“But you never got the help you needed.”
“How could I? Every time I tried to get sober, tried to pull myself together, Richard would remind me of something else I’d supposedly done wrong while drinking. He’d show me contracts I’d allegedly signed while intoxicated, or tell me about phone calls I’d made to clients that I didn’t remember. Looking back, I think most of those incidents were fabricated. But at the time, I believed him.”
The systematic destruction of Blaine’s self-confidence was becoming clear. Richard had used grief, guilt, and alcohol to make his father doubt his own memory and judgment, then use that doubt to justify taking control of everything.
“How long did it take for you to lose the business completely?”
“About 18 months. By then, I was drinking heavily every day. Richard had convinced several key employees to quit and work for a competitor he’d secretly started. And I was too broken to fight back when he presented me with papers that essentially signed everything over to him.”Browse Magazines
