My child hood was filled with love and happiness but I still felt very alone and empty inside. I was fairly popular throughout school and I enjoyed being friends with everyone. My grades were fine. I excelled in choir, drama, and volleyball. Yet, there was a void in my life I couldn't understand. I kept asking "Why do I feel empty inside?" I tried...

Story told by David MacLean, as told to Laurie Wang At the unripe age of nine, I was necking girls. Looking back as a husband and father, I could see I was going down a dangerous road at such a young age. That same year, my mom died of a heart attack. At that time, my sister was 20 and my brother was 19—I was the youngest child by 10 years. My...

How close I came to making a total wreck of my life I'll probably never know. When I went to work for the U.S. Government, I met Al Larson at the USO. Within six months we were married and on our way to a naval base in California. I was 18. Although I had been raised to be "religious," my husband had no such training. He was a good man, but he...

Peter and I were high-school sweethearts. I was a cheerleader and Peter was a basketball player on the opposing team. As I watched him play, I couldn't help asking my friend, Lois, "Who is that guy?" I soon found out. The day after my high-school graduation I married him. We were very young; I like to say that we grew up together; however, the...

From the time I was three years old until I was twenty-four, I lived in the same city. Then I moved three thousand miles away to begin a new job. The first year away presented some of the deepest loneliness I've ever known. I feel things very deeply and that loneliness was thick, almost tangible. I was very homesick. I had no family or friends...

For the first twelve years of my life, I grew up unconsciously trying to please - whether it was teachers, friends or my parents. My dad was an alcoholic, and our home was like a roller coaster based on his moods. My parents divorced when I was 12 and I learned to be very independent. I went to work part time to help Mom out with the finances. I...

I was sleeping on the couch. At least they thought I was sleeping. My parents, both drunk, were having a fight. My father pushed my mother with enough force that she broke her pelvis and ended up in the hospital. This was one of many crazy memories of that I have of my family. Even to this day some of the dramas of the carnage of alcoholism remain...