Sober October - Day 17

Well, I’m not struggling anymore, which is nice. I mean I’m looking forward to Halloween because it’ll be fun and heyyyy I like Chardonnay, but right now, I'm not craving wine in the evenings. 

I’ve been thinking a lot about my mother and what alcohol stole from our relationship. My mom was a bright and interesting woman. She and I should have been able to talk about a lot, from politics to work to babies and everything in between. But we never could. Oh sure, when she was sober I could tell her a bit about my struggles, and she was a great listener, but that was… when she was sober. She was drunk a lot and, especially during my teenage years and in my 20s, she was a mean drunk. A violent drunk. She was drunk at my wedding and on the day my two boys were born. I left home at 15 and lived at a boarding school during the week, so I avoided a lot of her drunk evenings and rages, but I still had my share of phone calls and terrible words flung at me. I walked on eggshells at home. I couldn’t confide in her because she would throw issues back at me when she was angry. So little by little I talked less, I confided less, and after years of that, I didn’t have much to say, whether she was sober or not. I’m not upset at her -not anymore- but at the addiction, at the could-and-should-have-beens, at the loss of a relationship that I can only imagine could have been fulfilling and stabilizing.

I am not a mean drunk -at all- but I never want alcohol to take anything from the relationship I build with my children and my spouse.