Mom's guilt will live on

Debbie Crowell plays with her daughter, Sabrina, at Las Amigas.

But after her anger faded, Crowell started to understand what had gone so wrong in her life. Booze had helped her stuff away the memories of a traumatic childhood, she said.
"I couldn't deal with life," she said. "I didn't know how to function sober. Drinking took away the pain and the hurt. It was easy and cheap."
At Las Amigas, she's had to deal with her feelings.
"I never cried so much my whole entire life until I walked through these doors. But they are good tears. I needed to wash all this bad stuff out."
Tears flow when she talks about drinking during some of her pregnancies.
Because she had read that alcohol did the greatest damage during the first trimester, she would cut back during those first three months of pregnancy.
What she didn't know is that much of the brain's development occurs later in pregnancy.
"When I started my second trimester, I became a drinking machine," Crowell said of her latest pregnancy. "I drank all throughout the day. My husband would come home and see me drunk in the front yard and not say one word. He'd walk out the back door. Later he'd find me passed out, and he'd have to carry me back inside."
While the expectant mom was getting drunk, her young children were left to care for themselves.
"Ashley, my 5-year-old, would say, 'Mommy, why are you drinking so much?' I remember once I was in my bedroom and she knocked on my door with Zachary screaming and crying and said, 'Mama, what do I do? The baby won't stop crying.' I just shut the door in her face. That just kills me to think about it now."