"Sometimes I'd catch my mother looking at me with real love in her eyes. How could she have let me down so?".......................................Mickey C.

For drinking alcoholics, love is incomprehensible. That word, that concept, may be just one more thing that burdens, baffles, and frightens. Drinking alcoholics may be willing to give us the moon, but they simply are not able.

The adult alcoholics in our childhood probably loved us. Maybe the clumsy cuff on the head or the sidelong look of affection was the only expression of love they had. And maybe their bag of tricks was completely empty. Maybe that was why we got silence when we so badly needed affirmation. Maybe the disease, not disinterest, was behind remarks like "You could have done better" or "I don't have time to go to your ballgame."

Many people who feel love can't act love. They just don't have the skills to function in healthy relationships. Their diseases or compulsions often block the healthy relationships so desperately needed by their loved ones and by themselves. Possibly, we as children received everything they had to give.
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I pray for the courage to make peace with the past. Today, I will ask for the understanding that precedes forgiveness.