It is getting close to the new year. Today is the 28, only a few more days. Recently my sister and I, although we are not very close, have been talking. She brought up the topic of our mother, who has been known to abuse alcohol. I guess since I have been away at college for the past months, since August, and not living with her, I didn't really realize that she was still drinking. I knew she was, I guess, it just didn't occur to me, because I wasn't experiencing it, that it was still a problem. It seems stupid of me to think that now. How mindless and naive was I being. It's not like me being displaced from her drinking made her problem any better.
Well since I have been back over the holidays, we have dodged what could have been potential drinking disasters..which is good. But one can't get too comfortable with these calms...because they are, as the cliche goes,the calm before the storm. Oh, how like clock-work the drinking starts again.
I understand the problems at work she has been having have really hurt her personally and emotionally, but to me all I hear when she recounts these episodes are another excuse to drink another glass. Drink to the people who 'beat up' on her.
Don't get me wrong, my mother is one of the people I love most in this world, and I don't think that these people at her work (a particular department store) have any right to treat her they way they do. But her drinking because of the crap they give her, is stupid. It's beating herself up even more, if that makes any sense.
Now I am sitting here thinking about what crap she is putting herself through so selfishly. She is not only hurting herself but the family as well. All I can think of is where will it end. It is not as if we don't care for her, all we want for her is the best.
I have heard that it takes a life changing event to stop these speeding trains, so to speak, but isn't that what she has already had? A potentially (thank goodness it wasn't) lethal accident, a pending divorce, aren't these wake-up calls enough? Not to even mention the things you can't take a look at, the damage being done to her body. The last thing on earth I would ever want to happen would be to loose my mother before "her time".
My father, he is a different story. Yes, he has drinking issues of his own, but I think he his capable of pulling himself out of it (being that he wants to). But I don't see my mother getting real help for herself. Yes, she goes to therapy, but she doesn't want to change. She is perfectly happy drinking her self into "early retirement", and that scares me to death.
I don't want to know what it has to take for her to wake up if the things that have already happened didn't do the job. I have been to Ala-teen/Ala-non and know how to live "one day at a time", but what happens when your scared to?
