“When my girls were little I was their hero,
then they grew up and realized I was just some drunk guy running around with a cape.”
My dad said that to me when I was in my 20’s and it always stuck with me because there is no truer words that those. He has been an alcoholic my whole life and he gets reckless with his decision making and he does things he would never do sober. He is not mean or abusive and can actually be very funny but when he is drinking nothing else matters. I was about 17 or 18 when I really started to understand the hold that alcohol had on him. I also started to notice all the places where his presence was lacking and I became angry about it. We didn’t have much of a relationship for many years. I wouldn’t talk to him when he was drinking, which was a lot, and I still won’t. We now have an unsaid agreement that he doesn’t come around when he is on a binge but he is always welcome when he is sober.
For my daughter, alcoholism has become what will be a lifelong battle that started at about 13. Almost overnight she was a completely different kid. She went from being my sweet girl to a complete stranger who hid everything from me. It’s still her go to tactic. She shuts down, and stops talking to me. The moment that happens I know something is going on. It’s almost her way of reaching out for help because in those moments she is weak and needs strength from those who love her.
My son is reckless and will do the stupidest shit when he is drinking. He has a bad temper and so he was always coming home injured. He was drinking quite a bit as a young teenager but for him it became exponentially worse when his dad died. Avory helped me move his dad’s body and perform CPR. He has never really wanted to talk about this night except to say he walked past him a few hours before and thought he was sleeping. He was different after that, like we all were I guess. He started to spend as little time as possible at home. He would eat and sleep and that’s it. He was so angry at the world.
I was with my husband for 18 years and I don’t think he ever saw me drunk. I never wanted to drink because I watched my dad struggle for so long but there is this country song by Jason Aldean and the main lyric in the song is, “Whiskey drowns the memory, until the memory drowns the whiskey.” This is exactly what it was like for me. At first it did drown the memory as well as calm the uncontrollable anxiety I was having. What could a few drinks hurt? It would help me fall asleep in seconds so I wasn’t awake and over thinking. I had a lot of guilt after my husband died because I remember hearing him sit down and thought to myself that was loud. My gut told me to go check on him but I was tired, so I went to sleep. I found him 4 hours later, slumped over on the couch. Logically I have always known that I didn’t make the choice to go to sleep thinking he was going to die, but my gut did tell me to go check and I didn’t. So to cope, I drank.
I have been surrounded my whole life by people whose coping mechanism is Alcohol and so I guess it’s no surprise that when it finally got to be too much, I leaned toward it too. This experience has given me a lot more understanding towards my dad, my kids and anyone else I love that struggles with Alcohol because I can see how quickly it can all go south but it’s also made me a little less tolerant. Of course there are physical and mental factors and there is no easy way to get and stay sober but people do it because they choose to. They choose to ask for help, they choose to change their peer group, they choose to only surround themselves with people who empower and encourage them. They choose to forgive themselves and believe they are worth it. They choose to be the parents their children deserve.
We are all just one decision away from a different life.
