Last Saturday evening we had arrived home rather late after an evening out with my husband’s family. My husband and I were both exhausted both physically and emotionally. We were looking forward to sleeping in, relaxing, having brunch with my in-laws, doing the usual household chores that seem to only get done on the weekend, and watching football. Although our favorite teams (Eagles and Steelers) are not doing well this season.

At any rate, little did we know that as we were going to bed “drama” was taking place 300 miles away that would effect our day on Sunday. Early Sunday morning the phone woke both of us out of a deep sleep. I reach over to look at the caller ID and realize it is a phone number from the area in which I grew up yet I did not recognize the number showing on the caller ID.

I answered the phone and on the other end was my Aunt very upset. I could tell that it took great pain to wait to a semi decent hour to call us but didn’t want to call in the middle of night. Her son, my cousin, who is more like a brother than a cousin, was in intensive care on a ventilator. I couldn’t believe my ears. He is 22 years old! The first few fleeting thoughts going through my head was that he was in a serious car accident or that something happened at work. I never expected the words that followed which were that his blood alcohol content was .380 and that he stopped breathing. He had gone out for literally a couple of hours. He left his house after 10PM and was home, passed out on the porch from acute alcoholism around 1:30AM. At that point in time, no more information was known except for their experiences that followed.

In addition to shock and anger, my own adoption issues seemed to surface. I was shocked and then that shock turned to anger. As I was going through this, my wonderful husband was supportive as always even though we both knew that my own adoption issues were coming to surface. One of my ways of dealing with something is to research it. Which, ultimately, is what I did in this situation and my next blog will reveal some of what I found in regards to adoption and addictions?


NOTE: Photograph taken by Karen Sterner at Jack Daniels Distillery in Lynchburg, VA.