Alcohol at home

MAIA: So, as I was bringing up my family, that was my desire for my children... to be able to find that right path. If you go off that path, then hey, let's pray for you that you’ll get back on the right path.

It came to the crunch I think, when my husband decided he was going to make homebrew at home, rather than pay for beer in the pub. See, my husband was naïve as well. We were both naïve about alcohol. He’d make the brew and put it up in the shed and we’d go away for a holiday, for a weekend. He’d forget that the brew was in the shed. Who got into it?

INTERVIEWER: Oh.
MAIA: These guys. They were constantly drinking. More so than I ever realised.

I knew that … and they always laugh about it now, that “I was drinking when I was 12,” or “I was drinking when I was 13.” In my head I’m thinking, “Yeah, I probably knew that you were.” But, like I say, I was naïve because when you’re a parent you don’t have practice at being a parent of kids and teenagers. You’ve had no practice. All of a sudden they’re there, in your face, and you have to deal with them.

You hear these things, these words and terminology that come, “He’s an alcoholic”, and “He’s in the pub every day.” I thought, “I don’t want my kids to turn out to be alcoholics.”