numbness of alcoholics: my immediate family feels like it's finally surfacing after 15 years of drowning alongside an alcoholic
Someone we loved
But...
Someone who held us hostage with his addiction
And an abusive temperament to boot
Every interaction could land wrong and you would be subjected to a rage explosion, so life was like walking on eggshells all the time
Every conversation, every dinner, every "welcome home", every time we hung out as a family... they all felt like we were on the edge of a knife just WAITING for the moment when said person would snap because he either was drinking or hadn't started yet
Stupid shit too, like my brother mindlessly clicking a pen at the dinner table or the dogs needing to go out to pee
Our family being held captive in our own home
Never being able to settle on CALM, so much so that our nervous systems are all fried as a result
I'm smart enough to know that drinking is just the mask for the deeper issues, but the bottle really does a number on families
The visual I always have with the alcoholics in my life (there have been many) is standing face to face trying to connect, but doing so through a thick barrier
It's like they can't interface without alcohol being the filter and the separation-- and in that way it always feels uncomfortably hollow for me
It's an adaptation for unprocessed pain, I get it
But they almost always fail to see the distance they are seeking is creating distance in their relationships-- the pain they are running from is just causing more pain down the line with people who love them
My dad flipped his truck on Christmas Eve when I was 8. He dropped me off with my mom and got in an accident on his way home. He went cold turkey right then and there
The older I get the more monumental of an effort that seems
Something completely born out of love and protection for me, because he knew he was given a second chance
And because I could have been with him
Not everyone answers the wakeup calls though, some just take their families down from the inside
We're all trying to rebuild from all that fucking damage, it took an effort to claw our way out of the hole they left
Glad they're gone tho
