truth in lending

The last time I had a bottle of alcohol wiz passed my face it belong to him too, only this time he wasn’t the one throwing it.  This time it was his son.

 It is hard to imagine how it feels the second time around being a spectator to this.  After he lobbed a few beers and a mirror across the room I grabbed his arm in an empty attempt to stop him from pouring his dad’s vodka all over the sofa.  He towers over me and at 19 he is hardly considered a boy anymore, unless you are a mother.

I stood in his dad’s house watching him in disbelief.  I know I would never have dared to pour out his dad’s precious drink, let alone do it all over the furniture! I know this because when I married to him I used to want to so badly. I wanted to get even with him for what he was doing to our lives but the closest I ever came was thinking about watching it go down the drain then not fear but the image of his heart broken face at seeing his drink gone would stop me. 

I struggle when he, the toughest, strongest, often, the most frightening man I have ever known, calls me asking desperately for my help, when his voice cracks, when he sees the clear path of destruction.  I don’t know what to do with the feelings when he says to me all the true things about how much he has done for our son and yet we all know it is ONE thing he IS doing that makes none of that matter; he won’t or can’t stop drinking.  As it was the same with us, our lives were perfect and we had everything and underneath that separate truth a secret desolate jungle overrun by guerrilla warfare.  And I am the bad guy, I am the one who gave up, fled what the drinking led to, fled to let him drink in peace. 

I never wanted to break his heart and that is the haunting part I left him not to save me or my kids from him but to spare him the pain of having to lose the love of his life.  To me it was very black and white he didn’t love me he loved alcohol and asking him to stop would have been a losing battle.  I has already lost so much I didn’t want to lose anymore so I walked away.

I have been told one day I will see it 'better' and then I will brave enough to advocate for others but put in front of a group of woman facing the same issues I am braver AND I would be any Social Worker's worst nightmare.  I would tell them to stay and work it out.  Leaving isn’t worth the price you pay for doing it. Anyone who tells you differently at best is simply withholding vital information.  Don't get me wrong I have a wonderful life in the NOW but the size of what I mortgaged to get here puts me habitually underwater... I think it is called drowning.   

He is a good dad.  I want the two of them to work.  I want my son and his father to be.  I want a good dad and a man who drinks too much to not conflict with one another.  

His son is much smarter and less damaged than me; all he wants is his dad to stop drinking.  He is pissed.  As his mom I would like to say his anger didn’t scare me, that in the instant I put my hand on him to try to stop him I wasn’t also flinching inside preparing to be caught up in his storm.  He pulled bottle after bottle from their hiding places launching them into the air and for the first time in a long time I saw more of myself than his father in him.  He isn’t fighting the demons of his dad but those of his mother.  Whether or not he knows it, he is actually winning. 

There is apart of me I forever lost to his dad and his drinking.  It is a scar not gained from a battle wound but from wounds gained by refusing to fight at all.  What you aren’t told by those who say ‘get out’ is the cost of letting a family fail.  I am always reminded that I care more for his dad’s comfort than for my own sanity- you don’t recover from such close range self inflicted damage.  Neither can you protect someone from their own bad choices for so long and hope to stand unaffected by your own even poorer ones.  Nor can you hid from complicity. 

Even knowing it would have been a suicide mission to stay, I can say without a doubt in my mind: I should have stuck it out. I was wrong and I have never denied that fact. (I am not trying to undo the past I am only being blunt about the truth of it.)

Here is his kid doing what I couldn’t do digging in and fighting for all of us.  My job is to make sure he is well supported.  My job is to make sure he doesn’t go in after his father too deep.  It is time for me to reenlist in the army. My kid needs some allies fighting beside him on the frontlines.  There is a lot of good work to be done.

Right now he is sleeping soundly here in his bed and it feels so good to know he is safe back at home (with me), right where he should be (seeking shelter from the passing storm).  

~Through the black and back~