Life. Febryarv 10. 1961

New Alateen Groups Help Children Face Up to Life With Alcoholic Parents

Hope in a Bitter Teen-Age Tragedy by Herbert Brean, LIFE Staff Writer

It had once been a small neighborhood store in a western town. Now its walls were plain Phil’s troubles had started three years go white, decorated by a few pictures. Neat wicker when his mother remarried. She and his real chairs were scattered around the spotless father had separated when he was very small, linoleum. A podium stood near the entrance, and and mother and son had lived by themselves in coffee bubbled at the coffee bar at the far end of modest comfort for a decade. Then she had the light, cheerful room. married an insurance accountant, a pleasant, The young people who came in by ones humorous, open-handed man named Daniels. and twos chatted gaily. They were dressed as They took a good-looking house in a nice though for a party, the girls in fluffy skirts, their neighborhood and Phil, at the age of 14,looked hair carefully done, the boys in sports shirts and fonvard to having a father again. Now he was jackets with the fresh-scrubbed look of 17 and it had not worked out that way. teenagers. They stood around in small, After a few months of marriage Mr. murmurous knots until that evening’s chairman, Daniels began coming home for dinner in an a boy named Phil, took his place behind the exhilarated and voluble condition. Phil had never podium and announced it was time they got seen anything like it. His stepfather seemed started. Everyone sat down. terribly happy and good-humored, but he could First Phil read a prayer: “Our Father, we undergo sudden changes, turning into a come to you as a friend. . . . We ask you at all glowering, unreasonable tyrant. lt not only times to guide.” Then the assemblage of some frightened Phil but gave him a permanent feeling 22 boys and girls recited in unison: “God, grant of uneasiness. What had he done or said that me the serenity to accept the things I cannot was wrong? And what could he do to make change, courage to change the things I can, and things right? wisdom to know the difference.” He asked his mother about it. “Oh, you It was the Serenity Prayer of Alcoholics mustn’t pay any attention,” she told him with a Anonymous. These teenagers were not meeting bright, worried smile. “He’s just been drinking. to have a party. They were there to discuss a He’ll be all right.” deep crisis in their lives: the fact that one or both But he wasn’t. Phil found himself being of their parents were alcoholics. These lectured or reprimanded or even punished youngsters had formed a chapter in a new and without reason. Home became a place of fast-growing national organization called sudden threats and dangers against which he Alateens, which bands together such young could not defend himself. His mother explained people for purposes of mutual help. This was that his stepfather had once been an alcoholic their weekly meeting, looked fonruard to and but had given up all drinking for a year before listened to with eagerness, since it represented they were married. On the night of the wedding the best hope they had yet found for solving reception drinks had been served, and he had problems far beyond their years. The boy named had some. He had been drinking occasionally Phil, a member since the chaPter was ever since. She tried to explain -what alcoholism organized, had faced his particular problem was, but Phil could not understand her longer than many of the others, but all the boys explanation. lf drinking made you ill and also and girls at the meeting could recognize their irrational, why drink? own experiences in his story.

Phil is a serious, slender, dark-haired someone came to the house and met his father boy with a scientific bent. He hopes to be a or saw the house itself. doctor perhaps a psychiatrist. As his stepfather’s ln two years its carpets had become behavior got worse, Phil found it hard to study or stippled with bums from half-smoked cigarets to feel any deep interest in school work-or in dropped heedlessly on the floor. The kitchen anything else. He stopped inviting school friends and dining room bore nicks and drip marks to his home because he never knew when his where his father had suddenly hurled his plate or father might start haranguing them. He became glass in a drunken tantrum. One night Phil came ashamed of his father’s appearance-his red home to find a milk bottle lodged halfway face, rambling speech and shambling gait. Phil through a screen in a front window. His father began to withdraw into himself–“you just shut up angered at his wife’s failure to come at once tight inside.” when he called her, had thrown the bottle at the His father drank almost constantly now TV screen, missed it and hit the window. The but especially on weekends. On Mondays he broken window and the stain on the paint was sometimes too “sick” to go to work, but outside stung Phil. “Makes the house look neat, somehow he hung on to his job. Evenings were doesn’t it?” he said to a friend. especially bad. Then he roamed the house, The wall{o-wall carpeting in his mother’s often until 2 or 3 a.m., bellowing imprecations, bedroom, of which Phil was so proud, had seeking an argument with anyone who dared become blotched from knocked-over glasses. talk back to him. Phil was determined to help The family car was a mess, filled with forgotten and protect his mother as best he could, but he insurance literature in the back, the fenders did not know exactly how. He grew nervous and dented by uncertain driving, the seat covers apprehensive. His school work got worse, but he filthy, the glove-compartment door rickety from didn’t care. being banged open to get the bottle always Once in a while he would plead with his stored there. Lying in bed nights, tapping his foot father not to drink. Sometimes the only answer almost uncontrollably from tension, Phil thought Phil got was a cold stare, sometimes it was a of what other kids had and what he was missing. stumbletongued denial of drinking, sometimes it He and his mother could never plan a family was a genial promise that he would stop after outing because his father’s condition was too just one more. Phil and his mother, a remarkably unpredictable. The best they could expect was patient and religious woman, often talked it over an infrequent barbecue in the back yard. trying to decide what to do. “lf it gets much As the months passed Phil’s father got worse, we may have to leave,” she would say worse. Once he tried to throttle his wife and Phil quietly. Phil wondered how much worse it would had to wrestle him to the floor. Another time Phil have to get. had to tie his hands with a necktie and hold him, Phil never saw his father actually take a fuming and cursing, until he finally passed out. drink. He and his mother found bottles around Still another time Phil had to knock him down, no the house. Often there was one under Daniels’ great feat because of his father’s condition. bed and sometimes under his pillow, and always Mr. Daniels began to display spells of under the cushion of the large easy chair from grandiosity. ‘They ask me to take a bigger job,” which he watched television, but Mr. Daniels he would declaim to the empty living room at 3 was never seen drinking from them. With the sly a.m. ‘They come to me on their knees, begging. secrecy typical of many alcoholics, he drank I don’t want another job, and I tell ’em so.” only when he was alone. lt was hard for Phil to One afternoon a girl he knew in high explain to other kids in school, who invited him school called Phil to ask him to a dance. His to parties, why he could not invite them back. ln father answered the phone. Loudly and time he grew used to the knowledge that his obscenely he cursed out the young girl, then classmates were aware his father was an hung up. Phil would not stay in the house that alcoholic, and he became calloused, if not night. He slept at a friend’s and next day went reconciled. But he could not become calloused over to the girl’s house and mumbled a redto the fresh embarrassment he felt every time

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faced apology for his father. lt was one of the blond daughter of an alcoholic, and the meetings hardest things he ever had to do. acquired a little social atmosphere. Mr. Daniels’ health steadily deteriorated. At times he needed hospitalization, and As news of the small movement spread, occasionally his physical condition so alarmed other youngsters joined up, and this attracted him that he himself tried to slow down and “taper the attention of the local chapter of Al-Anon, a off.” ln this he had the advice of the family doctor companion organization of Alcoholics who gave him various drugs to discourage Anonymous. AA is the league of alcoholics who drinking. None worked for long because Mr. have joined forces to help each other fight their Daniels went back to the bottle as soon as he mutual disease. Al-Anon is an organization of began feeling better. Some nights he would wives, relatives and friends of alcoholics who burst into Phil’s room, wake him up by turning on also meet to exchange suggestions and the light, and launch on a long, incoherent compare notes. Alateens, made up of the lecture. Phil finally arranged the light so that it children of alcoholics, is a ward of the two main could not be turned on at the door. His father organizations. Phil’s group decided to form an continued to fling in whenever he felt like it, but it Alateen chapter. A kind-faced woman named no longer really awakened Phil. “lt’s like the Margaret Wells, with long experience in Al-Anon, noise of the planes passing overhead,” Phil volunteered to serve as guide and sponsor, but says. “ljust don’t hear it anymore.” the youngsters conducted their own meetings. ln But he still carried the tension inside a year Phil’s and Jerry’s frail partnership grew to himself. His foot twitched steadily at night as he 60 members, one of the largest Alateen groups tried to go to sleep. On weekends he stayed in the U.S. away from the house as much as he could. He tried to keep up his studies, but it was hard to No easy cures get up in front of the class to give a book report, knowing what they all knew about him. He was Alateen meetings do not solve the basic morbidly self-conscious about his appearance problems and certainly do not propose cures for and about what the other kids might be thinking alcoholic parents. They do, however, help about him. members live with problems they cannot solve. Another boy named Jerry, who lived They do this by offering a version of the down the street, had a similar problem. His Alcoholics Anonymous approach, which is a father and mother both drank heavily and mixture of nonsectarian religious faith and steadily, although more peaceably. Common personal psychological counseling. Alcoholics problems, including poorer clothes and less Anonymous gets its members to admit to spending money than other kids had, brought themselves that they cannot control their Phil and Jerry together. Occasionally they met to disease alone but need the help of a “Greater compare notes on the behavior of their parents. Power,” to whom they must turn over their lives. One day Jerry said he had heard there was ln the same way the members of Alateens are some sort of juvenile branch of Alcoholics encouraged to face the fact that they cannot Anonymous, not for youthful drinkers but for the overcome their parents’ alcoholism, but by children of heavy-drinking parents. They called putting their problems in God’s hands and by up the local “AA,” got some literature and practicing understanding and forbearance, they enlisted a third boy who had an alcoholic father. are taught to achieve an inward calm during a The three boys met whenever they could stormy adolescence. and talked over their problems. After months of The new Alateen member is taught the hiding his shame, it was a wonderful release for AA Serenity Prayer and the AA philosophy of Phil to talk openly. lt made him feel better to trying to live one day at a time. One of the most learn that other kids had the same problems he striking features of the movement is the quietly did and could even suggest some solutions. spiritual attitude of the veteran Alateen member Soon the three boys were joined by the pretty who, even though he may not be a member of any religious faith, lives closely and intimately

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with a God of his own choosing. This unusually don’t dare. They don’t understand their children frank reliance on the “Greater Power” pervades well enough.” most Alateen meetings. At the recent meeting of Phil’s group, A thin six-foot boy with a long face went Phil invited members to step up to the podium to the podium. He was a newcomer and very and discuss their experiences. A rebellious dark- nervous. “Maybe some of you have got your haired girl of 15 stood up and said: problems solved. I haven’t. l-l just haven’t. I

“l know everybody says you ought to turn can’t take it any longer, and l’m not going to. I

it over to God. But I can’t.” She paused, then have a chance to go into a foster home and-spoke haltingly. “Maybe I should. I guess He and–l’m saying goodbye to my family.” brought me here to this meeting . . . in a way. He was close to tears. But tonight Dad was going to take us to a show. Phil looked around for hands. Mrs. Wells He got provoked and pulled one of his stunts. said, “Dig into your hearts. What can we tell him He took off by himself. l-l tried to get my brother that will really help?” There was silence. to go to the show anyway by himself, but he “You’ve got to turn your problem over to wouldn’t . l’ve learned here to try to be nice God,” a boy in the back said. to people. But it takes time.” “You’ll get a better deal out of it that way” Phil asked for comment. A boy told the said another. “He knows what we don’t.” girl, “You can’t just call on God when you’re in a “Foster homes are no good,” said a girl. jam. You have to turn your whole life over to “They’re too regulated.” Him. My dad and I are a lot closer now since I “You’ve got to try to help yourself,” said did that. Last night we worked together fixing his the boy who had warned against calling on God bureau, and he doesn’t come home drunk when only when you are in a jam. he knows my pal is going to stay overnight with “And be courteous, and don’t argue.” us. Probably your father is under great tensions, “What happens if he sends you out for a like mine is. You can always pray and hope it bottle for him?” asked the boy at the podium. might come out all right.” “You don’t go,” said Phil firmly. “We’ve talked Phil called on another girl, Annabelle. As that over. Lots of people have that problem. But is customary at Alateen meetings, only first you just politely refuse. lf you do it once, he’ll names were used and the parent was often ask you to do it again.” referred to simply as “my alcoholic.” Annabelle “Yeah,” the boy at the podium took the podium to report on her progress. “l’ve considered. “But I like to have friends over, and I got a temper,” she said, “and when I said my neverknow…” prayers last night, I told God what my problem “Oh, golly,” said another boy, raising his hand. was today, that I had to work in the kitchen at “Never invite friends over without first home and I didn’t want to. But I said l’d do my reconnoitering. lf your dad’s drinking, just keep best because I wanted to help others.” out of the way as much as you can.” A boy of 15 with a bristly red haircut raised his hand. “l’ve got a temper too. My ‘l used to feel abused, too’ mother is our alcoholic, and I have to do a lot of the housework. When they get to arguing, my The boy at the podium was replaced by a father involves me in it. But when they sta( pretty, fair-haired girl. “You can come here with yelling at me I just say the Serenity Prayer to any sort of problem,” she said, addressing the myself.” newcomer. ‘That’s what I like about it. I used to Mrs. Wells said, “l’d like to add a word to feel abused too. Sometimes one of my friends this. You all look healthy and happy and well fed would say, ‘We all went out to dinner last night,’ to me. Maybe your parents don’t always do as and l’d lie. ‘l went out to dinner with my family, you think they should. But they did well to get too,’ I’d say. And my friend would say, ‘No, you you this far. fhey are doing the best they are didn’t. I know your father’s drinking now.’ But I mentally capable of at the moment. They love found out that if I don’t worry about tomorrow or you but they are almost afraid to love you. They the bad things that happened today but think of

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the good things, then–well, tomorrow can be alcoholic something he can get nowhere else: a another day to be haPPY with.” chance to hold up his head and talk about his troubles with others who suffer the same way. Another girl raised her hand. “l know He acquires friends who he can telephone at what you mean about lying. l’ve got two night for encouragement or advice when the alcoholics, both my parents. There were lots of going gets tough, and he also gets a chance to things I couldn’t have. So I began boasting to talk openly about other problems. “l’m too shy” is the other kids. l’d say we were getting a new car a common complaint. “l’m always nervous” is or a new dog or were going to Florida for a another problem readily understood by more vacation. I told terrible lies. Then I started experienced Alateens who know the cause of Alateens. I went back to the people l’d lied to the nervousness. and told the truth. l’m a new person. l’m getting Above all, the Alateen member achieves along better in school and l’m an officer of my depth of understanding rare in youth, and he class.” helps to spread a new spirit of understanding to The meeting was now more than an hour his whole family. Even the alcoholic parent, after old, and the entire discussion had dealt with a few guilty misgivings (“Do you actually talk parental drinking problems. Few Alateens have about me at those meetings?”), becomes more drinking problems of their own. Some of them serene and in time may even decide to seek are led through everyday association to help himself. experiment with alcohol, and because they have So far that has not happened to Phil’s seen how destructive it can be, they sometimes alcoholic. He still shakes the house with his believe that they have a “drinking problem.” This occasional falls, wants to be waited on, never is almost always juvenile self-consciousness. apologizes. He still bellows his challenges to nonexistent adversaries and occasionally goes At the podium Phil said that if there were berserk. no other matters, the social hour would begin. Phil has learned to “live around” the Coffee and cookies were produced. After a problem. His grades in school have again risen collection was taken up for next week’s cookies, to a B average, and he is determined to stick it the audience broke up into groups, chattering as out with his mother until he enters college 18 though at a dance intermission. The tall, thin months from now. He is still tense and -nervenewcomer was surrounded by a knot of others, ridden. When he speaks, his hands dart in quick, anxious to welcome him and helP. finger-tapping gestures, and some nights he “Everyone’s nervous getting up at first,” wriggles about uncontrollably in bed before he someone told him, “but after a few times they can go to sleep. But he says, “l don’t really have won’t be able to stop you from talking.” ‘That’s any problems any more. They’re there, but I

right,” said Phil. “And you’d be surprised how don’t fight them. No one can beat alcoholism by much it helps you in school when you have to himself. So I just try to be polite and helpful, and get up and make a talk to the class.” let God take care of things.” Soon they took their leave by ones and twos. Mrs. Wells drove several of them home. lt The illustrations for this article [as it appeared in had been a typical Alateen meeting, a new Lifel were drawn by Franklin McMahon, who phenomenon in American life. attended Alateen meetings in different sections Less than four years old, the Alateen of the country and sketched the teen-agers as movement is still in its infancy. Ninety-seven they discussed their problems. Their own words, groups are registered, and another 75 are spoken at these meetings, serve as captions for believed to be in the formative stages. The total the drawings: membership is perhaps 2,000 members– “perhaps” because communication between the “When Mom and I came home, Dad was groups and the Parent AA or Al-Anon hanging up a noose on the landing. When he’s headquarters is often scanty. Alateen is certain drunk he sometimes acts suicidal.” to expand, for it gives the teen-aged child of an

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“l have learned to keep my mouth shut Now when Daddy gets drunk, I just go on with by saying the Serenity Prayer to myself.” “l have my business.” to keep telling myself over and over again that the monster we were up against Tuesday night “Some day we’ll have all this behind us. I keep was nothing but a great big bottle.” telling myself, I only have to take this for the next 24 hours.” ‘l come here with mY older brother because he said l’d learn how not to get excited.

Source: Life, February 10, 1961

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