Kit - you got me. Got me good. (((Sniff))). Ima tell you my sordid story. Just so you know you aren't alone...
My mother is an alcoholic. As was my father. As was my sister who happened also to be a drug addict. She was also a pharmacist. Stay with me here...
In 1986, I was a junior in high school. Just had met a wonderful boy who had asked me to Homecoming. It was a Friday night and Homecoming was the next morning.
That night mom was sauced, as per usual. My sister (23) went out for the evening. We knew full well she had a problem, but like any properly trained family full of drunks, we hid that shiz like the best of actors. Dad had found pills in her purse 2 weeks prior. Pills she wasn't prescribed mind you. But an addict in a pharmacy is like a kid.... Well....you get the point. Dad was drunk and sleeping when my sister called home at 11:30 to announce that she wouldn't be coming home that night. Shouldn't of been a big deal, she was 23 after all. But, again, like any good family full of drunks, we loved us some drama. Mom grabbed the phone and defended she come home - sis was her drinking buddy. She stood firm and decided she was staying out. I, being the exceptional codependent, took the phone back and insisted that she get home immediately. That mom was drunk, as was dad, and I couldn't handle all of this scary crap alone.
And I was pissed. I mean pissed at everyone in the house. It was my GD special day tomorrow and here I was manning a drunk tank singlehandedly, at 16 years old.
Tried to go to bed. Cried and cried for hours. This was just another night in my life.
She came home that night. Stood at my doorway and called my name out. I knew she had come home for me, to protect her little sister from the monsters that she always did. Both those tht were alive and those in my head. But I was so mad at her, I didn't answer her. F her I thought. Just F them all.
The next morning, I awoke and there was a feeling, an air, that I had never felt before. I tried to fall back asleep for a few hours and then decided to finally get up.
I went to her room and noticed she wasn't breathing. I ran not my parents room to tell them something was wrong.
She had died.
Autopsy read acute alcohol poisoning and propophenyl intoxication.
I will never know if when she called my name out, if it was when she was taking her last breaths. If she called out for me to help her and I ignored her because I was so angry.
Thirty years of therapy and I'm still not really sure.
I'll share my story about my dad also, but I kinda can't right now.
Bottom line, just don't drink...