Lessons and Gifts I Received from my Dad

“Speak your truth with compassion and care.  Own your mistakes and weaknesses.  We all have them.  And it is far more honest to accept and face them then ignore or hide them.”

                                                                                                      - Anil Kumar Sinha

Several years ago, during the early stages of my speaking career, I was on the phone with my mom. 

Despite being well into my middle age, my mom is still someone I turn to in times of disappointment, struggle and frustration.  During this particular discussion, I was sharing my frustration with how my new speaking career was not taking off at the trajectory I had intended. 

After listening to me vent for several minutes, and waiting for an opportunity for me to pause to take in some air, she calmly asked me,

“So, you want to be one of those motivational speakers, huh?”

“Yes!” I responded emphatically.

She then asked, “Well, do you think anyone will ever want to listen to you if your life is perfect and you have never undergone any struggles?”

I sat in stunned silence for several moments pondering the words she had said (and also wondering who had kidnapped my mom and put this wise sage on the phone 😊).

She was ABSOLUTELY right! 

After that experience, I began to realize that like in so many other areas of my life, I had come to believe that the only way for me to make a positive impact was to show a perfect persona to the world. 

Showing no chinks in the armor and looking the part of the “white knight”, I had come to believe, was necessary for me to be accepted and respected.  I believed that if I was to show any signs of weakness or vulnerability, I would lose all credibility and no one would accept my message, and importantly, no one would accept ME.

I soon realized that nothing could be further from the truth.  While I had heard in many times in the past from my various teachers, the following phrase began to become very present in my mind and take on new and profound meaning.

“100% strength comes from 100% vulnerability.”

This brings me to today. 

Recently, I was on a group coaching call (as a participant).  In this session, I was chosen to be the one on the “hot seat” where I was to receive feedback about what may be holding me back, both personally and professionally, from my fellow program participants. 

While being in this position at first can seem extremely uncomfortable and confronting, I soon found it to be a time of profound transformation and healing when I allowed the feedback to sink in and realize it is coming from love, intended for my highest good. 

As you might expect, I was once again confronted with the feedback of presenting the persona of “having it all together” and neglecting to accept in myself and share with others the areas of my life in which I struggle. 

Specifically, this meant the times in my life when I underwent challenge and failed or did not show up as my best self.  To most this simply means being human, but to me it had come to mean innate failure that could not be shared.

In exploring this aversion to being vulnerable more deeply, it came through loud and clear that I needed to address one clear aspect of my life that I had avoided taking full accountability for – my relationship with my dad.

I began this blog with the story of my mom.  It is easy to talk about her.  She has always been there for me and has loved and supported me through my life’s ups and downs.  She has been my rock and is someone for who I am incredibly grateful for as an important presence in my life.

I had not always looked at my dad with the same regard.

My father was an alcoholic. 

His addiction to alcohol probably began when was as young as 16 years old.  Drinking was a way of socializing with his friends, dealing with life’s challenges and had become a fully integrated part his life, well before I was born. 

Growing up, alcohol was an integral part of my surroundings.  It was always present in family and social events my parents hosted or participated in as well as having a daily presence in our home. 

I am even told that I forwent my first toys to play with empty beer cans like building blocks and some of my first words were reciting the lines of beer commercials when I first began to speak. 

Growing up in this household had its unique set of challenges, as any child of an alcoholic would experience.  I will not go into detail here, but suffice to say, any alcoholic household experiences difficulties that have a lasting effect on each family member.  I was no exception.

For me, the greatest impact this had on my life was the relationship I had with my dad.  Conflict between us had always been present and increased dramatically beginning in my high school years and continued to into my adulthood.

While I had attempted to navigate and maintain a relationship with my father, through his failed recovery attempts and the erratic behavior that alcohol addition can bring, this all came to a head in December of 2002. 

Still reeling from the recent divorce from my mom and their marriage of 33 years, my dad had arrived at the 40^th wedding anniversary of my aunt and uncle, already in an inebriated state. 

Feeling the pain of knowing his marriage was over and he would never experience such a milestone anniversary with my mom, he continued to drink heavily during the celebration, until finally it happened.  He fell to the floor, passed out from alcohol poisoning.

Fellow party goers and family members attempted to revive him, but to no avail. 

An ambulance soon was called and took him to the hospital.  It was then that I received the phone call from a nurse saying my father was in an alcohol induced comma from which he may never come awaken.  If he remained unconscious, he would live the rest of his life in vegetative state.

With my father living in Wisconsin and me living in Colorado, I did my best to manage the situation from long distance.  I soon received a phone call from a social worker asking me what I wanted to do with my father, should he come out of his coma.  I shared with her that I wanted nothing more than for him to go into an in-house alcohol recovery program.  She assured me she would do her best to accommodate him as she hung up the phone.

The next day, she called and excitedly shared that they have found a program that would take in my father and that his insurance would cover 100% of the costs.  The only caveat is that he needed to come out of his comma (obviously) AND agree to going into the program.

Within days of this news, my dad awakened from his unconscious state.  Unable to speak, but fully aware of what was going on, he was asked by the social worker about going into recovery and he nodded his head “yes”.  I still remember receiving that call and feeling the elation that I was finally going to get my dad back.

Fate, however, would not have this happen.  Within the week, my father fully came out of his comma and was deemed strong enough to leave the hospital.  The social worker came to discharge him and transfer him into his program.  It was then he told her that he had no intention of going into recovery saying, “I’ve had enough of doctors.”

I still remember the sting of receiving the call from the social worker informing me of my dad’s decision. 

Shock, fear, disappointment, frustration and ANGER all washed over me. 

For forty years I had dealt with my father disappointing me and I decided I had had enough.  I promptly went to my computer and wrote him a letter.  I told him of my disappointment with his decision and the pain he had brought me and our family as a result of his addiction.  And then I wrote that although I loved him as my father, I needed to separate myself from him and stop all contact until he sought the help he needed.

A full year passed, and I had no contact with my father.  I would be lying if I said there wasn’t a sense of relief in not having to deal the drama surrounding his drinking.  However, there was still an emptiness I was experiencing with the thought that I had abandoned him. 

Upon the recommendation of a counselor I was seeing at the time (Thank you, Marilyn), I reached out to him via another letter.  Within a week, he responded with a letter of his own saying he had a sponsor and was regularly attending AA meetings. 

I wrote back soon afterwards and included a small holiday gift, a 12-step daily calendar.  Through our correspondence, we had both agreed that we would connect via telephone after the holidays. 

That phone call never happened.  On January 10, 2003, my dad died of a stroke in his apartment, days from finalizing his bankruptcy and estranged from his family. He died alone.

If you have read this far, you may be asking yourself why I am sharing this?   

Isn’t this a little too personal to share with the world?  Isn’t this the type of stuff that “stays within the family, not to be shared? 

Some may believe this to be true.  But I have come to believe that the best way for me to heal, to help others who may be in a similar situation to heal AND importantly to HONOR my father, is to share this story and the lessons and gifts I gleaned from this experience. 

So, here are those gifts and lessons.

• My father did the best he could – My dad was a very good man with a wonderful heart. I know he loved me and the members of my family, but the disease of alcoholism had overtaken him.  If you are dealing with a family member with an addiction, always remember this; they are sick with a disease.  At times I refused to accept this, and it caused me to negatively judge my father and close my heart to him.  Always do your best to separate the disease from the person.
• I did the best I could – In dealing with my dad’s addiction, I went to the only thing I felt I could do to bring him into recovery and that was to set an appropriate boundary of no contact in hopes it would encourage him to seek the help he needed. If I had to do it over again, I would do much the same thing.  I still would have set an appropriate boundary to protect my own emotional health and that of my family – except this time, I would have reached out to him periodically throughout his last year to let him know I loved him and was there for him when he chose to get help.  Hope is a powerful force, and I would have done my best to insure he knew he was not alone.
• I received many gifts from my dad- In reflection, I have come to realize I received many gifts from my father. These include:
  1. Affable personality – My dad could walk into a room of strangers and before long, you would see him conversing with someone you would have thought was a long-lost friend. I believe I received my gift being able to connect with others from my dad.  Thanks, Dad for teaching me how to connect with people.
  2. My work ethic – My father was an incredibly hard and dedicated worker. I learned to emulate this myself and it has brought me much success in my life.  Thanks, Dad for teaching me the value of hard work and dependability in completing a job.
  3. My love of sports – My dad and I certainly had our differences, but we could always connect by discussing sports. In my own athletic career, my he was my biggest fan, in both high school and college football, my father was a regular at all of my games and my biggest cheerleader.  It took him a while, but he soon came to value my love and success in Taekwondo, as well.  Thanks, Dad for always supporting me.
  4. He taught me how to be a great dad – Given everything I have shared this may seem to be a very odd statement. However, the way I look at it, even when he showed up as a father in ways I did not appreciate and value, he was teaching me how to become the father I wanted to one day be.  In this, I realized the things I needed to do, or avoid doing, to make sure I was the best dad I could be to my sons.  Thanks, Dad for helping become the father to my sons that I am today.

It is my hope in reading this, you are inspired in some way to let go of the personas that are on longer serving you and share your truth.  You never know how your authenticity and vulnerability in sharing your story may positively impact others, and in turn, transform you. 

And if you have a family member or friend with which you are struggling, be sure that after taking care of yourself, you still do your best to share with them the greatest amount of love, hope and support you can provide.  You never know, it may change a life – maybe even your own.

Chris Natzke

Black Belt Leadership Speaking & Coaching