WHAT ALCOHOL TAKES FROM US
(Part Two): Tamara
In Part One, I talked about alcohol from the outside—the things it can quietly take from us, the imbalance it can create, and the way something that begins as recreation can gradually demand more than we ever intended to give.
But sometimes statistics and explanations are not enough.
Sometimes we need a story.
So let me tell you about Tamara.
Tamara did not begin as a troubled child.
She came from a family that loved her. She had people around her who had expectations for her life. Like many young people, she was simply growing, discovering herself, wanting friendship, wanting acceptance, and wanting to belong.
And sometimes the desire to belong introduces us to things we never went looking for.
For Tamara, alcohol became part of that world.
At first, it was not presented as destruction.
It was social.
It was what other people were doing.
It was one of those moments where saying yes seemed easier than being the person who said no.
That is one of the dangers we sometimes overlook when we talk about alcohol. We imagine that every destructive relationship with alcohol begins with someone deliberately choosing recklessness.
It does not.
Sometimes it begins with belonging.
One decision becomes another.
One environment leads into another.
And eventually Tamara found herself in circumstances she had never imagined for herself.
Alcohol impaired her judgment and compromised her ability to protect herself.
Then something happened that should never have happened.
Tamara was sexually violated.
Let me make something very clear here:
Alcohol does not make sexual assault acceptable.
Being intoxicated does not transfer responsibility for another person’s violation onto the person who was violated.
Tamara had made decisions that placed her in a vulnerable situation. She would eventually have to examine those decisions honestly.
But another person’s decision to violate her remained that person’s responsibility.
Both truths can exist in the same story.
And then came another reality.
Pregnancy.
Suddenly, what had begun as drinking with peers was no longer simply a night, a party, or a mistake that could disappear with the morning.
There were consequences that followed her home.
There were conversations.
There was pain.
There was shame.
There was fear.
There were decisions that had to be made.
Her life had reached the heavier side of the seesaw.
But that was not the end of Tamara.
Her family intervened.
She received treatment.
Her environment changed.
She changed schools.
The people around her began helping her rebuild structure around a life that had begun slipping beyond her control.
And Tamara also had work to do.
Restoration does not mean pretending our decisions never happened.
Grace and accountability are not enemies.
Sometimes grace is precisely what gives us enough courage to look at ourselves truthfully without deciding that our worst chapter must become our entire identity.
Tamara had to learn.
Her family had to learn.
There were consequences that could not simply be erased.
But there was also something else:
another chance.
That is the part of these stories I never want us to forget.
We can talk about what alcohol takes without deciding that the person from whom something has been taken is permanently lost.
We can warn without condemning.
We can teach without humiliating.
We can hold people accountable without stripping them of dignity.
And we can recognize that sometimes what looks like rebellion from the outside is a human being standing at an intersection of pressure, vulnerability, poor decisions, trauma, and an enormous need to belong.
The Bible says:
“Though a righteous person falls seven times, he will get up.” — Proverbs 24:16
The emphasis is not merely on the falling.
It is on the getting up.
Tamara got another opportunity to get up.
And perhaps someone reading this needs one too.
Maybe alcohol has already taken something from you.
Maybe your story is not alcohol.
Maybe yours has another name entirely.
Whatever it is, acknowledging what happened is not the same thing as surrendering your future to it.
You can examine your choices.
You can accept help.
You can change your environment.
You can rebuild.
You can return to God.
And you can begin again.
Because sometimes the most important thing about the heavier side of the seesaw is discovering that the weight does not have to remain there forever.
Joan A. Roberts
Divine Accolades — Words & Wellness
