My alcoholic mom’s reaction to my book about addiction

When I wrote a book about addiction, I was terrified that my mother would be so furious or hurt that I shared our secret of her alcoholism with the world. I feared she would go off the deep end. Instead, her reaction shocked me to my core. It was one of the most perspective-changing events of my life.

I wrote a novel for tweens called Easter Ann Peters’ Operation Cool. It is a coming-of-age story that addresses parental alcoholism. It’s scary to birth a book. What happens if everyone hates it and you get bad reviews?! But when it was published in 2012, I feared only one thing: my mother’s reaction to it.

The book was obviously inspired by own experienced growing up with a mother with a substance use disorder – and I would be speaking openly about that. This was a drastic flip from how this fact was treated my whole life. When I was 26, I was so depressed. I was exhausted and hopeless about the future.

Writing a book for kids about addiction

Feeling like I didn’t want to go on any longer, I finally went to an Al-Anon meeting and realized I was ill and needed to get help. I started doing things that had brought me joy as a little kid. I’d love writing so I enrolled in a creative writing course at my local community college. Around that time, my mother was at the very worst point in her battle with alcoholism (up to that point in our lives). It was causing so much pain for my little sister. I was beginning my adult child of an alcoholic healing journey and devouring addiction, codependency and ACoA books by the week. I wanted my tween-aged sister to understand what was happening in our family. I wanted her to know that Mom’s alcoholism was not our fault and that we couldn’t make Mom get better because she had to want to get better. But I found next to zero books for children about addiction. I thought, how is this possible?! It’s the twenty-first century!

In the writing course, I found so much joy – just as I did a girl. I began feeling more hopeful about the future. Out fast came a story about a 12-year-old girl named Easter Ann Peters who had a plan to make seventh grade the best one yet. But her plans to make friends at school are derailed as she copes with her worsening mother’s drinking problem. The story came flying out of me, unexpectedly, as if Easter Ann was whispering the story in my ear. When the instructor asked me to read the first chapters aloud, I was embarrassed. I hadn’t planned to write a children’s story and felt those 18-year-olds in the class would expect something more sophisticated from the 26-year-old business woman who showed up to class 10 minutes early and turned in two writings, just for fun, for every assignment.

There was a young guy with a this-class-is-dumb attitude and black clothes and fingernails who showed up to class only sometimes. He was cynical about everything it seemed. I figured a story written for 11-year-olds with a voice of a cat-loving girl named Easter would be grating for him. My eyes met his when I lifted them from my paper and finished reading the last words on the page. I waited uncomfortably for someone’s polite “that’s cute” reply or something. Instead, Gothic Guy leaned forward and boomed, “I can really relate to that story. You captured the feelings exactly. That is a story you got to keep going with.”

And as we stared at each other, I realized that he and I likely had more in common than ANYONE could ever imagine. The adult child of an alcoholic story.

So, I kept going with the story. Before long, it was a whole book manuscript. I had mentioned to Mom my rekindled love of writing and that I had dreams of seeing my book in the hands of kids. She told me it was a waste of time because it’s so hard to get a book published. That was the last time I brought it up. For two years, I immersed myself in writing and polishing that manuscript. I joined writer’s groups and met the most amazingly inspiring and encouraging people. I attended writer’s conferences and workshops. I was determined to continually improve the story until it found a home with a publishing company. I was thrilled when my manuscript was selected to my reviewed by an editor with one of the big NYC publishers. It has great character development, she said. A realistic look at middle-school, she said. But that I really needed to downplay the Mom’s alcoholism stuff and focus on the friendship and bullying elements of the story.

What? No, that’s point of the story, I politely explained. One in five kids in the U.S. lives with a parent who abuses alcohol, I said. She respected my passion for the topic but said, “You won’t sell this book. The topic is too sensitive.”

Too sensitive.

I cried into my hotel room pillow. Several dozen rejection letters later, a small publisher in Michigan believed in Easter Ann and me. I was thrilled and excited that it would be a real, live book and would help people. But then I realized: I was about to expose our family secret, which I had spent my life covering up. All of the what-ifs arrived at once. How would Mom react? What if she goes nuts? What if she is so anger that she makes life hell for Dad and Brooke, my sister? What if she is so hurt, that she goes on a destructive binge that could kill her? What if she cuts me out of her life forever?

My father was supportive about the book and for sharing about our experiences. I suppose on some level, my father wished he could have helped me get educated earlier in life and he was happy that I was happier on my ACoA healing journey. He also knew, first hand, just how much loving someone with addiction hurts and he, too, saw that there weren’t enough people out there talking about it.

Dad reached out to friends and acquaintances on social media and email to announce that I had a book deal and that was going to talk to kids about alcoholism. He was proud. His support was important but Mom ruled everything.

Telling Mom

I told him I so feared Mom’s reaction. I don’t know if he tried talking to Mom about it privately in hopes she’d see it like he did. When the publisher sent me the first copy of the book, I gave it to Dad with instructions not to show it to Mom because I wanted to find the perfect time to sit down with her and explain that I just had to shed light on the topic.

But before I had a chance to have that formal conversation with Mom, Dad called one day and said the common words that gave me a stomach ache: “Mom’s not good today.” I hated those calls but they were necessary. At that time, Mom was in a really dark spot with her addiction and I had stepped in to be the mother role to my sister. Dad would be leaving for work around mid-afternoon. I needed to be aware that Brooke would be coming home from school to Really-drunk Mom. That meant I would need to hurry home from work and get her out of the house. “And,” Dad added. “Mom read your book.”

I was at work so I had to hang up without asking questions.

Waves of nausea hit me. Here we go.

I was angry at myself. How I could do this? Why couldn’t I have just kept it a nice, cathartic thing for me along. Why did have to feel this drive to share it? I was going to make life hell for everyone – even more than it already was.

As I was driving come and crafting how to deal with Mom’s volcanic reaction, I received a call from my parents’ phone.

“Hi, Brooke,” I answered.

“Jody, your book,” Mom said. She was sobbing.

I braced myself for F bombs. For her wishes that I’d go to hell. For declarations that I am a selfish bitch.

“My book?” I whispered.

“I read it,” she said. “I. I. I think you will help kids.”

It was hard to make out the words because she was crying hard, so I thought I’d heard it wrong.

“What?” I asked.

“You’ll help people,” she said. “It is good.” Sobbing. More sobbing.

I can’t remember if I pulled over or not at that point but I should have. I was stunned.

“Thank you,” I said.

“But,” she continued.

Here it comes. The flip. Here comes the anger and the hurt.

How could I write about her? How could I tell people about something so personal? How could I make her look bad? Just how could I?!!

Instead: “That’s how I felt when I was a little girl. That’s. How. I. felt.”

OMG.

My mother’s father died of a brain aneurysm likely induced by his extreme alcoholism.

She spoke very little of her father and when she did, it was only of good memories – such as how he would make a rink in their backyard for my mom and her seven siblings to skate on every winter. So while I knew she was affected by his alcoholism and his death, I knew next to nothing about how that affected her today.

In that moment, I realized that my mother was an adult child of an alcoholic. Just like me. But sadly, unlike me, she slipped into the grips of addiction before she could get educated and treatment to heal from the substantial trauma she experienced.

Then she shared memories about my drunken grandfather I’d never heard before – such as how Mom would be mortified walking to school in the morning with other kids when her father would be stumbling down the street from the pub. She’d cross the street and pretend she didn’t know him.

Not once did she mention any anger or shame that I would be sharing a story that was obviously inspired by my own experience with her addiction.

I understood my mother better.

She didn’t attend any of my book events, of course. We never talked about the newspaper stories that came at launch. I don’t think she was ever comfortable with knowing the secret had been exposed but she recognized that it would help people.

Today, we do not talk about my efforts with this cause. She knows I write and that I’ve heard from people all over the world who’ve been through hell. She doesn’t ask about it and maybe she prefers not to know the details.

For that, I’m grateful. But even if she suddenly took issue with it, it wouldn’t change anything. I feel called to share my journey as an adult child of an alcoholic and as a 35-year-old woman in 2018 creating the life I want.

Since the book was published in 2012, I was invited to speak to schools. I did it for free on my days off from work – except that in most situations, I was asked not to speak directly about addiction. One fourth-grade teacher asked me to talk only about writing and avoid alcoholism because “some parents won’t want their children to know about addiction yet.” She didn’t want the phone calls.

Um, I offered, do you realize that more than a quarter of your students are living with addiction right now and they have no idea what is happening?

Yes, she said, but it’s just too sensitive of a topic for a fourth grader.

Sigh.

Since then, I have heard from hundreds of people, of all ages and backgrounds, from around the world who read Easter Ann Peters’ Operation Cool who appreciated.

But it was all worth it before it was even available to order. I heard from Jerry Moe, head of the children’s program at the Betty Ford Center. He’d given his copy to a 12-year-old girl whose mother was in treatment. She’d said the book was her favorite of all time because it helped her realize that she hadn’t cause her mom’s addiction.

I hope you are so well in your journey today.