In those days, I knew nothing about alcoholism and addiction. There was never any alcohol in our home growing up, and I was never around anyone who drank until I was grown. My Dad wouldn't even take us to restaurants where beer was served. Not to say there wasn't addiction in our family, I know now there was plenty of it, but those people were not discussed in our household unless they were referred to as "drunks" who were pretty much excommunicated from our lives. At least from mine. I was sheltered from everything.
But I did have one, very surreal experience with the disease. Thinking back now, it almost seems like a dream. Right before I got married to David, some new neighbors moved in next door. They were big time drinkers, and the young lady quickly befriended my mother. My mother started going to their house for visits, and ultimately for a beer. I know it seems impossible, but my 110 pound mother could have two beers and be slurring, staggering drunk. What's worse, is that almost instantly she seemed to be hooked. Within a matter of a couple of months my mother was drunk several times a week. The odd part about it was I never once saw my mother take a drink. But we started finding beer cans hidden everywhere, mostly in her bathroom. During the course of an evening my mother would get up to go to the bathroom every 10 minutes, and every time she'd come back she was in worse condition.
My father was livid. He was absolutely beside himself. This hidden drinking went on for several months, I guess. Maybe a year or so? I honestly don't remember. My mother showed up drunk at a bridal shower given to me by Old Beth and her wonderful, June Cleaver mother. Believe me, there was no drinking allowed in that household either. I was incredibly embarrassed that day.
I was getting married, moving out, and caught up in my own life so I know I missed a great deal of what was happening at home. Years later my sister told me Mom had wrecked her car during that time, and they had hidden the whole thing from me because they didn't want to upset me.
When Dad had all he could take, he checked my mother into a 30 day in-patient rehab facility. To my knowledge, she never drank again after that.
I believe now, that this story explains volumes about how I grew in to the person I became. Even if I suspected someone drank more than I thought they should, why would I worry about it? If it got too bad I would simply do as my father did and put my foot down. I could resort to rehab if needed, and the "problem" would be solved. I could "fix" this if it ever got too far out of hand. From where I stood, curing this issue seemed pretty simple.
I also know now that I am more like my father than I ever wanted to believe. He was attracted to my beautiful, spunky, rule breaking mother the same way I have always been attracted to bad boys. My mother had a life before my Dad, and I have to wonder if he knew she had a problem with drinking when he married her, thus the strict abstinence in our household?
And I keep thinking back to my parents hiding the car crash from me. I was married, for Heaven's sake, and an adult! Yet they didn't think I could handle it? Or maybe just thought it was too scandalous to tell the Golden Child, but not the older, more worldly one? There were so many things that were hidden, not just the crash. My mother hid her drinking, and to the day she died she hid her smoking, because my Dad had forbidden it as it started to kill her. Dad never could get his way with that one, and it killed her anyway. After she died, we found cigarettes hidden everywhere.
My Dad would not be happy if he knew I wrote these secret things for all to see, but maybe if I hadn't been so sheltered, things may have been easier for me later in life. Maybe if I had been invited to family counsel during that 30 day rehab stay I could have learned some facts about the disease of alcoholism instead of just thinking it was something that could easily be fixed if and when it got out of hand.
Once again, this is why I love writing this journal. True, there are some people who don't particularly like it. But inside my mind, there are thousands of puzzle pieces. If I can pull out a few here and there, and see where they fit in, I may one day be able to see the full picture. What's more important, I may be able to stop the cycle from spreading to another generation of our family.
No comments:
Post a Comment