Christina Diliberto is on vacation and
Bridgette Mongeon and Barbara Ingersoll share their testimony.

Hosts-Bridgette Mongeon Barbara Ingersoll

Listening time approximately 14 minutes

SHOW NOTES

Bridgette 47 and Barbara 72 A mother is at her worst with alcoholism and prescription drug abuse, a child seeks God and has a revelation in preparation for part 3- hope in the night. share how alcoholism and drug addiction affects a family and how God can heal and reach into the dark.

Sponsored by God's Word Collectibles http://www.godsword.net

Give God's Word as a gift, collect God's Word in your heart!

PLEASE NOTE: You will have to turn your volume up to hear this podcast. We are sorry for this technical difficulty, we are aware of it and hope to have this technical problem fixed in up and coming podcasts. Don't forget to turn your volume down after listening.
__________________________________________________________________


Announcer:
Welcome to inspirations spot radio.com spot on is a British expression that means absolutely correct or exactly what is needed.  You are listening to the inspirational channel featuring topics that reflect on faith and the spiritual side of life.  Brought to you by God’s Word collectible sculptures found at www.godsword.net
Give God’s word as a gift.

Collect God’s Word in your heart.

Bridgette: Welcome to the generations podcast where three generations of Christian women will be sharing their thoughts about different issues and aspects of life. Christina Diliberto our third hosts is on vacation. I’d like to introduce to you Barbara Ingersoll Mom and co host are you there mom,  Mom are you there. ?

Barbara: Yes, I’m here.  

Bridgette:  In our last podacst my mom and I took you on a journey, a journey win to our dark spaces. And we did that and we made ourselves vulnerable in hopes that we would be able to assist or help someone else that feels unreachable untouchable and hopeless.

It is not easy, It is not an easy journey. My mom and I have taken it before
And we have gained healing, but you will hear some choking up. You may hear about the tears that are about to flow.  I commend my mom.  And I praise her being able to take this journey and for allowing me to express my thoughts.

As a mother I know how difficult it is when you hurt your child, and when you cause deep pain, it become unbearable, and for her to be able to do this is just incredible because I know that as she listens to my comments and my pasts it causes deaths a thousand times over.  Thank you mom I really appreciate this.

Barbara: Your welcome darling. We press on!

Bridgette:  Yes, we will press on.

We had talked about in our last podcast that for me

A lot of my past is separated by the places we lived. Because we were moving around so much  We talked about Christian street and the wonderful Victorian home that we lived in, and moving to grand island, which is a wonderful place to live, but for both my mother  and I it was the beginning of the dark stages.

 I journaled about this and the other day I was writing about coming home from the bus. And as the youngest child in the family of three children, I always came home first, and it had its downfalls coming home first. Because I never knew what stage I would find my mother in, and as the years passed, and we got deeper into our darkness, I often wondered if she would be alive or dead. And it is very difficult thing for a child to have to go through to wonder, they should be thinking about heir spelling or where they are going to play. And I remember on one specific occasion, I went to a girlfriends house and she was going to come to my home and be with me, and I wasn’t quite sure what were going to do, I always had cubby place where I would hide where I would go to , I made them my play place, I liked to be enclosed. And I had a special place and could probably bring her down there. She wouldn’t see what was going on in my house.

And I went through that for many, many years, about brining friends over, how do I bring them over without introducing them to this torment that is there.

How do I hide what is going on?

I remember walking into her home and her screaming to her mom about our plans about her coming over. And her mo was upstairs and she said, “What about your homework and did you do your chores, I don’t think it is going to work,“

And I listened to this mom and although I didn’t see her I couldn’t help but wonder what it was like to have a mom that gave you chores.

And I bean my walk home and it was again a subdivision but our home was out further in the woods and I remember how scared I was walking ps those woods, there was such darkness in those woods.

I don’t care if your are going to kill me, just kill me because death was better. Just come and get me.

It was not like I didn’t have anything to do when I got home I dint have chores that were dictated to me from by someone that I knew, my parents, even from an older sibling.

I would walk into the house and would put the books down and I would walk to the back of the house where my mother was, and she would be lying in the bed, and sometimes if she was coherent she would say, “ is it that time already.”

I would take the washcloth that was on her head, I would take it to the kitchen   I would take the ice cubes that never came out of those silver trays unless  you would rinse them out, long before ice makers. I would put the ice cubes in the towel and I would smash it with the rolling pin to chop up the ice, and bring the ice back to mom and lay it on her head.

Then I would take the pail that was by her bedside and most often it was filled with vomit. I would bring it into the bathroom and empty it out into the toilet and fill it with a little bit of water.

If you filled it with a little bit of water the vomit wouldn’t stick the next time I had to clean it and then I would walk to the kitchen and I would take down a Tupperware container a cake pan container.  And I would put little pills from each jar into my hand, never realizing the danger of taking all of this medication with gin that she would then wash it down later with. I would take these pretty little pills and I would bring them to my mother thinking I was helping to make her better. I must interject here, that along with the alcoholism and mom perhaps you can describe some of this mom, you were also a prescription drug addict. Can you tell me about that?

Barbara: as we said earlier all of it was so intertwined, it is hard for me to know.  I would go doctor hopping from one doctor to another other. Getting different drugs and in those days you could do that there was no Internet connecting so that they knew what you were taking you.  You could go to one doctor and get one thing and go to a drug store and get it, and go to another doctor and get something else.  I learned all the right things to say, to get the medicine I wanted and I had a lot of it. And I took a lot of it.  I do remember one time standing in the kitchen and I had a handful of pills and I don’t even know what they were.  I had a glass of gin in the other hand, and I said “taking this could kill me, so what I’ll never know the difference.”  

I’m still here to tell you about it.  God’s mercy, God in his infinite, infinite mercy.  Was with both of us, every inch of the way, as hard as it is to share these things to day. God was merciful, God was faithful to us.

Bridgette:
He certainly was, I also say that can interject here. That on Grand Island, God had given me a gift.  I had in that is that I have always been creative drawing.  There was something that happened on Grand Island. There was a cognitive shift that happened in my brain where I realized that I could draw something and I could make it look like something and in that I I found a tremendous amount of joy and peace I could escape to the drawing.

And I also began to write and learned about writing and I would escape to the drawing and writing. I really believe that god gave me those gifts on grand island because I needed those I needed to be able to express myself. And have a way to get away from that.

The chores that I had to do, as I describe them this was a daily routine and sometimes a two-day routine. To this day I really don’t know how I was fed. I don’t ever remember seeing you cook.  I do know that later on I began to realize and it wasn’t until way later on that when I was a preteen, my friends would have to come upstairs to use the bathroom and I would run up the stairs and get the Lysol and spray the Lysol in the hallway and your bedroom so they wouldn’t smell the smell of.. you know I don’t even know how to describe it,

It wasn’t just the vomit there was a smell in the house.. it was death it was a dying thing taking that and wondering
How does this Lysol get here?  How does this Lysol continue to get into this cabinet? So it always here so I can spray it.  Because my mom certainly wasn’t buying it and I don’t’ ever remember my dad doing the shopping.  But

I think and they talk about it, and they talk about it in AA and Alanon and Alateen that there are certain things that each child in an alcoholic home will take over, and I think my oldest sister took over the care-giving roll. It was a great healing for me and empathy, and love for me that I realized that was what she was doing, it was a dysfunctional roll for her, that is what she was doing as she was taking care of me as my older sister.  I’m sure she did the shopping, and I know she did the cooking. I don’t ever remember seeing her do it but I now that somebody did and I know I never went hungry.

Barbara: I don’t remember cooking. I do not remember eating. I do not remember eating, I remember eating and I remember taking pills but and I certainly don’t remember eating and I certainly don’t remember cooking for you for you kids.  

I don’t remember cooking and that is a horrible thing to have to say, all o these many years later, I don’t ever remember cooking.  
That wasn’t that long a period of time, that was maybe 5 years of our lives when I was so dysfunctional, so bad, when I couldn’t function.

So it wasn’t as if it was my whole lifetime, but it was enough. I would hate to go without eating for five years. But I don’t remember eating.

Bridgette: I’d like to point out that to, that it wasn’t really that long in hindsight As  your looking back on it, when you are in it, it feels forever.  I Think also for us as a children.

Five years is very long, and I think five years is… depending on what stage you are your childhood , If you are a teenager trying to prepare for adulthood, 5 years is an integral part.

If you are a little girl who is just trying to figure out how life is, it is an integral part. Even though it was not a lot of time it was a profound time, if that makes sense.

Barbara: Oh yes.   

Bridgette:  and I have a story I would like to share in the next podcast mom that shows a bonding between the two of us and how god … because I do believe that you and I have been boded our entire life spiritually

Barbara: That is true, I agree.

Bridgette:  This next podcast I would like to share this one experience it was the experience that showed to me that God was real, God was alive.  And you were an integral part of that and that happened on Grand Island.  So

I encourage you to join us next time. I can share this and you can see how God can work and
If you are in this place, if you are in a difficult spot, my prayer for you. that you will be able to find hope through this podcast, through God.

You may not be able to call it God, you may not be able to call it Jesus Christ, in AA they day a higher power. And if you just need to take a higher power for now, hold on to that higher power and tell somebody that you need help.

And lord I just ask that you reach down and touch everybody that listens to this, and if there is anybody that listens to this and if there is anybody that is hurting that they can gain some healing trough this podcast
I’d also encourage you, on spot on radio.com there is also a place where you can comment on this podcast
We would love to hear your comments your suggestions. If this has helped you it would really encourage us to know, because we are making ourselves extremely vulnerable here, it would really encourage us to know, and so I thank you for joining us
 
Mom will you return wit me again, to this dark place next week?  

Thanks,  I love you very much thank you for sharing

Barbara: And I love you  darling!

Bridgette:  Blessings and blossoms to everyone out there. Please  go and frequent our sponsors website. It is at www.godsword.net.

Announcer:
You are listening to the inspirational channel featuring topics that reflect on faith and the spiritual side of life.  Brought to you by God’s Word collectible sculptures found at www.godsword.net
Give God’s word as a gift.

Collect Gods word in your heart.