deeper.

I learned to parent my parents before I ever learned to ride a bike properly. When I was around ten, I remember my mom stumbling home at six in the morning while I was getting ready for school. She could barely walk. She was crying, slurring, falling into bed. She passed out while I stood there staring at her, terrified she wouldn’t wake up. I skipped school that day to sit in her bed and watch her breathe for hours. A child playing guardian angel to the woman who was supposed to be hers.

And with my dad? The roles flipped. He handed me the keys to his extra-long Ford truck when I was twelve—twelve—because he was too drunk to drive and demanded I take us over an hour away. It was foggy. It was dark. I got lost. I was terrified. My hands were shaking on the wheel. But somehow, I got us home. No apology. No gratitude. Just expectation. Like a child chauffeur was normal.

Safety was a foreign concept in both homes. With my mom, I constantly feared she’d kill us in the car because she drove drunk so often. I would sit in the back seat mentally preparing to grab the steering wheel—even though I didn’t know how to drive—because I just knew disaster was coming. With my dad, danger came from fists and shouts. He didn’t start physically abusing me until after my mom died when I was eleven, but when it started, it came hard. He’d fight my stepmom violently—slapping, throwing, dragging her down hallways—and all I could do was listen from my room, frozen in fear.

I didn’t really have to hide their addiction. That was obvious. What I hid was the abuse attached to it. I hid bruises. I hid the chaos. I hid the truth so nobody would take me away—because as awful as it was, it was home.

When friends asked what life was like, I just said it was “hell.” With my mom, I’d tell them she drank a lot and her moods were unpredictable. With my dad, I’d say it was chaotic, confusing, suffocating. I kept the darkest things—like being molested by my brother’s father—buried deep because I believed nobody would listen. Nobody paid attention to me. Nobody cared. Or at least, that’s what I thought.

The hardest things I lived through were the things caused because addiction was in the driver’s seat. Being molested while my mom passed out in another room. Losing her completely because alcohol took her life. Those wounds carved holes I have spent decades trying to fill.

And like so many kids who grew up in trauma, I grew into relationships that mirrored it. I chased chaos. I chased drug dealers, liars, and abusers. If love did not feel dangerous, my brain told me it was not real. I had trust issues, cheating habits, addictions of my own. I resented men but did not realize it because I hid behind self-destructive behavior.

Still, not everything I learned was negative. I learned to survive. I learned to take care of myself. I learned I did not need anyone to save me. I saved myself. I learned how to stand alone, even when my knees were shaking.

But I also internalized heavy things: That I wasn’t wanted. That I wasn’t good enough. That nobody cared if I existed. That I was stupid, worthless, destined to fail. I thought if my mom really loved me, she would’ve stopped drinking. That belief haunted me for years.

My coping mechanisms were destructive—drugs, self-harm, sex, anything that numbed the ache. I did not start healing until my mid-twenties when I finally went to rehab and got into therapy, got on medication, and began peeling back the layers I’d buried my whole life.

My parents’ addiction shaped my mental health, my identity, and my early parenting. I saw pieces of them in me, and it terrified me. But instead of sinking into those patterns, I chose to break them. Therapy, research, honest conversations with my kids, spiritual grounding – those things are the tools I use now. Those are the things helping me rewrite my legacy.

Healing for me looks like peace. Understanding. Acceptance. And faith. The kind of faith that whispers, God can turn even this into something beautiful.

As a kid, the places comfort were imaginary—pretend worlds where I wasn’t afraid, books where I could become someone else. Those escapes kept me alive.

And if I could write a letter to that little girl now, I would tell her:

You are not alone. God is with you even when everything feels dark. Everything you are experiencing will one day help you create a better life for your children. You are not broken—you are transforming into who you’re meant to be.

And to any child growing up with addicted parents: You’re not trapped forever. The brokenness you inherited isn’t your fault. You can’t save them—they have to save themselves. And you’re doing the absolute best you can with what you were given. And as soon as you can, find the Lord and find a therapist.

XOXO, The Healing Wildflower