Divorce by Kathlyn Gay

Author:Kathlyn Gay [Gay, Kathlyn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2014-03-11T04:00:00+00:00

8

Coping with Addiction, Depression, and Jailed Parents

“You know, kids like to think that they’re rebelling against society. But if they drink and drug, they’re going along with the crowd. I say if you want to be a rebel, rebel against drugs and alcohol. I’m clean and sober, and I’m proud of it.”—eighteen-year-old Emmy Hall, a child of divorce and recovering drug addict1

Emmy Hall was only twelve years old when her parents divorced, and she was hurt and lonely. To make herself feel better she had her first drink, following the suggestion of a classmate. From then on through her teen years, she turned to alcohol to calm her distress and she soon became addicted not only to alcohol but also to drugs such as heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine (meth). She was kicked out of school and became an official runaway.

At the time she told her story, Hall was eighteen years old, and she said,

At one point, I weighed 86 pounds. One day when I had no place to stay, no money and no food, I sent up a little prayer for those three things. I’m not sure what made me do it, but I went and turned myself in to the Los Angeles police as a runaway. I got what I had asked for—an 8 by 8 cell for shelter, food, and transportation back home to a detention center in Oregon. I stayed there for two weeks, thinking I’d get out and go back to my old ways. That was when my probation officer told me I was going to rehab. The facility was way out in the middle of nowhere, and at first I just sulked. There was no escape, so I just told them what I knew they wanted to hear. I had a negative attitude, though. My heart wasn’t in it, and the only thing I could find to abuse was a pen. I managed to mutilate my arm with it.2

Fortunately, after several months, Hall’s attitude changed and she said, “I began to join group activities and talk and work on my problem. Two months later, I graduated from the program and went to live with my dad. I stayed with him for a year and a half. Then I went to live with my mom.” She also continued her studies and graduated from high school. But she did not think she was cured. “I have to be really careful to stay away from stuff. I am an addict. It’s in my genes,” she said. She received help from a program called On Track.3

Like Emmy, other young adults sometimes use illegal drugs and alcohol to ease their emotional turmoil due to their parents’ divorce. On the website FamilyinDivorce.com, Everett wrote about his reaction to his parents’ divorce:

Early in high school I started drinking, skipping school, bad grades, getting in trouble at school, joining a “gang,” smoking pot, lying to my mom, etc. Without going into much detail, I am sure you get the picture of where things were heading.

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