A Family In Crisis: A Time To Heal

Alberta H. Sequeira: Author, Speaker & Survivor!

Interview
Alcoholism can be a heavy subject, and the death of your husband and young daughter I am sure were traumatic.  What made you decide to share your stories?
I felt there was a story to share with not only the abusers but their families.  My main goal was to show how families can become great enablers.  Innocently, we help the abuser to stay in their addiction and go further into their disease.  When I speak to an audience, it’s important for them to realize that I’m not a professional counselor or trained speaker.  I’m just an ordinary woman talking from the heart from my pain and loss.

When I was attending AA meetings, Al-Anon and counseling, I remember all of them explaining how alcoholic families stay on a merry-go-round, doing the same actions over and over again, with no results until the abuser just blocks us and our help out.  Someone has to get off the merry-go-round to stop it.  Make a change and demand the abuser to seek help.  Don’t make any threats you can’t follow through with; like leaving.  Most important, I can’t stress enough for a family to pull together in a recovery program.

I wanted to share my most personal life that had been kept behind closed doors while we all suffered in silence.  Both memoirs are written with complete honesty on my mistakes and bad choices.  I had to lose two loved ones to learn them.  Hopefully, I’ll save someone else the heartbreak of doing down the same path.

What were the obstacles you faced when you actually sat down and began writing?
The biggest obstacle was getting permission from Richie’s family to use their real names.  They were well-known in town and owned a huge construction company.  Memoirs need signatures from people you are naming in your story.  The other obstacle was getting through the pain of reliving the events so soon after Lori’s death.  I had to take months off from writing because the story was too raw.  Editing and editing had me looking at the same events that tore at my heart. 

What does a typical day look like for you?
I drink my morning coffee at my computer and look at my “emergency” emails and leave the rest until later in the day.  My blog is updated at least five times a week with my events and information to help others.  I try to schedule speaking engagements and search out locations where I can promote my books.  In-between this, I try to do my writing.

What have been some of the joys or rewards you have experienced since you began writing first your memoir and then your two books on alcoholism and family?
The greatest joy with my first memoir A Healing Heart; A Spiritual Renewal (2006) was the actual moment holding my first printed book in my hands and seeing my name and the title across the front cover.  I took a deep breath through tears of joy saying, “I did it!”  The proud moment came when the book won the “Reviewer’s Choice Award Semi-Finalist in 2008” by Reader Views of Austin, Texas.
Someone Stop This Merry-Go-Round; An Alcoholic Family in Crisis (2009), and the sequel, Please, God, Not Two; This Killer Called Alcoholism (2010) has opened doors for me to become a speaker on “The Effect of Alcoholism with the Whole Family.”  I’m hoping to break into the school system.  Both books were nominated for the Editor’s Choice Award by Allbook Reviews of Canada.

What is your least favorite part of the job, and how do you manage to get through it?
Not being organized and trying to do too much at the same time.  Authors spend a lot of time on their computers and telephones trying to break through and get known.  This actually becomes a job.  I’m not only an author but a speaker and instructor in writer’s workshops so my days are full.  I’m working on making certain days for certain tasks.

What is your favorite part of being an author?
With the Internet, I have the opportunity to reach out to readers and the media all over the world with my story.  Hopefully, other countries will learn about my life and books.  Being an author has been a blessing allowing me to help abusers realize that this is a family disease, and that we are all sick from this illness.  There was a time I couldn’t stand up in public and speak, but God must be leading me down this path.  There isn’t an event I don’t go to that I don’t take the time to pray before I attend.  I ask God to give me the words to comfort someone and give them hope.  

What is coming up in your future?
My contract with the self-publisher for A Healing Heart has ended, and I’m in the process of polishing the pages and putting a book proposal together to send out to Christian Publishers and agents.  Hopefully, one of them will believe in my book as much as I do.  My platform had grown more than I would have expected.

My memoirs are completed, and I’m at peace with them.  Writing about death and pain can be too heavy for some readers.  Now I want to write something funny and fictional.  It’s time to have fun with my imagination.  I want readers to know that there is a comical and lighter side to me.  

Anything else you would like to share? Contact info, book availability, speaking/consulting/other.
I have a special promotion on my website going until the end of June 2011 for my readers.  My three books can be bought and autographed through PayPal with discounts and no s/h charges.  People can pay and request a book to be autographed and mailed as gifts to anyone.

The books are available on any online bookstore and the two alcoholic books are in e-book form.  Once A Healing Heart is republished with a new title and book cover, I’ll have that available as an e-book.  This memoir has a huge discount on my website until the books on hand are gone and before the new publishing.
I’m always ready to give a presentation on alcohol abuse to Christian organizations, businesses, schools and substance abuse rehabilitation centers.  This is such a worldwide disease that my speech can be given anywhere.
My workshop “Bring Your Manuscript to Publication” is a three hour class.  It helps the writer go from their idea of writing a story to the publication.  It’s not about “how” to write.  It’s a very low keyed fun class.

Interview with Author and Public Speaker Alberta H. Sequeira

Living and the Dead: Alcoholism is a Family Disease-How Do You Get Over the Pain?

Kay Balbi
Kay Balbi, Yahoo! Contributor Network
May 12, 2011 "Share your voice on Yahoo! websites. Start Here."
Alberta Sequeira
Date of Interview: 5/9/11
 
Me:

Alberta, would you mind sharing with the Yahoo readers what living with alcoholism was like and how it affected your life? Could you also please share with us where that path took you, how it impacted you, and how it molded you into the person you are today?

Alberta Sequeira's Reply:

My name is Alberta Sequeira of Rochester, Massachusetts, and I became an author and speaker out of tragedy. I had no desire to become a writer; not even a dream of having the excitement of holding a published book in my hands.

Our lives can turn from security and happiness to despair in a split second. On February 10, 1985, my husband, Richard Lopes of North Dighton, Massachusetts, died at forty-five years of age at the VA Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island from cirrhosis of the liver. This horrible, worldwide disease affects every person in the family that we call Alcoholism. The pain travels outside the family to siblings, parents, and friends. We all lose in the end. There are no winners. It is a family disease; lives are changed forever.

Alcoholic symptoms

In 1960, Richie and I met. Oh yes, there were signs of him drinking when we dated, but I was young and in love. I had never asked him about his family history. If I had, I would have realized that alcoholism was high on the list with his mother, sister, brother, and relatives. He never drank in my company or at family gatherings, only nights out with his buddies. I told myself it was a macho thing boys did. In 1962, we got married. We were blessed in 1963 with the birth of our daughter, Debbie, and in 1967, Lori entered our family unit.

Enabling the alcoholic

I thought I had it all, but sometimes life does not go the way we plan it. My joyful, sheltered life turned to confusion, fear and abuse through the years with Richie's drinking. I became a great enabler keeping his addiction from his family and mine, innocently, helping him stay in denial and go deeper into his habit. Pushing myself beyond what my body could take mentally and physically from trying to handle this disease myself, I had a small breakdown.

My guilt still follows me from keeping our daughters in this unhealthy environment for over seventeen years. Instead of hiding Richie's drinking, I should have protected my girls from this rollercoaster living. They could not understand their father's character change, when one minute he loved them and the next he was in blackouts.

Moving on after a death from alcoholism

After Richie's death, I thought the girls and I were moving on with life. I had three jobs, a dispatcher for the Dighton Police Department, proofreading for a telephone company and a part-time waitress for Friendly's Restaurant. What I did not realize was that Lori was following the same path as her father since she was fourteen years old. She hid it well.

At nineteen, Lori got married and had a son, Joe, and a daughter, Meagan a year and a half later. Her marriage fell apart three years later, and she struggled with bills and every aspect of her life.

Alcoholism is a disease of Denial

Fourteen years later, she met a man from her jobsite at Lopes Construction. Mark was a wonderful stepdad to her teenage children. That lasted two years was when we saw that he was an alcoholic. What we did not realize was that Lori was one herself, along with hiding the fact she was bulimic. Lori had entered alcoholic rehabilitation locations, one at the Butler Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island and two times at the Gosnold Rehabilitation in Falmouth, Massachusetts. Each time she was released, she came out in denial with her addiction. She had refused any family member to be involved with her treatments.

On November 22, 2006 at thirty-nine years of age, Lori died at the Charlton Memorial Hospital in Fall River, Massachusetts. We buried her at the St. Patrick Cemetery in Somerset, MA, with her father. We had her name engraved on his tombstone.

Burying an alcoholic

There are no words to describe the pain in losing anyone you love, but losing a child is beyond keeping your sanity. No matter where I went, the emptiness and physical agony followed me.

I wanted to share my life, especially my mistakes with my actions in an alcoholic family, hopefully to save others from doing the same. I guess you could call my books "What Not to Do." I started writing Someone Stop This Merry-Go-Round: An Alcoholic Family in Crisis. It was self-published by Infinity Publishing in 2009 and was nominated for the "Editor's Choice Award" by Allbook Review of Canada.

Books on living with alcoholism

In 2010, I completed Lori's story in the sequel, Please, God, Not Two: This Killer Called Alcoholism. It also was nominated for the "Editor's Choice Award. The book and its cover appeared in the December issue of Publishers Weekly. I had both books made available in e-books.

In 2007, I started my journey reaching out to others with my story and went to Gosnold Rehab to give an hour talk to the women and young girls at their location. I explained how the whole family is affected by this illness.

My speaking engagements have taken me to women's ministries, halfway homes, substance abuse locations, recovery programs ordered from the courts, libraries, radio stations, and cable TV shows. My platform has built beyond my imagination.

People think I healed writing my stories, but I did not. I had to contemplate how I could take my suffering and turn it into a positive action. I wanted Richie and Lori's life on earth to have had meaning. They were two loving, fun people before this demon took them.

Alcoholics have to realize that it is not that this disease may, would or could kill; it will. They have nothing to be ashamed of because they have a disease. All they have to do is get out of denial and grab onto all the support that is out there, and especially, open the doors to allowing family into their counseling sessions. This is the abuser's battle and they have to believe that they have the power to reach out for help. It is a time to heal and get on the road to recovery.

For more information from Alberta: Website: www.albertasequeira.com

Blog: www.albertasequeira.wordpress.com

E-Mail: memoirs@ahealingheart.net

See my blog for more: kbalbify.com/Meet Albert Sequeira

Author commentary:

I would just like to take this opportunity to thank Alberta for sharing her story with us. I grew up on the other side of this alcoholic equation. I was the addict. had no idea how much hurt I was causing as I was going through my active phase. It was only through my parents' choice of tough love that I am probably here today. They chose not to buy into my lies and held me accountable. I made the wrong choices and I burned bridges. It forced me to wake up and make some hard decisions. I am grateful to them, and I am grateful to Alberta for sharing her message. To read the story of a young girl struggling with alcohol addiction, read Bad Girl Gone Mom.

For books on the family perspective, read reviews for : Someone stop this merry-go-round and With the Two Alcoholic Memoirs.


Interview with the Taunton Gazette
 

Dighton author Alberta Sequeira recounts family’s battle with alcoholism

Posted Nov 16, 2010 @ 10:57 PM

Last update Nov 16, 2010 @ 11:11 PM

DIGHTON —

Alcoholism is a nationwide pandemic, often affecting the family just as intensely as the drinker. After former Dighton resident Alberta Sequeira lost two family members to the disease, she was determined to find a way to fight it. So she documented her experiences in the published memoirs: “Someone Stop This Merry-Go-Round” and “Please God, Not Two.”

Sequeira didn’t consider writing about her lifelong journey until she was compelled to write about a different subject: The bond she made with her father before he passed away. Sequeira first memoir, “A Healing Heart: A Spiritual Renewal,” was published in 2006.

“I never had intentions of being a writer,” Sequeira said. “But when I talked to my father as he was dying and he told me how he was disappointed his story would never be passed on, I took it upon myself to tell it.”

After receiving praise and finding people could connect with the story she told, Sequeira took on a braver venture — writing about her ex-husband’s alcoholism in her second memoir, “Someone Stop This Merry-Go-Round.”

Revisiting the past
Sequeira addressed the effects alcoholism has on the family, writing about how the disease broke up her marriage of 14 years to Richard Lopes and led to scarring emotional abuse.

“It was the ’70s, I was a young girl with no idea that Richie’s drinking was a disease,” Sequeira said. “The way to deal with it was to not talk about it. This was back in the day when you didn’t even talk about your marital troubles, never mind someone’s drinking problem.”

Sequeira said it took approximately a year to gain permission to write about her story with her ex-husband.

“It was a little messy at first being that they were well-known in the community,” Sequeira said.

Originally Sequeira was going to cast her story in a fictional light, but when she reflected on her trying time, she decided only the truth would make the most impact.
“I didn’t want to hurt anyone but I knew the truth would be the best to tell my story,” Sequeira said.

It wasn’t until Sequeira divorced Lopes that she was able to begin to get her life together while at the same time realizing the damage done by Lopes’ alcoholism.
“I regret that I didn’t make demands sooner to get him to stop,” Sequeira said.

“Instead I was an enabler and I didn’t realize how I emotionally injured my two girls.”
Lopes passed away in 1985 at the age of 45 from cirrhosis of the liver, leaving daughters Lori and Debbie. Sequeira thought the pain she had endured would be over, only to find out as she and her daughters’ lives continued on, one would soon be fighting the disease that had taken their father.

“We didn’t know (my daughter) Lori had a drinking problem for years. She hid it well,” Sequeira said. “We only started to find out when her health went downhill.”

Within a matter of years, Sequeira went to fighting for her former husband’s life to fighting for her daughter’s life, still not knowing where to turn through it all.

“Lori went in and out of rehab and her sister and I tried to take her in,” Sequeira said. “People say you need to stay away until someone hits rock bottom, but I disagree, because for Lori and Richie, death was their rock bottom.”

Another life taken
On Nov. 22, 2006, at age 39, Lori also succumbed to the same disease that claimed her father.

As Sequeira recounted her two loved ones death to alcoholism, she got quite emotional, noting the anniversary of Lori’s death and the revival of feelings due to being back in her hometown.

“It’s just so hard being near where they were buried and with the anniversary of Lori’s death approaching,” Sequeira said as she fought off tears.

After grieving Lori’s loss, Sequeira again went back to her outlet of writing, continuing on with the telling of Lori’s story and her battle with the disease in her second book “Please God, Not Two.”

“People often associate alcoholics with low-class people and that’s not true at all,” Sequeira said. “Lori had a high-power job, a wonderful family, and eventually lost it all.”

Still grieving the losses of her ex-husband and daughter, Sequeira has been able to find some solace and love again with her daughter Debbie’s support and her second marriage to Al Sequeira.

“You don’t ever really heal from something so traumatic but I have to look at the blessings I do have,” Sequeira said. “I have my daughter, Debbie Dutra, three other step-children that love me, and ten grandchildren between Albert and I.”

Sequeira hopes to continue speaking with others about her book including children and those in half-way homes.

“I want people to read these books and learn something from them,” Sequeira said. “Even if they can hear me talk about the book and take away one thing, it might be what they need to hear to stop.”

Writing-wise, Sequeira is currently working on a more comedic piece of literature.
“I want to show people I have another lighter side,” Sequeira said. “Right now, I’m going down the path God has made for me.”

Contact Alyssa Smith at asmith@tauntongazette.com

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