Don't Wait for Someone Else to Fix It

CHAPTER THREEAim to Be Your Ideal Self

Doug Lennick was in the car with his son Al and daughter Mary on the way to the airport for a flight to their vacation home near Palm Springs. Doug was thinking about the meeting his family had with him only a few weeks earlier. Before the family meeting, Doug thought he had been hiding his drinking from everyone, even his wife, Beth Ann. But apparently, he had been fooling himself. Now Doug recalled exactly where each person was seated that morning in the family room of Doug and Beth Ann's suburban Minneapolis home. Doug heard Al's voice telling him, “Dad, you're out of alignment.” That was really all Al had to say to cut through Doug's denial. Suddenly Doug remembered all the times that Beth Ann and his children had expressed concern about his drinking, only to have Doug brush them off. Finally, Doug had to admit his behavior threatened his family's happiness, which was very important to him. With the encouragement of his wife and family, in a few days, Doug would be entering an outpatient alcohol rehabilitation program at the California Hazelden Betty Ford Center not far from his desert home.

Returning to the present, Doug glanced out the car's front window. To his surprise, they were headed north instead of east toward the airport. “You're going the wrong way!” Doug pointed out.

“No,” Mary calmly replied, “We've got you a spot in the inpatient program at Hazelden here in Minnesota.”

Doug had been a relatively light social drinker for ...