I grew up in an alcoholic home with alcoholic parents. I am number five in the pecking order of seven children that grew up in that home.
I remember all too well the special occassions that were absolutely decimated by my parents drunken spats - sometimes exacebated by other drunken members of my extended family - all too well. I have too many memories of Christmas Past that included rumbles on the front lawn between my uncles with their wives screaming from the sidelines, and which ultimately led to years of stony silence between my uncles and parents and in which I never got to see my cousins.
I remember my tenth birthday vividly. My family was (and still is) big on birthdays. My father came home drunk and WWIII broke out between my parents. My older siblings did their usual jobs (inserting themselves in the middle) and I was out, in the dark, swinging on the backyard swing with tears streaming down my face. I was scared, angry and remember thinking that this argument would never have happened if it wasn't my birthday. (Mind you, the argument was over my father going to do laundry at the laundromat and pick up a cake at the bakery and taking a five hour stop at the local gin mill).
On that particular day, after my older brothers seperated my parents, we had my birthday cake. I still recall seven pairs of tear-stained cheeks and red eyes as everyone sang Happy Birthday to me. It was SICK and INSANE!
I never understood it until I became what I hated the most. I became an alcoholic. So did my younger brother. We both found recovery, but my younger brother developed cirrhosis of the liver at 18, drank until he was 27, got seven years of solid sobriety together, and then succumbed to liver cancer. He was 34.
I always justified my drinking by saying, "Well, at least I don't do xxxx" and then drew a line in the sand where I believed my drinking was not nearly as bad as my parents. I didn't have a problem, you see. It wasn't until I crossed that invisible line (which incidentally, kept moving further away as I kept approaching the line) that I found sobriety.
I guess the object lesson is that we, as alcoholics, don't operate in a vaccuum. We impact others in so many ways we may never know.
I'm not saying it is my parents fault that I am alcoholic. I can, however, see how my decision to recover was stalled by comparing their alcoholism to mine. I had a very strange perception of what "normal" was. It was this perception that stalled my recovery for years.
Be disturbed. Be very disturbed. Change it now. Take action now. Don't let that invisible line in the sand have a high bar that may impact your children in the future. Break the cycle. Do it for yourself. There is absolutely NOTHING that substance abuse makes better.
I didn't change because I saw the light; I changed because I felt the heat. It's what worked for me.
Get angry, get disturbed and get sober! You have many options for recovery in front of you to get you through the worst, and drinking more booze is not one of them. Use all the emotions you feel right now as a jumping board to sobriety, and eventually, the pain of them will diminish and be replaced by something bigger and much better.
Do this, and I promise you you will never experience another Christmas like that again.