When Love Doesn't Start At Home: Surviving a Dysfunctional Family

It was hard being one of four boys growing up in the 1940s in a dysfunctional family. Throw in alcoholic parents, a hot tempered pure-bred American Indian mother, a father running secret missions for the military, and three wild brothers and you got a mix of family craziness.

This is a beautiful and engaging book about surviving and prospering after growing up in a dysfunctional family. It is told by a man who is a brother, husband, father, veteran, and overall good guy who has a lot of life lessons to share with the world.

Author Sammy Lee Gott shares an emotional and raw telling of events tempered with insightful moments that shaped the way he sees the world today. This book is about his life journeys. From poor to financially well off. From emotional broken to loved and centered. From a feeling of self doubt to one of self worth. From a non-spiritual beginning to finding Christ. From not knowing what good parents are to raising independent and well adjusted children that have a sense of what family is really about.

This book will make you think. It will also make you cry.

The book talks about all aspects of life - what it was like moving around so much, a lack of schooling (because they kept moving), early childhood years when the boys thought no one understood or loved them, relationships with women, finding Christ, relationships with their children, work, military service, and growing older.

Most books about dysfunctional families spend most of the pages defining what one is, not showing you the emotional scars. Most authors of books involving dysfunctional families write about resenting the world, they want to explain why they are the way they are, or they want to spread negativism in their book. Not this one. You see the growth, the hope, and the resolution. Sammy Lee Gott demonstrates his forgiveness and his ability to have moved on.

Absolutely beautiful.