For survivor of marriage to alcoholic, child’s pain was breaking point

She recalls him telling her at one time that if she wanted to hang out with him, she had to learn to drink.

After enduring years of abuse at the hands of her alcoholic husband, Roselyn (not her real name) knew that it was time to leave him when his actions resulted in their 15-year-old son standing over him with a cutlass aimed at his neck.

“…That was a wake-up call for me. There were so many different emotions flowing at the time. It did not matter what I said …I was actually hurting my own children. I saw tears in my son’s eyes as he looked at me. My son was holding my husband by the neck and the chopper was raised above his father’s head. When I called out to him and he looked at me, there were tears streaming down his face. I asked him what was wrong with him and he started muttering incoherently and kept saying that this had to end today,” she recalls.

Roselyn says her son called his father “that man” who was always embarrassing her and calling her names.