“Water Walker”

“So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.” (John 8:36)

On March 5, 1975 my Father died; a shocking, casual exodus leaving me fatherless at the age of ten to a young Mother, impetuously widowed.   After the death of my Father, I grew up under dualistic oppression; one where my Mother was abusive to me, contemporaneously cherishing with adoration my older siblings, even as she embraced their maladaptive behaviors.  Beginning at the age of fourteen, I had been molested and raped multiple times, (throughout my adolescence and even into my adulthood). 

Alcoholism was prominent in both of my parents lives; weekend social gatherings highlighting an array of alcohol delights lined up and poured acquiescently by the host and the drunkards.   Adversely, on every Sunday morning, we were all impeccably dressed attending a Baptist or Methodist Church. 

Around the same time, my Aunt was in a Substance Abuse Program; addicted to alcohol, (I.e. liquor, rubbing alcohol and anything else she could drink) while her four children were spread-out in Foster Care, living with other families and with us, in multiple states.  Accordingly, my Brother grew up alongside my Cousin in our household; Mom and Dad married with ongoing dissension (and on the brink of divorce). At every party, my Brother and Cousin grew up hiding under the table during the weekly inebriation mixes.  Alcohol and wine glasses were frequently left unfinished on the table. My Brother and Cousin (in their adolescence) would confiscate the drinks and run off to my Brother’s room to later become utterly inebriated. 

In the year my Father died, my older Sister had gone off to college, got pregnant (secretly) and married her college sweetheart; the Father of her unborn twins.   My Sister’s husband turned out to be a physically abusive alcoholic which reinforced and ignited her path to alcoholism.  The irony is, my Sister did NOT grow up in our household; she lived with Grandma and Grandad, (the alcoholic Navy Commander). Together they bore fourteen children, all deceased but two (including my Mother); none immune to alcohol or the rippling affect caused by the disease of alcoholism.

On the other hand, my Father, orphaned in New York (a Puerto Rican migrant) whose life of alcoholism eventually led to his demise.  After my Father’s death, Mommy continued on the path of alcohol frequenting family outings and social gatherings. Each event an excuse for a celebration to rejoice with any of her thirteen siblings (and their children) at every momentous occasion in inebriation. 

My Brother went off to serve his Country in the Marines; he came out Honorably Discharged only to become a poly addicted substance abuser.  He often used drugs in our home, hiding inside of his room while my Mother was away at work, (and even when she returned home by the end of the day).  He would get high in the very next room, come out to drink a beer, and “shoot the breeze” with Mommy.

It was at the age of fourteen when my Brother gave me my first drug; marijuana and a host of other illicit drugs (i.e. Speed, Rush; ”Christmas Trees; Yellows” etc., even beer).  Silently, I was experiencing childhood molestation and rapes, (outside the home) which led to adolescent promiscuity.  Concurrently, I was suffering within from what is now diagnosed as Stockholm Syndrome; loyal to my abusers’ (including my Mother’s constant oppression, condemnation, and degradation).  Contemporaneously, my Mother accepted public commendation for my receiving academic accolades, (the quarterly “Honor Roll Report” published in local news papers) while never encouraging or lending aid to me with any of my homework.  

The Stockholm Syndrome carried on into my adulthood invoking a snowball effect.  My Cousins best friend took my virginity at the age of fourteen. In my adolescence I had two abortions as a consequence of a Pedophile.   I later bore a third child of a third rapist in High School.   The next two children I bore outside of wedlock with my High School sweetheart. Between those two pregnancies I was raped by yet another who would later became my husband; a heroin abuser.  Heroin addiction was a natural succession to my adolescent addiction.  Thus, domestic violence became an aftermath in the marriage that I had NOT escaped.  I was even abducted and brutally beaten at gun point because of my ex-husband’s addictive behavior, one that piloted his violence of robbing drug dealers.  As a victim of Stockholm Syndrome, I nursed him back to health having been shot nine-times in retaliation for robbing drug dealers.   I remained faithful and bore three more children under brutalizing duress; a miscarriage, a stillborn and a child born prematurely with Cerebral Palsy.  

That last birth of my last child with Cerebral Palsy, (born in May, 1993) became the pathway to my redemption; deliverance from heroin, domestic violence and Stockholm Syndrome, overall.  When I learned of my pregnancy, I went to substance abuse treatment; January 17, 1993 was my first day abstinent from all mood and mind altering chemicals.  

Correspondingly, I visited my Mother as less as possible, but jovially remained at her beckoning call as she departed this world from Stage IV Collin Cancer.   Even until death, my Mother remained obstinate; pleading for a “Fifth” or a “Miniature” of alcohol to abate the emotional and physical pains of an inevitable, prolonged fate.  Objectionably, I  alone stood on the Word of God while Jesus raised a standard of persistent abstinence in alliance to God, my Heavenly Father, (even in her pain and suffering).  Today I have twenty-eight years, eleven months, and five days of deliverance from drug addiction.  I am reconciled back to the Father, Jesus the Christ!   

“So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.”  (John 8:36, NASB)  No drug treatment alone could set me free!!! Freedom requires an act of faith! As you journey with me on this blog, you too must get out of the boat and step out on the water! You too can become a “Water Walker!” Incontestably, He did it for me!   Indisputably He can and He will do it for you!!! GOD HAS SO MUCH MORE . . . YOU’RE WORTH FIGHTING FOR!!! ONLY BELIEVE!!!

Ultimately in His service,

Water Walker