I don’t remember a time where I knew that mom was alcoholic and my dad wasn’t one too. My dad drank openly, unabashedly. He would drink at work and on his way home. He hid nothing, and thought of himself as better for it. He was a kind drunk – to us, anyway – but it was really annoying dealing with his verbal diarrhea which came above anything. You might be in the middle of homework, or as a family at the dinner table – but if dad needed to unleash his drunken thoughts – you sure as hell had to stick around and listen. As he drifted further down the path of Alcohol Over Everything, he retreated more. He’d sit in the basement in front of the fireplace for hours and just stare at it. So it was easy to ignore for a while.
Dad and mom had a good marriage, I think, before alcohol. They seemed to really love each other. They were like-minded, goofy and both were SUCH good parents. My dad was a bus driver when they met. She rode on his route regularly on her way to work as a preschool teacher. They became friends.
When he proposed – he sent her best friend to her work at the end of the school day with a paper bag. The paper bag had a dress and shoes and a note to meet him outside. She changed and went outside and he was there, in a suit, with a limo. They went to a botanical garden nearby and went for a walk. My dad told her how much he loved her and proposed. He had planted some flowers for the proposal and went to the flowers and picked off some to give her, telling her these would symbolize their future kids. They daydreamed about the family they would have.
I love hearing about their engagement story. It told me they had such good intentions. They wanted love – family – faith – all of it. They wanted it so bad. They had it, for a while.
Dad continued to fly under the radar for me through middle school and high school. I hated how much he drank but I had bigger problems…Mom. There was nothing low key or high functioning about her when she was a bottle of wine deep (which was frequent). Dad quietly drank himself to sleep every night while Mom went on warpaths. Sometimes we’d get lucky and they’d both lock themselves up somewhere and not come out.
After mom died, all of our focus moved to Dad. Man – when did he get this bad? How did we not see the depression? We encouraged him to retire, to reduce the stress he had every day. By that time, he was in upper management at a transit company. He did. Retirement = lack of human connection = greater sense of loneliness. The drinking became everything.
His body can take a lot. I mean, a 5th of 80 proof whiskey chased down with a bottle of wine every night. Or maybe 2 fifths, if it was a particularly boring day. In 2019 his heart started to fail and he was rushed to the hospital. Detox was hard. His heart wasn’t pumping correctly and there was lack of oxygen to his body. His lungs began to fill with fluid and we were told to prepare our goodbye’s. I’ve never seen him so sick or so scared. It was awful. I cursed his addictions, his stressful life, his childhood trauma – and even the horrible way in which he was going to die. Nothing – not even death – was an easy road for my dad.
But he didn’t die. They drained his lungs with a process that looked strikingly similar to tapping a maple tree and told my siblings and I they wanted to attempt heart surgery and we had to understand he might not live through the surgery. It was our only option – he was dying in front of us. He was apprehensive about the surgery but the panic attacks he’d get when he couldn’t breathe scared him into it. The surgery was successful. His heart was pumping blood more effectively. He was immediately better and more relaxed. They cautioned him to eat a ‘heart healthy’ diet, to stop smoking and for the love of God to lay off the booze.
After a month in the hospital and a few more weeks in an inpatient rehab facility, my dad was sent home. We were all so happy and relieved. Our prayers had been answered. He gets to have a second chance on life. This precious, precious life. He could spend time with his kids and grandkids and maybe even travel!
I’m not sure he made it a full month living on his own before he was drinking heavily again. He made it approximately 20 minutes before smoking. He decided he didn’t like to cook and began eating at his local A&W – daily. He refuses anything that might look like a vegetable and if it says ‘heart healthy’ then it usually means low sodium or low fat and neither of those would fly. He was going to live life on his terms, and if it killed him…so be it.
Remember when I talked about being a One on the Enneagram? Resentment and Anger were my motivators. I have to work really hard to keep them at bay. I had to try to not think about the amazing dad or husband that didn’t get a second chance of life, or the child who died of cancer, or the baby that didn’t make it. I know that isn’t how life works and I was SO excited my dad had this stroke of luck – but I couldn’t help but to think ‘why him?’ Why is his life worth it? He doesn’t care – and there are people who care SO much. Life is so strange sometimes. I was mad when I thought he was dying and now I’m mad that he’s wasting away while living.
I say all this with profound love for my dad. His struggles I will never fully understand. I know he wants sobriety. I know he wants happiness. Gosh, this journey is messy. Sometimes my thoughts get pretty messy, too.
Loving an Addict 