Have Another Drink

Mom’s disease made my ride bumpy as a kid.  She was drunk a lot and would typically be a very critical, mean drunk. When she was drunk, I could rarely do anything right.  According to her, I should have been getting straight A’s, should be skinnier, less selfish, etc.

Mom never praised me much as a kid.  I was just expected to do well. I don’t think her mother praised her very much and that’s where she received her training.   She did praise me more when I got older.

Grammy Mona just expected Mom to do well and Mom has been that way with me most of the time. It’s just what you do.  You succeed.  And you are strong.  You don’t complain or cry.  You are never weak or sad.  You are always a big strong girl.  No weakness allowed.  “Of course, you’ll do well, you’re my daughter” was her basic thinking.  

I think Mom really preferred her dad, whom we called Grandpa Roman.  She remembered him fondly to me on several occasions.  She brought him to our farm and took care of him when he got sick with cancer.  

I was six going on seven when I noticed my mother drinking heavily. I would come home from school and she would be hammered.  Sometimes she would be passed out on the couch.  Other times she would be leaning on the kitchen counter trying to cook dinner. Her disease made things especially difficult when I was attending Rochester Junior Senior High because she was supposed to pick me up either at school or at the end of the bus route.  If she was drunk and passed out, I had no way of contacting her. Sometimes I would wait for her for what seemed like hours.

Up until the age of five, I had always remembered my parents being very affectionate towards one another when my dad would come home from work.  But that suddenly stopped when I was six. A thick cloud of tension, dread and impending chaos hung over the house.  It replaced the affection and love. 

I remember once Dad came into the kitchen while we were sitting at the dinner table and Mom was finishing up preparing the food.  He started looking through all of the cabinets and banging all of the pots, etc.  I couldn’t figure out what he was doing.  She started yelling at him

“Get out of my kitchen!” she screamed at him.

“I’m not going to get out of your kitchen,” he retorted defensively.  I couldn’t understand what the problem was at the time but now I know he was looking for booze.

I remember being put in bathtub water that was way too hot, and my sister, myself, and our neighbor Doreen hiding from my mother behind Doreen’s woodpile when Mom was drunk and raging.  Now, did we do something to provoke her?  Probably.  I don’t remember what.  I do remember being scared.

Somewhere around that time, Mom dragged me out onto the lawn, slapped me, then made me go to bed at 7:30.  I don’t remember her ever telling me what I did wrong.  I remember feeling stunned, hurt, and very confused by all of it.  I do remember telling her it was difficult to be the youngest child. To this day, I don’t know what I did wrong to make her so upset.  If I had known, maybe I could have fixed it.

Mom was the choreographer for the musicals at Rochester Junior Senior high school and would frequently show up to rehearsals drunk. I don’t know if anyone else noticed but it was obvious to me and I was embarrassed. Still,  I rarely ever dared to speak of it.  We were never supposed to talk about it to anyone. We just pretended everything was okay.  And it was okay, right?  I was the problem. I was nuts. I was defective.  There was something inherently wrong with me and pretty soon everyone would find that out and I would be alone forever.  That’s what I thought about myself.  All of this was my fault.

My role was that of peacemaker, caretaker, fixer, keeper of secrets.  Just smile and everything is okay.  I learned very early on that I was responsible for everyone and everything all the time. Everything was and is my fault.  If something went wrong, it was because of something I did wrong.  My parents’ marital problems were my fault.  Mom’s drinking was my fault.  If I were a good girl, this wouldn’t have happened.  As I entered my teens, I tried desperately to get her to stop drinking.  It didn’t work.

I thought if I was perfect, I could fix all Mom and Dad’s problems and if I was a better kid, they wouldn’t have any problems at all.  Mom wouldn’t drink.  Dad wouldn’t be gone so much at night, doing God only knows what with God only knows whom.

I developed and practiced all of Juliet’s Codependency Patterns with my mother.  I practiced these behaviors as a means of survival.  I am the Codependency Poster Child. It’s still overwhelming to me.  But what can I do, except work on my defects one at a time?

The CoDA Book says it like this:

even with our Higher power’s help, none of us loves or lives life perfectly.  Our humanity continues to evolve.  We begin to realize that perfectionism is merely an illusion. …recovery is a lifelong process.  … each of us is learning at our own.. pace.

(Note: Alcoholics Anonymous is another 12-Step Program, and it forms the basis for Codependents Anonymous.)

When I wasn’t fulfilling my role of the overly responsible, everything-is-my-fault person, I was the fixer.  I felt Mom was not capable of taking care of herself.  She needed my help. It was my job to fix her, make her see the error of her ways, stop drinking, and save her marriage. Then everyone would be happy, including me. 

I would embark on the never-ending, impossible task of trying to get her to stop drinking.  

“Don’t you know how bad drinking is for you?” I would repeatedly ask.

“Sort of,” she would respond.

Then other times I would ask her how long it had been since she and Dad had made love and why were they sleeping in different bedrooms?

She would try to reassure me by telling me that everything was okay.

Clearly I had no boundaries then.

During the summer of 1985, I went up to Burlington to see my sister and some friends.  During this trip, Mom called me and said Dad was being mean to her and she was worried about her safety. She was scared he was going to come back and beat her up.  She wanted me to come home and be with her. 

I had been down this road with her before.  I always drove home immediately to be with her, save her, and protect her.  But she would forget all about her call for help and be completely fine. Frustrating?!  It made me angry and resentful.

Still, I felt completely obligated to go home and protect her, because I was responsible for her.  If something happened to her and I wasn’t there, it would be my fault that it happened.  That was how I saw it.  So I got myself ready to leave. 

My sister and friends talked me out of going home. They knew that I’d go home to be with her, and she would have forgotten all about it. Then I would be angry and resentful that I cut my weekend with my friends short for no reason.  I would later learn from my therapist that if something makes you resentful, it’s not a choice.  So I didn’t go.  Good for you, Juliet!

Did I obsess about it?  Absolutely. My mind was constantly going back to my mother.  Was she okay?  Did Dad come back and beat her up?  Is she passed out on the couch?  Did she forget all about it?  When I did go home, she was fine.  I’m glad I stayed in Burlington.

Mom did dry out in 1989 and was sober for about seven years.  I called her the day after Valentine’s Day in February of 1996 and told her I was getting married.  We both cried.  We were so happy. I was marrying my childhood sweetheart. What could be cooler than that? 

Well, for some reason, right after that she started drinking again.  I, of course, blamed myself.  If I weren’t getting married, she wouldn’t be drinking again.

Now there is my codependency staring me in the face.  Give me a chance and I will find a way to blame myself for everything.  Mom’s drinking, Dad’s messing around, the economy, world peace, world hunger… you name it.

I constantly feel overly responsible for others and their feelings.

Looking back, I think Mom was watching Dad’s painful decline into dementia and just couldn’t take it, so she numbed herself out.

I remember worrying about my parents on my wedding night.  I called to make sure they were okay.

After that, she was in and out of sobriety for the next few years. 

In February of 1999, both she and Dad were involved in a car accident that would have devastating consequences.

After that, she would almost drink herself to death.

In the past, my sister and I have done just about everything to stop her from drinking.   This has included:

• Taking the car keys

• Taking the car

• Dumping out her booze

• Trying to get her arrested for drunk driving

• Putting her in assisted living with a 24-hour guard at the door

• Buying her more booze when she was in a severe state of the DTs(Delirium Tremens), based on the hope of getting her to stop drinking later

• Begging her to stop drinking

• Yelling at her for drinking

• Trying to reason with her when she’s drunk

• Trying to tell her about the negative affects of alcoholism

• Trying to be perfect in an effort to get her to stop drinking

• Temporarily cutting off contact with Mom to get her to stop

• Trying to protect her from Dad by spending time with her so he wouldn’t get mad at her and maybe hit her.  (This totally did not work.)

• Lying for her to cover up for her being drunk, or absent from something

• Looking for her in bars

• Looking through her purse, closets, car, cabinets and suitcases

Guess what?  None of it worked.

This is the perfect example of a codependent who doesn’t think another person can control his or her own life. So the codependent tries to play God and stop bad things from happening. 

In the case of taking the car keys, my sister and I were very afraid Mom was going to drink and drive and either severely injure or kill herself or someone else.  We worried that then a lawsuit would come, leaving Mom with no place to live or in jail or worse!   We can control this, right?  We can fix it.  We DO have power over others, right?  My sister and I have physically removed the car and the car keys many times in an effort to keep Mom and others safe.

We even tried to get her arrested for drunk driving. This didn’t work for us. The police didn’t respond.  

“This is a very unusual request,” the officer commented to my sister.

I remember one time when Mom relapsed and I really overreacted.  She was in a really expensive assisted-living place where she wasn’t supposed to be drinking.  But she sneaked in some alcohol.  She had just been through rehab again too.  The director pulled out an empty booze bottle in front of us and I really got upset. Then I started beating myself up for overreacting.

This wasn’t about me.  It affected me but it wasn’t about me.

Mom was in and out of sobriety for the next few years.

By February 14, 2005, she would be found on the floor passed out for quite a few days.

She had apparently taken sleeping pills with a booze chaser, which is never a good combination. 

I remember when I found out about it.  Of course, I hit the panic button.  I asked my sister if I should go back and somehow take care of Mom.

Will I ever learn to observe and not react?  Maybe.

Mom was taken to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Memorial Hospital, treated and released.  They encouraged her to dry out, but she declined the offer saying she would rather do it on her own.

A few days after her release, my sister flew back to Vermont and brought Mom out to California.  Alice  did what she could to keep Mom stable until our mother checked in to the Sequoia Recovery Center.

Thankfully, Mom checked into Sequoia soon after her arrival in California.  We had a family weekend that all family of origin members were encouraged to attend.  It involved some 12-step support group meetings and a family meeting with Mom’s counselor.

They sent me preparatory materials to look over before my arrival.

This packet contained two sheets about Codependency Patterns and Characteristics.  Reading these sheets would change my life.  These are the sheets from which I adapted Juliet’s Codependency Patterns List.  I am forever grateful for the Seqoiua Center Welcome packet.

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[1] Codependents Anonymous. (Dallas, TX: Codependents Anonymous, Inc. 1995), p. 20-21.

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