bliss-sad's Diaryland Diary

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relapse pt 2

Derv and I got a free night's stay at a local hotel/resort so we took a night to ourselves after dealing with all the drunk dad drama. My brother was kind enough to step in for the second shift of the night, and my mom for the graveyard.

I woke up this morning at seven, drove the fifty miles home and arrived at my parent's house as I promised my father I would in order to pick up his pain meds.

When I got back to deliver his wares, he was super hungover and sick and miserable. He didn't really wake up for a few hours, but the entire time he was sleeping I kept hearing him moan and snore. I tried to stay close--you know, in case he choked on his own vomit or something... After he regained consciousness, he was in a terrible mood, so my brother and I sat with him until he (my brother) couldn't handle it anymore and went home.

I couldn't leave though. Throughout my childhood, my role in the family has been to be the tension breaker. When I was young I was just unaware of the craziness happening in our house, and so I would just wander along being my normal silly self. I've always been close with my father, so during his dark drinking days when my brother became the target of his aggression, I became his little buddy. I always appealed to his sense of humor, I always knew how to make him laugh. At some point that just became my job.... Nowadays my silliness is combined with an optimistic (some would say naive) outlook and sarcastic sense of humor, and that helps to lubricate tricky situations....

So when my brother left, I stayed to babysit. To hide the car keys. To hide the remaining alcohol. To cook something for him. To remind him to take his diabetic meds. To test his blood sugar. To bring him glasses of water and force-feed it to him, promising to clean up one room for every glass he finishes.

People say that you're supposed to employ detached love, that you're not supposed to enable....but, that's my fucking dad. Like, what am I supposed to do when his lips are turning white from dehydration and he's barely able to stand?

I see that this is skewed and fucked up and unfair and ridiculous. I see that I'm taking on the parental role in a way that I shouldn't have to.... but that's my fucking dad.

When he was drunk he kept latching onto the phrase, "I didn't ask for this"--referring the the car accident that lead to surgery that lead to his chronic pain that lead to his unemployment and ongoing lawsuit, and all I thought was, "I didn't ask for THIS. I didn't ask to be the parent. I didn't ask to try to protect the bullshit image of sobriety that you're portraying to everyone."

I hate that he still tries to claim ten years sober. Granted, his drinking has changed from long benders of blackout drunk followed by brief and productive periods of sobriety to a handful of days a year that he drinks two bottles in a sitting....but, that's still not fucking sobriety.

At the end of the day, I'm upset and hurt and disappointed, but more than anything, I'm just of overwhelmingly proud of myself for recognizing my problem with alcohol and the fact that my brain isn't wired to accept it.

If my husband and I ever have children, they won't go through this. They will never see me on the kitchen floor, drunk and helpless and wailing in pain. They will never have to put my socks on for me or answer text messages because I can't see straight. They will not be taught that drinking means the bottle must be emptied or that you must consume until your body shuts down. They will not be subject to inebriated rants about mistakes they made a decade ago when they were children. They will not be raised in a household where alcohol is an ever present force--a solution to whatever hurdles rise in front of you.

I know I've been beating this drum for a while now, but these glimpses of what could be my future are--no pun intended--sobering.

6:24 p.m. - 06.29.13

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