Drinking

The fall, winds of change

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Even though autumn is my second favorite season, I always feel sad to see the end of summer. I don’t feel like I enjoyed summer as much as I should’ve. The end of summer brings another change, and not just with the seasons.

Tomorrow Arabella has her last court date. After two years, she will now be off of probation. She spoke with her lawyer, and told him she has since been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder. Hopefully she will be able to have her charges dismissed. Her crime was classified as domestic abuse, without consideration she was in a manic state with psychosis. She didn’t have the diagnosis at the time of her criminal offense, her mental illness was just beginning.

The first couple months out of jail was a rough ride, but once she finally got a proper diagnosis with the proper treatment she has become the daughter I’ve always wanted her to be. Perfect, no. But finally getting her life back together. She has been holding down the same job for the past two years. My son Alex recently told Arabella he forgave her for hurting us and his hatred towards her. She is a different person now, a better person who wouldn’t think of hurting anyone. This past week she started dating someone new. He seems like a nice guy.

Alex starting dating someone too. He is with Arabella’s friend, the girl who went to rehab a couple months back. This past weekend Alex was playing with his band. By the time Paul, Angel, and I got to the show his new girlfriend was wasted. She was hitting on everyone. She met Angel for the first time and it didn’t go well. Angel tried to tell her she was Alex’s sister but Angel thought his new girlfriend saw her as competition. This girl was drunk and out of control in front of Alex while he was playing. At one point, she could barely walk so we sat her down with some water.

When Alex got done playing, he was upset and wasn’t sure what to do. We thought perhaps their relationship would be over. The next day, Alex told us he gave her an ultimatum. He told her if she wanted to be with him, she had to stop drinking. He told her in return he would quit drinking too. I have been really concerned lately about my son’s alcoholism. Since he started with this new girl, both of them took drinking to a whole new level. She wanted them to do shots first thing in the morning. He has been black out drunk several nights in a row for weeks, maybe longer. I don’t always see it.

It won’t be easy to turn away from alcohol in our culture. When Alex plays, fans often buy the band drinks and shots. The last week or so his eyes were opened. While playing he had the opportunity to see what hard core alcoholism looks like, how it can destroy people and relationships. He said with or without his new girlfriend, he was going to give up drinking because he doesn’t want that to be a part of his future.

I see a lot of change in the air.

Middle of May update

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The clock keeps on ticking and time seems to fly by. Today is Arabella’s birthday and I have the day off of work. We’re planning on getting our nails done and going out to eat.

Life has been eventful as of late. I ran into an old friend of Arabella and they reconnected which lead to a whole bunch of excitement. Let’s just say that several nights were spent drinking. Literally whole nights where I woke up in the morning and they were still up. Arabella’s friend was doling out shots the whole night and come morning she was totally wasted along with my son. Through their intoxication, they realized they were totally in love. Arabella and her boyfriend were trying to talk both of them to go to sleep and figure things out later when they were sober. I awoke to Arabella’s boyfriend yelling at Alex.

Alex could barely walk as I walked with him to his room. I’ve never seen him so drunk. He had to perform in his band later that evening. By this time I was fed up with the whole lot of them. That evening was more of the same. Arabella’s friend was flirting with much older strangers talking them into giving her cigarettes and buying her shots. Paul had enough of it and ended up confronting the girl and telling her she was no longer welcome at our house unless she got her drinking under control. She already has been cut off by her family and has an ignition interlock device on her car from drunk driving. I hope she gets some help and figures her life out.

This was the first time Paul told someone they were not welcome here due to their drinking. Believe me when I say her drinking was pretty out of control for Paul to say that being a drinker himself. We were both afraid it would jeopardize Arabella’s recovery and if she started dating Alex the relationship would be toxic to say the least. They probably would both take their drinking to new heights.

We were sad to see Arabella’s friend go. Arabella doesn’t have many friends and this girl has been a good friend to her in the past. The rest of the weekend was pretty mild compared to this. Mother’s Day was almost uneventful. Paul and I took my mom and Matt to her church. My mom and brother displayed inappropriate behavior both passing gas several times in the pew. My mom was very confused. She couldn’t seem to reason that she needed enough room for 4 people to sit. But in some ways I enjoyed going to my childhood church. One member said I look more and more like my grandma the older I get. It made me feel good to receive that compliment and to be around people that remembered family long dead.

The rest of the time with my mom was stressful and I couldn’t wait to leave. She was confused about her medication. Earlier in the week I received a call from my dad who said that she took too many pills and ran out. She gets angry and emotional easily. Her food hoarding has gotten out of control. She wanted me to reimburse her out of Matt’s account (I am now his guardian) for over $200 worth of food which included 8 bags of gluten free flour and a dozen containers of breading.

Some good things did happen so far this week. I met with my therapist who said I am in a good spot and after almost a decade said I didn’t need therapy anymore. I saw a quote recently I thought applied to this which said that as someone with Complex PTSD we don’t need to know how to survive trauma and pain. This is something we are used to dealing with skillfully. What we need is to know how to handle joy and happiness, something I never learned how to do. It really resonated with me.

Over the next couple of days, I am looking forward to spending some time with Arabella for her birthday. Alex’s band is playing outdoors this weekend. Early next week Angel and her husband will be back home for a couple weeks.

Green light, red light 6

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Several times during her hospital stay, Arabella put in requests to come back home. On day 10, we picked her up and brought her back home. She was doing better, a lot better than when we took her in. But she was still manic and delusional. Maybe our expectations were too high. Or maybe we picked her up too early.

She didn’t sleep the first night we brought her home. The hospital changed all her medications. Then when she got home, she took her old nightly medications. It was a jumbled up mess so we decided to call her psychiatrist’s office in the morning to figure it all out. The process of figuring everything out took the whole day. By that afternoon, things got progressively worse. Arabella was very manic and kept interrupting us every few minutes to tell us a bunch of nonsense. By late afternoon, Arabella told us she took a couple of gummies and smoked weed. She was stoned out of her mind, and totally freaking out.

My mom stopped by for a random visit right around that time. She wanted to go for a walk, but I was in the middle of a million things. It’s nearly impossible to get all the things done I wanted to get done when I’m constantly interrupted and in crisis mode. That is when we received a call back from the doctor’s office. Paul and I took the call in Paul’s office on speaker phone while both my mom and Arabella came in and talked to us while we were having a serious discussion with the nurse. We were beyond annoyed, frustrated, and stressed.

The nurse said the doctor wanted to discontinue some of the new meds from the hospital while adding back some of the old meds and discontinuing some others. They were going to call the prescriptions into the pharmacy and would be available two hours before the pharmacy closed. She was going to need to start the new medications that evening. I was going to need to figure it all out before she went to bed. I took a bag full of her medications on hand and went through everything while waiting for the pharmacy.

I needed to go through the meds, fold laundry, and make supper before picking up the meds. My mom tried calling several times while I was getting everything together to make supper. I figured she wanted to talk about Arabella since she left while we were on the phone with the doctor’s office. I ignored her call because I was in a real hurry and didn’t want to take the time to explain everything yet again.

Then Paul came into the room while talking on the phone. He asked whoever it was if they were going to be arrested. I knew he wasn’t talking to Arabella since she was in her room. It was my mom. He said that while she was on the way home she hit a guy on a motorcycle with her car. He said that I needed to go pick her up from the scene of the accident. He said my mom was okay. The guy on the motorcycle was alive but injured.

While in a crisis, we got hit with yet another crisis. I abandoned supper to get ready to pick up my mom. Paul said he would pick up the medication before the pharmacy closed. He wanted me to do it originally because it was my strong suit. On the way out the door, I called my best friend Cindy on the phone. She lived a couple blocks from the accident. She told me I should come over to her house and she would drive me because I was way too shook up myself.

Cindy and I picked up my mom from the place where they towed her car and the motorcycle. Good thing Paul picked up the medication because the pharmacy closed before I got home. The pharmacy screwed up the medication. But at least they gave her a prescription for something she was no longer using. The hospital also gave her an injectable medicine the day she left and I got a prescription bottle with a vial of the injection in it.

While all of that was happening, I received a call from Alex’s friend. It was his 21st birthday that evening and they wanted me to come out celebrating with them. It was a sweet gesture that my kid’s friends also think of me as their friend as well. Paul was just meeting with this young man and helping him set goals to get his GED which he just finished. I will always think of my kid’s friends as children even when they are in their 20’s and able to go out to the bars. If anything, I was worried that they would all make it home safely. Especially after the kind of day I was having.

They weren’t the only ones on the road. Dan and Angel were just getting home from a vacation in Japan. The flight back home was a rough one, then they had to drive another 4 hours to get back home. I was anxious all around. My nerves were shot and I didn’t know how much longer I could handle the stress. Bad news doesn’t seem to shock me anymore.

Now I find it shocking when good things happen.

Kicking off the new year

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I finally was able to fall asleep after the cops left almost 24 hours after I awoke. It wasn’t a great start to the new year. Sometimes I have to wonder why these kind of things always happen to me.

I was starting to feel stressed about New Year’s Eve. I mean, why not?? I was planning on having a few people over. Then I got the call from Arabella that she was planning on coming home which stressed me out even more. Apparently Will’s mom kicked them out and they wore out their stay in Kansas. I had no idea why.

On New Year’s Eve, I awoke to find out Dan started feeling sick the night before. Angel was around him a few days before. We both became extremely anxious. Maybe we were getting sick too. Was the sneeze just a tree allergy or something more sinister this time? We were tired and must’ve taken our temperature a half a dozen times and it was always within the range of normal. Then Dan tested positive for COVID.

I called all the people who were coming to let them know. Basically it was just my best friend Cindy’s family and my own. Cindy just recovered from COVID the week before. Since all of the guests recently had COVID and Arabella still wanted to come home, the party was still on. By this time, I put everything on hold and was now behind on the cooking and getting ready for the party.

The party itself was fine and relatively uneventful. I talked to Arabella more about her boyfriend Will. She said he was a Y2k baby. The world was ending the next day might as well hook up with a random stranger, then 9 months later a baby without a daddy. His mom ended up marrying someone later and had 3 more kids. The step-dad didn’t get along with Will so when he was in middle school they shipped him out of state to live with his grandma. Every Christmas he goes home to visit his mom. Apparently when he goes home there is a lot of screaming and yelling. Then all of a sudden they show up here and I am the world’s greatest mom. I am going to enjoy it while it lasts.

The party wound down at 1:30 AM and I was off to bed. My son was also having a party in the garage apartment. From the sounds of it, his party was still going because I could hear the bass drum beating from my bedroom. Paul put his earbuds in and was soon snoring while I laid there awake. An hour later, still awake, I heard noises and a car alarm going off. I got up to look out the window as a car took off swerving around the driveway almost hitting another car. Then the car came back.

Outside it sounded like fighting and someone was honking their horn over and over. I looked over at Paul who was still asleep as I put on my robe. I opened the front door to listen. There seemed to be a problem and I was getting upset. How inconsiderate to the neighbors to have all that noise at 2:30 in the morning. I put on my boots and stormed outside.

There were two guys yelling at a girl I didn’t know who was screaming and crying behind the wheel of the car. Next to those two guys were 5 more guys. I only knew my son and his roommate. I asked them what the hell was going on. They didn’t know. They just said the girl was upset and wanted to leave. The car was running and she was ready to drive off in her boyfriend’s car. No one really knew what to do. The boyfriend was yelling that she was too drunk.

I decided to talk to the girl. She was crying saying she just wanted to go home. She said her boyfriend was mad and accused her of talking to other guys. She said he was in jail before for beating her. I tried asking her questions which she didn’t respond to in order to decide for myself if she was capable of driving or not. She seemed pretty incoherent and I thought she was drunk, on something, or both. She was in no position to be driving.

Everyone just stood there as I was talking to her not sure what to do. I told her boyfriend that he needed to reach into the car and take the keys out of the ignition which he did. It was freezing outside and I was still afraid all the ruckus would wake up the neighbors, so I shooed everyone back into the garage. I was hoping things would calm down, but they didn’t. The woman was still screaming and now flailing her arms at her boyfriend who was yelling back. He was a pretty big guy, bigger than most of the guys there. But he didn’t put his hands on his girlfriend, it was more the other way around.

Then the girl took off screaming and sat back in the car again. It seemed like she was on her phone and I was hoping she would find a ride home. By then it was 3 AM. I decided to try to go back to bed, but laid there staring at the ceiling listening to my husband snore. I worried about the girl. I worried about Dan.

At 3:30 AM, I heard sirens and saw a police car outside of my house. I just about died. I had to run to the bathroom because I felt sick. I called my son who said the girl called the police and he was going to talk to them. The police were there about 20 minutes.

At this time I was in full PTSD flashback mode. When Matt would be physically aggressive towards strangers we tried to get him out of there right away. Mom said the police could arrest him and he would get locked up for the rest of his life wearing a straightjacket and having people hurt him. I had to run to the bathroom again. I was so horrified.

After the police left, I called my son and he didn’t answer. A million scenarios flashed through my mind. What if my son was arrested? What if this girl was drinking underage? What was going on?

It seemed like an eternity later when my son called back. He said he talked to the police and told them what was going on. He said the girl had too much to drink (thankfully she was 22) and they stopped her from trying to leave but she was upset. They talked to the boyfriend and ended up arresting the girl. It was probably for the best. What if she tried walking home or passed out outside and froze to death? Those things have been known to happen around here when people drink too much when it is freezing outside.

Everything was done and I could finally sleep. I looked over at the clock, it was 4:15 AM. I had been up since 5 AM the day before, almost 24 hours. My husband and I woke up at 7 AM. He asked how I slept. I told him pretty good after the cops left. WHAT???!? He slept through the whole thing.

So, yeah, my new year started out a little rough…

An extreme outlier

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There are some things I am rather hesitant to write about. Then I find this struggle within myself to describe things as they really are to give you an accurate recording of what the experience was like for me.

There was a downpour that evening as I was about to end my shift as a census enumerator. I found myself at a house in the middle of nowhere at the end of a long gravel driveway. There was a man hanging out in his garage drinking. He had a full bar out there complete with bar stools and a couch. Several guns were on display on the wall behind him.

As I approached he told me I should take off my mask because they didn’t believe in wearing masks. I hesitated. The census told us if we did not wear a mask on the job we would be fired. It wasn’t as if the guy would be calling me in to report me though. I honestly didn’t even know how I felt about having to wear a mask. I just did it because I had to. I admit that I am a big time rule follower, something I both love and hate about myself.

All these thoughts were whirling around my mind as I hesitated. I was not afraid. But I didn’t know this man. I was at his house. He had been drinking and was very blunt as I stepped out of my car into the pouring rain. Things could go very bad and I was alone with him out in the middle of nowhere.

I felt like I was being tested. If I failed the test, I would need to take it again or they would send someone else back. The guy asked me if I was some sort of liberal or something. I told him I was not and took off my mask. I tried to find the common ground between us to reach him.

I noticed the man had a puppy that was very well behaved. I asked him a few questions and complimented him about his dog. I finally passed the test. He invited me inside to sit down, but not on the couch because that was the dog’s bed. He said I could if I wanted to but I would get full of fur. He completed the questionnaire and bid me a good evening.

Thankfully with this job I worked with my people from my culture. I knew how to handle the situation whereas an outsider might have freaked out by the outliers. I don’t feel like I compromised my beliefs in any way. But I did break the rules to complete a case.

It was never as easy as walking up to a stranger’s door and having them give me their personal information. You really had to think quick on your feet and be prepared for anything. But most importantly, they needed to feel like they could connect with and trust me.

The house of broken dreams

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I was working late one Friday evening just about ready to wrap things up for the night. I didn’t prefer to work late on a Friday night because…well Wisconsin…drunks…

I pulled up to a house with a for sale sign in the front yard. I rang the bell and a man answered…drunk, slushy, and slurring. He said he never filled out the census because he had nothing to live for and didn’t care.

He said back on the census day he had the life he wanted, but that life disappeared. His wife connected with an old boyfriend on Facebook and then she was gone taking their baby with her. I could tell it was really painful for the man to fill out the census questionnaire as if they were still together.

The man was very emotional during the interview almost teetering on the verge of suicidal. He said he was moving out the next day. He said he had nothing left to live for. His dreams were gone.

I wondered what I should do. I tried to say comforting things. But only time, not alcohol, could take away the raw sting of his pain.

Thankfully at the end of our conversation the man said he had a friend staying with him that evening to help him move the following day. When he opened the door to go back inside of his house I saw his friend inside. I knew at least for that night, he would be okay.

The ultimatum, part 10

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After taking a couple weeks off of drinking in January, Paul had a new plan.

He was going to drink a bottle of wine every other night. His doctor said he shouldn’t have more than 14 drinks per week. With this plan, he was pretty close.

He didn’t have a problem not drinking when he didn’t drink. But he found the nights when he had a bottle of wine more challenging. Frequently when he was on his fourth glass, he no longer had the discipline to not drink a couple more. What if it was an extra large bottle of wine? Did that still count as one? He had a hard time leaving extra wine behind because that would throw off his count. What if he had a couple of mixed drinks and then started a bottle of wine?

I found myself angry and triggered on the drinking nights. If he went over I knew. At times I threatened to dump all the alcohol in the house out. He said I was wasting my money because he could just go to the store and buy more.

I tried to ignore him on the nights he was drinking. That also did not work well. It seemed to bother him that I avoided him and usually lead to an argument. Sometimes I would confront him if he started his fifth drink. That also didn’t work. The one that says please help me when he is sober also says leave me alone and stop controlling my life when he is drunk.

After several months he discovered that his plan did not work. He devised a new plan. He could have 2 drinks every day of the week. If there was a special occasion, he could have 4 drinks a day if he had two drinks at two separate times of day. For example, he could have two drinks at lunch and then two drinks at suppertime never having more than two drinks in his system at a time. If he had 4 drinks per day he would have to give up drinking another day of the week. This would keep him within the 14 drinks a week limit.

He had it down to a science. I told him if he followed this plan I wouldn’t give him a hard time about drinking ever again. Things were going well, really well in fact. But then he slipped this past week. I confronted him on it. He was upset at first, but he knew I was right. I am only trying to hold him accountable because I care about him.

I don’t like to be in the position of being the person that has to help him control his drinking. I don’t want to have to be the bad guy. He’s told me countless times that without me he would probably drink himself to death. I want to think that he would be fine without me. I think it will be something he will always struggle with.

He had made a lot of progress in this last year. For that I am thankful. I am happy to be an influencing factor in that change. He was willing to address his issues and grew a lot in the process. I have to give him a lot of credit for being willing to look at some negative things about himself. It hasn’t always been easy.

It’s our anniversary next week, 23 years. We are planning on getting away a few days on our sailboat. This year I am confident things will go well because we are taking a different path.

The ultimatum, part 9

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I felt a lot of anxiety leading up to his birthday. He did it, Paul went without drinking for almost 2 months. He said it was a piece of cake.

He said he would try to quit drinking until his birthday.

But then it was his birthday. I was worried. Now what would happen?

That night we had a few friends over. They had pizza and he drank a bottle of wine. I felt a sense of loss. I didn’t belong. I felt like an outsider. I had been dairy free for over a month by that time. As they ate pizza and laughed, I brooded in the corner.

I felt triggered by Paul drinking again. I felt angry and hurt like I did on the night of our anniversary when he drank too much. Paul was in a jovial mood. He drank another bottle of wine out by the campfire while I sat inside.

He wanted me to sing while he played guitar. When he pushed close, I pulled away. He was gone and I felt like I couldn’t trust him anymore.

What was going to happen going forward?

Slowly and steadily he started drinking more but nowhere as close to as much as before.

We got hit pretty hard in the next couple months with bad news about my dad. It will be a long time before I am ready to talk about that. I can tell you this, my dad struggles with addiction. My mom ignored it. She buried her head in the sand. I have to wonder maybe things would’ve turned out differently if she gave him an ultimatum.

I think I did the right thing. I never wanted Paul to stop drinking. I just wanted him to be in control of it instead of it controlling him.

I found myself triggered by so many things, not just Paul drinking. What happened with my dad threw me into a deep depression. I wish I could say that trauma only happens from your parents in childhood. Sometimes it tends to be a lifelong roller coaster ride.

Paul thought he was going to lose me this time. He was so stressed out that he started to drink more which stressed me out more.

Because of the ultimatum, he knew it was a problem he needed to address. In January, he stopped drinking for a few weeks in a time of prayer and self-reflection. Then he came up with a new plan.

The ultimatum, part 8

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Paul struggled with what it meant to be a husband and a dad. He never had a dad and barely remembered his mother’s brief marriage when he was 4 to a man that was supposedly abusive towards him.

His only parent was very childlike herself. They were dirt poor. He spent the first half of his childhood in low income housing in the inner city of Chicago. His mother was slow and uneducated. She also struggled with mental health issues that I would guess were trauma related.

Martha’s dad died when she was 12, so Paul didn’t have a grandpa either. He wouldn’t have made a good grandpa anyway. He was known to abuse his children and cheat on his wife. He wouldn’t be my chosen father figure for a future husband.

Martha didn’t always make the best decisions but she was a good mother. She always told Paul he could do anything he put his mind to. She did the best she could with the hand she was given.

Sometimes I feel like Paul was more of a parent to Martha than she was to him. But that could be because I saw him give her advice as an adult. She would argue that credit cards were money. She wasn’t a drinker but I think she was addicted to gambling. I’m sure that is why Paul is obsessed with keeping our finances in order.

Martha also had a really bad temper. She was very reactive and emotional. She often was angry and thought people were out to get her. Or you could be the best thing that ever happened to her. In those times you could do nothing wrong. She was crazy fun, exciting, and impulsive.

After her brief marriage, Martha didn’t have a lot of boyfriends. She worked a lot. Sometimes she lost her jobs due to her chronic tardiness. She married for the 2nd time right before I met Paul. Her husband Darryl is only 15 years older than Paul. He had kids but his ex took off with them and they spent most of their adult life in and out of prison. Maybe if Paul was still a child he would’ve been a good father.

I wish I could say that my own dad was able to take him under his wing. If anything, my dad taught him what not to do as a husband and a father. It seems like we both had to parent our parents more than they parented us. It caused a lot of stress shouldering all of that responsibility.

There was no one, just a big empty void of abandonment. He was expected to be good at something he never learned how to do. He didn’t have a dad to play ball with. No one taught him how to fix things or work on cars. He was never disciplined. He didn’t have a dad to embarrass him or give him advice on girls. Like most things, he just had to figure it out himself.

I tried to gloss it over and glamorize it by saying that at least he could develop his own style. But it wasn’t easy. I think he is a wonderful father and husband despite his insecurities. When he screws up he apologizes and tries harder to be a better person. He is doing a wonderful job and I appreciate his commitment.

He could’ve walked away like his own father did. Instead he was willing to roll up his sleeves and work on himself and our relationship.

The ultimatum, part 7

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Paul said he was willing to try to stop drinking until his birthday almost two months later. He wanted to see if he could even do it. It was a step in the right direction.

What did that mean though? Could I still have a few drinks with my friends around him? I was willing to give it up too. His close friends asked if he wanted them to stop drinking around him. Some friends just stopped drinking with him when he stopped. I think everyone was a bit uncomfortable doing this new dance at first.

Paul said he didn’t want everyone to change the way they lived their lives. But they did. I really didn’t realize how much we influence other people with how we live our lives. When he quit drinking quite a few of his friends cut back too.

It changed the dynamics of our relationship big time. I was angry and we argued a lot at first. But after the initial anger wore off, I noticed another change.

His drinking gave me a lot of power and control. I didn’t realize it until it was gone. Don’t get me wrong, I wanted him to stop or at the very least cut back. I nagged and nagged him to stop which didn’t work. It only made things worse.

Every time Paul and I got in an argument I would never look at my own negative behavior. I would throw back in his face that I would talk to him about my issues when he stopped drinking. I held the trump card of remember when you screwed up _____ with your drinking. It gave me a get out of jail free card that I used in almost every argument that wasn’t in my favor.

Now I could no longer avoid talking about some of my issues. Not only that but without drinking he now had the upper hand. He was working through his issues. That meant I had to work through some of mine too. I started seeing a therapist to work through my anxiety and depression.

In some ways I envied Paul. I wanted to leave my issues on a shelf, to not drink of that bottle and then they would be gone. But I’ve learned so much since then. Battling addiction is more than just leaving the bottle on the shelf. It’s the longing to reach for it like the embrace of an old friend in sadness and celebration.

I had to face the fact that my anxiety and depression also scared him. He’s had to reach into the darkness to pull me out many times. I can’t seem to escape the trauma I’ve experienced. At times it still threatens to drown me.

We both had to work on our issues. We were both broken people in need of a fix. It wasn’t just about him and his drinking. It was how we learned to cope with our trauma at our very core. It was exploring every crack and crevice that was tearing down our foundation.

We spent those two months rebuilding our relationship. We got along better than ever before. Then after that things went a little haywire.