laurawhiterivers

My mother was an alcoholic.
Not the “ruin-Thanksgiving-and-Christmas-with-a-shit-show” kind of alcoholic, but the “raging-and-suffering-at-home-behind-a-façade-of-accomplishment-and-responsibility” kind of alcoholic.

From the earliest memories I have until the night before she went to rehab, I only remember one night that she was not drunk at home. One. Each night after school, there were only about two hours that she was sober. When she would drink at dinner, I would do my best to hide in my room and be invisible. She went to work every day and was on top of her game. Her responsibilities at work were heavy, and despite carrying such a monster in her mind, she managed to excel professionally. Nights at home, however, were the worst.

The chaos was at it’s peak when my father told me we were going to set up an intervention. I think I was 12. The day before, our entire family met to go over what would happen. I was told that if my mother refused treatment, we kids would be taken to live away from her. I was also told that I had to deliver that news to my mother.

I had to tell her – me.

Clearly, they didn’t understand what a force she was when she was angry. Her rage could move mountains and burn cities. It was an impossible request. I was terrified.

Somehow, the next day, I found the words to address her across a circle of family and counsellors. The room was quiet when I finished speaking. Everyone was waiting for her reaction. The line in the sand between us rolled out for miles as we waited. She looked down and quietly agreed to go. It was a victory, but it hardly felt like one.

Later, when the alcohol metabolized away, and talking replaced the screaming, she admitted to the family that she was struggling so much in the grip of addiction that she had considered suicide and would not have made it to Christmas that year. As it would play out, she spent that first sober Christmas facing her demons in the safety of the facility. I think she was 36.

It always seemed like so many years were wasted because of her drinking. Who she was as a person was diluted; her intelligence, wit and fantastic sense of humor was just ruined as it sloshed around in the addiction. I made up that she was killing the pain of her father’s accident. I gave her addiction a more noble meaning, a human side- an understandable reason. She was my daughters’ age when her father was killed in a tractor accident on the farm. It was the early sixties, and people didn’t discuss death. It wasn’t normalized, life wasn’t celebrated, and there weren’t support groups. The family just carried on in a small town with the stigma of the accident and loss following along. My mother was close to her father, she was his “right hand man on the farm”, as he called her. His death wounded her deeply.

If her drinking was to mask the pain of loss, she must have been in her late 20s when the addiction became larger than the pain she was trying to smother. I always wondered if she saw the affect she was having on us. I don’t think she could. I’m not sure it’s possible to see from that perspective. I think when you become tangled up in addiction you plan your life around it and rationalize the rest away. You still love people and want the best for them, but a portion of your mind is always planning the time when you can meet with your vices again. She was able to take the power back when she realized that she would lose everything because of it. The universe left us a few sober years before she died. Today, I am wise enough to be grateful for what we were given.

I love so many people today who struggle with addiction. I keep a safe distance. My memories of how I grew up won’t let me get too close, but I see your struggle and I acknowledge your pain. I know what this monster can do. It is big, but not impossible. There is no shame in taking your life back, only triumph. I want you to understand that even when it feels like it has gone so far out of control you can only hang on, you can still take it back. I have seen that moment weigh heavy on my mothers shoulders, and when she let it all go and accepted the next step, her power returned. It’s almost counter-intuitive, but, I promise, it is true.

If you opened your eyes today to the sunrise, you still have a chance to live life on your own terms. Take it.

Let today be the beginning.