The waitress explained she could not serve them drinks before noon.
"You don't understand!" said my mother's friend cheerfully. "We're alcoholics!" They all thought this was very funny.
I had always heard that when someone finally admits to themselves that they have a drinking problem, they have a deep reckoning within their soul and realize they need help. "The first step is recognizing you have a problem," all the articles say - followed by a list of ten indications you might be in trouble.
Well, my mother had a thousand indications that she was in trouble, and it didn't bother her at all. She once told me how lucky I was that she wasn't like all those OTHER alcoholics who go to AA meetings. She said I was not sufficiently grateful that she was not like them -she was a GOOD alcoholic and perfect mother. She certainly did not need no stinkin' meetings. She was unique and marvelous.
As a kid, it took me a few years to catch on to her drinking problem. I remember being in the big house in Rhode Island one summer morning, standing outside the closed bathroom door. I was probably about five years old.
"Go away," said my mother. She was throwing up.
"Are you OK?" I asked anxiously. No one else was home. Mom was sick.
"Leave me alone!" she said crankily from the other side of the door.
Did she have the flu? What was I supposed to do? Get a doctor? I was worried.
It took me another couple of years to learn that there is something called a hangover. My mother always insisted she'd never had a hangover in her life - but if that was true, then why had she been throwing up that morning? Lies, lies.
I knew from toddlerhood that the five o'clock cocktail hour was a Big Deal. My mother would count the seconds until it was five. In her mind, she was still in control of her drinking if she waited until the appointed hour.
In the beginning she might have waited until my father got home before they had martinis together. But my father never got home at five - who does? - so my mother started drinking alone. No one was looking over her shoulder to see how many refills she had.
At some point a glass of vodka and orange juice was introduced in the morning before lunch. This soon became a glass of vodka without any juice, and eventually that habit turned into several glasses of straight vodka before and with lunch.
I learned that if there was anything important to talk about with my mother, I had to bring it up first thing in the morning, because the rest of her day would be a haze, and she would be passed out in bed by seven in the evening. I also learned that whatever I told her at ten in the morning would become twisted beyond recognition by six, but that's a topic for another day.
I developed the Super Powers that all children of alcoholics acquire. I had special sensors to pick up on how drunk or moody my mother was at any given time. The smell of alcohol on her breath became anathema to me, and for the rest of my life I would recoil from anyone who had Alcohol Breath. I'm onto you, mommy at the PTA meeting. I know your secret, daddy on the train home. You may think you're fooling everyone, but you cannot ever, EVER, fool me.
I remember watching my mother out the window of my bedroom upstairs on a bright, sunny day. She was staggering across our lawn, unable to walk in a straight line like any old drunk. A drunk is a drunk, whether they are rich or poor. I wanted very badly to get her to stop drinking - but how?
During the summers in Rhode Island, my mother would have heavy boxes of booze delivered to the house every week. One afternoon when I was probably about eleven years old I was home alone when the bottles of alcohol arrived.
A lightbulb went off in my brain. HIDE THE BOOZE! That would solve everything! No booze, no drinking!
I was excited. Finally I could do something! I lugged the heavy box into a dark closet and hid it behind some clothing and old stuff no one had looked at for months.
My mother came home and immediately looked for her delivery. If I had been a little older or a little more wily, I might have lied - but I just told her I'd hidden it. I was thrilled! At last I had some control over this endless problem.
Of course, my victory did not last. I was not prepared for just how furious my mother would become. It is NOT a good idea to get between a drunk and her booze. She let me know that she was going to make my life a living hell unless I produced her bottles IMMEDIATELY. She was scary.
I wanted so badly to keep her away from it. But I caved. I didn't want to die.
It turns out hiding the booze would not have made any difference. My mother could always get more in a flash - and besides, she kept a secret stash in every room of the house. Even the bathroom. In later years she didn't bother to hide the bottles, so her home looked like a frat house. She filled a Thermos with straight vodka whenever she left the house, just in case.
I hated everything about my mother's drinking. I hated pretty much everything about my mother. My brother killed himself, and I held her responsible. She still would not change. How low does an alcoholic have to go before they get tired of destroying everyone around them? Answer: no low is too low. They don't care.
One day while I was still in high school I asked my mother for the ten millionth time to PLEASE stop drinking.
She was unconcerned.
I realized there was one thing I hadn't tried. "Do you want me to beg?" I asked. "Would you stop if I begged you to?"
I got down on my knees on the kitchen floor, and looked up at the woman I hated so much. I begged her to stop drinking. Please, PLEASE, just STOP.
She looked disgusted and walked away. I will never forget prostrating myself before someone totally indifferent, hoping for something to change. That was a mistake. The humiliation still burns.
Alcohol was FAR more important to my mother than her children. Her first love was booze. Her second love was money. Her third "love" -not really a love, but a prop - was my father, who enabled her in all things. HIS first love was her money, so he did whatever was required. There was no place for children in this strange dyad between two unhealthy adults. We were way, WAY down the list of priorities, somewhere after "cocktail parties" and "travel."
By the time I was in seventh grade, my mother ceased to take any interest in my existence. During the week I seldom saw my parents, unless we had a brief, hostile dinner together. I never went to the dentist or had any medical check-ups. I sewed, washed, and ironed my own clothes. I never ate breakfast and, in general, grabbed whatever I could to eat during the day, which included huge amounts of candy purchased after school from the drugstore across from the train station. My friend Polly introduced me to diner coffee while waiting for the train.
My mother could not be bothered to drive five miles to pick me up at school, so I took the Paoli Local with some other girls who lived further away. Sometimes my mother picked me up at the station; sometimes she didn't. Sometimes I'd get a ride home with Maggie's mother, who had a ginormous, comfortable car. She was always friendly and impeccably dressed with perfectly coiffed hair that amazed me. Could a mother even LOOK like that?
All children of alcoholics have to be resourceful. It isn't something you even think or talk about. You just do what you need to do, knowing there is no grown-up to help.
It's too bad no adults ever spoke to me about alcoholism - starting with my father, but anyone could have helped. In those days, drinking was not mentioned. I thought I was the only kid with drunk parents, when in fact I bet at least 25% of my classmates had SOMEONE in their family who was a problem drinker. I found out later the mother of one of my friends had been breast feeding and drinking at the same time when my friend was an infant. The mother went to a party and boozed it up, then came home and nursed the baby - who slept for three days! The pediatrician gave the mother a choice: booze or breast. Guess which one she chose?
Finally, when I was in college, one of my mother's friends indicated that she knew things were not right. I was so grateful just to have someone validate my experience. Alcoholics are so manipulative that they make you feel like YOU are the problem.
If you have children and are drinking too much, please know you are without a doubt ruining their lives, even if you don't think you are. Read up on Adult Children of Alcoholics to learn the kind of damage you are doing. Then, for the love of God, STOP.
If you know a child from an alcoholic family, even one word of understanding will help him or her feel less alone. These days there are school social workers and psychiatrists to help - but they can't help if no one is talking. Please, let them know.
If I could get on my knees to ask these things of you, I would.
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