July 4th, 2010.
Family get-together. Food, bonfire. fireworks....and....alcohol. All the teenage cousins were there. All the aunts and most of the uncles.
Things were going okay, I guess, up to a point. Most of the adults were drinking or had been drinking. Some more under the influence than others. I was concerned some of adults were allowing their underage kids to also drink. I never allowed or encouraged that with my kids...and they thanked me later, saying, "I sure am glad you guys did not drink around us growing."
So, back to that 4th of July, which has forever change me, not only because of the grief I had to process afterwards, but the way it TRAUMATIZED me and completely broke my heart. I walked away from it not knowing how I would ever RECOVER from it!
So, all of the teenage cousins were drinking with the exception of my daughter. (she was traumatized from the whole thing too), but seems to have recovered from much better than I...
They were drinking up at the house, while most of the adults were outside at the bonfire and watching fireworks. Then there was a loud commotion heard coming from the house. So the adults ran back up to the house and discovered that some of the teenagers had gotten a bunch of hard liquor out from one of the kitchen cupboards and some them started guzzling the hard stuff...My dear neice, who was only 16 at the time had been drinking wine and beer off and on all afternoon and evening...then she started guzzling the hard stuff, just chugging it right down while being agged on to do that by my nephew. This nephew was already pretty toasted by that time...and he started to get a fight with my other nephew and then blew up and pulled a knife out and threatened to kill himself. While the adults were intervening to get situation under control...my neice suddenly didn't look so hot...pastey which and passing out...and then starting to turn a terrible shade of blue...
We made her vomit right then and there, which may have been what saved her life...but she didn't pull out of it anytime soon...for next while she continued to look worse and worse...and for certain looking exactly like a person who is on their death bed, taking those last few gasps of air...we managed to keep her breathing somehow. We didn't know how much she had to drink total...and there is no anecdote to reverse alcohol..we were way out in the middle of MT..out in critter country...should we call an ambulance? And would it get there in time? I sweated bullets for next hour keeping her breathing, managed to get into a cold shower...which would be like giving her a shot of adrenalin...which is one of the first drugs they give for cardiac arrest...after the cold shower, she started to turn around ....
Oh my God. Can you say, "Oh MY GOD?!!!!"
If all of that wasn't bad enough...I found out later from my daughter that my siblings bought all that hard liquor, (and there were several bottles of it) just prior to the shindig, with the WILLFUL INTENT of "getting all the cousins DRUNK." And, can you say: "OH MY GOD!!!".
If I already didn't have PTSD issues, it became official that night.
Thanks for reading. This is a true story...oh how I wish it wasn't..
Just needed to vent. And I can tell already this is an incredibly supportive community.
