I can’t drink the way I used to.
Granted, the first time I even considered tempering my drinking was about the time of my miscarriage. I wasn’t even aware I was pregnant, but I was spotting and popped in to the GYN to see what was up.
Apparently, though he swears this is just something that happens, the fertilized egg was unable to latch on to my uterus and form a fetal pole. They call it a “missed abortion”. I saw the sono of this thing floating in the darkness of my innards, and it creeped me out.
Granted, I did have my suspicions prior to this that I’d had an “oops” and gotten pregnant, though I had been on the pill, and took a home test. It showed a plus sign. I didn’t pour my rum drink down the sink, but finished it, my rationale being that if drinking around the time you got pregnant was bad, then all of Ireland would be one big fetal alcohol mess.
I cried. I know it was hormones. I know I was only about 8 weeks along. The D&C was awful. I felt like my insides had been ripped out, and I hadn’t even known about it.
I know, this is starting to sound like an anti abortion message. But I do wonder if the alcohol had something to do with it.
I wasn’t ever really much of a drinker.
There were alcoholics in my family, on my mom’s side. The joke used to be that my dad, uncles and grandfather had to drink with my great uncle in shifts to keep up. One of their widows came by and had a great big glass of Vodka with no ice. It looked like water. She seemed sober enough but her voice was rough and raspy, like her humor. I thought she was fun.
My dad and uncle used to take the 6 of us trick or treating when we were little. At each house we’d get candy and they’d get a drink and come home loaded. There was roaring and laughing and we thought nothing of it. In fact, I believe my uncle was under a ton of stress and and his doctor told him to have a drink once in a while, so every night he’d down a six pack.
My parents started serving us wine at the table when we were about nine or ten. We’d each have a single glass. My mom’s rationale was that she figured it would teach us respect for alcohol. Frankly, I think she was trying to put us to sleep so she and dad could have adult time. She and my dad would have a drink or two at dinner, never really get bombed except at parties, or my dad would go over to his friend’s restaurant and get bombed the night before a holiday and come home puking and with a hangover, grumpy the next day.
When her dad died, mom started to drink. A lot. On occasion we’d drink with her. I drank to excess with her the night after my brother got kicked out of school and she blamed me for getting him kicked out because I wasn’t watching him. I believe my brother had to peel both of us off the floor. When I was away in college, my brother would have his friends over and my parents would let them drink provided they didn’t drive. He had his friends over a lot.
I never really drank, but it seemed like all my family gatherings were fueled by drinking. Nobody got violent or anything. It was kind of cheerful and cosy. But slowly, it got worse.
I used to joke that certain family members would play “never ending drink”, refilling my glass before it was empty so that I wouldn’t know how much I’d had, and I would be trashed and throwing up before I knew it. I think I probably wound up doing this for several Thanksgivings in a row. I clearly remember my brother handing me a serving dish so I wouldn’t throw up on the carpet (which only worked for so long. I’ll never look at green bean casserole the same way again. I passed out and woke up on the couch with the dog at my feet and my mom sleeping on the floor next to me. Apparently she was almost as bad off as I was). The following year I’d drunk too much for my (then) teeny tiny weight and puked allllllllll over the bed several times. With company downstairs. Two days before Thanksgiving, which I was hosting. Thank God my cousin was there to handle everything, because my husband was almost as in bad shape as I was. She changed the bed, put the sheets in the washing machine, cleaned up downstairs, took my infant son in to bed with her. I was still picking food out of my hair in the shower the next morning, downing Tums on the way to the airport to pick up the rest of the family.
Yikes.
I had my stepdaughters one Easter, at my mom’s, and remembered little of the night before Easter. They were fortunately there to remind me of all the stupid things I’d done. I never lost control in front of them that way again. It was enough to hear that I was licking the empty glass, looking for more Godiva chocolate liqueur without the locking them in a closet with me and trying to speak to the pixies part.
I think that I’ve had to deal with a toddler once hung over, and once was enough. Hangovers and toddlers do NOT mix. Ditto Big Bird.
When my dad died, I found out that not only had he been drinking heavily the night before, he’d smoked cigars, eaten fatty food, taken Vicodin for his back, been under extreme stress both at home and at work, and was never one to exercise. He’d also apparently had a drink the week before with every person he knew, making him an alcoholic or aware that he was about to leave the planet. He was known in his office for having a fully stocked bar right by his desk. He used to come home with so much alcohol as gifts from people over the holidays my brother and his friend knocked over and entire rack of the stuff playing hockey in the basement and dad wasn’t even upset. Brightly colored bottles. Horrible sounding liquor. Yuck. I remember trying some of it and wondering what people were thinking. Cyan? Artie and Chuck? Who would drink artichoke liquor? I believe what was left of it when they moved out of their house into a condo my brother drained, as he had no money and it was liquor and he is an addict. That is called desperation.
As my birthday approaches, I’ve been trying to go over the things in my past I would have done differently. Thinking about the good times and the bad times. When I was pregnant with Ed, I didn’t want anyone to know until I was past the 3 month mark. My dad picked us up at the ferry and gleefully asked, “so, what are we drinking this weekend?” I sadly had to tell him I was off the sauce. Funny-he immediately guessed what was up.
Did I mention that we drank the entire hotel out of irish whiskey and champagne at my brother’s wedding?
When we fight, my husband tells me to “think of all the good times we’ve had.” We’ve had good times, yes, but SO many of them were all about drinking. The bottles of wine, champagne, tequila, gin, Scotch. I was miserable one time and we had a knock down drag out but stopped to taste test the Scotches he’d gotten for Christmas. It was like a movie. Function With Dysfunction.
Memories of Bermuda with Jon: Buying a big bottle of Dark and Stormys and sitting on the beach all day, drinking it. Drinks at dinner. Mimosas at breakfast. Drinks at lunch. The Swizzle Inn. Buying booze to take home. The one time we went during a hurricane and spent the day in the room drinking and watching TV . Interim visits to caves and things. Memories of going to Disney: We’d inevitably wind up in a bar somewhere, sitting around. Now Disney trips are hard, because Ed is 4 and wants to run around and my husband doesn’t have the energy to run around with a 4 year old and wants to stay out of the heat and yes, sit in a dark bar.
Friends over early in our relationship? Italian food and getting ripped on red wine. My sister in law? Where to start? We downed a big bottle of Skye Vodka and a salad and we both puked all over ourselves. But we didn’t have headaches. She doesn’t drink that much these days either. But because of her now I drink Manhattans instead of straight whiskey, which my husband sees as a rift between him and I.
I used to be my husband’s drinking partner. Now I drink less and he drinks more. I joke he’s drinking for two. We used to mark how many drinks he’d had on the calendar. A “star” day meant he hadn’t had anything to drink. My friend Kristen was over and asked what the numbers meant and I told her. She read, “2, 4, 5, 7, 10, star…I’ve had weeks like that.” Her then-boyfriend actually got mad at me because I had two drinks when I was with them and then switched to Diet Coke. Everyone was drinking Bud Lite anyway and I don’t drink beer. I told him he had peanuts out for his guests because he was too cheap to put out cashews. When she was dating him, she admitted that it was hard for her not to drink at a party where everyone was drinking, even if she didn’t want to drink. This has never been a problem for me. She dumped him later on. She stayed over one weekend with her much nicer new man and I sang hung over in church the next day, because we were slamming back the rum. That was Easter too, I think, maybe a week after my D&C. Again alcohol got me because as I was cooking, I suddenly had to run to the bathroom and blood was pouring out of me like I was urinating. And alcohol affects the ability of blood to clot. I said “I have company, a leg of lamb in the oven and I cannot go to the hospital now. This will stop.” I don’t think I had a drink from that point on until I had Ed.
When did drinking become un-fun? And why?
My brother is an alcoholic, as I have said in past blogs. It has destroyed his life and to a degree the lives of those around him. That is off-putting. I get grouchy and ugly and headachey when I drink now. It makes me less patient when I deal with my son and people at large. My husband tries to ply me with alcohol. He misses having me as his drinking buddy, has no other and I honestly feel bad that I don’t FEEL like drinking with him. He thinks it will bring back good times but alcohol is simply not a replacement for good times. And when we drank together, you know…there were many times that were really not good. Ugly. Horrible. I don’t know if he does not remember or does not care to remember. Times where I couldn’t believe I was who I was and there, at that time, living that moment. Denial. Rationalization. Sometimes him telling me that he had little to drink when he was slurring and wavering and I’d borrow sis in law’s line “then have you had a stroke? Should I call 911?” Other moments that I neither care to remember nor recount. Needless to say there has not been a “star day” on his personal calendar for a while.
I do crave a drink now and then, but always with a girlfriend. Or my mom, even. I used to enjoy the occasional single shot drink I’d have with Chinese food the nights my husband worked and I was home alone with little Ed, watching CSI reruns.
I worry about my son. He’s got alcoholics on both sides. My husband’s half brother died of cirrhosis in his forties, and my son chugs liquid, which the parenting magazines tell us is a warning sign of a future alcoholic. I joke that I may not be an alcoholic, but I’m a carrier. When my son said he liked the idea of being a fireman I said we should stock up on the antibuse. The real joke there is, as with most addictions, alcoholism is hard to treat because you have to want to. And it’s hard. You create new parts of the brain that need to be sated by alcohol, and it becomes a survival thing.
If he picks up the pattern or drinking, as opposed to the gene, it won’t be from me. I think I had a drink…two weeks ago, maybe? I sing, and it dries me out and makes me all gunky, so if I’m singing a lot I don’t like to drink. That, and…maybe it’s a control issue. I don’t feel better drinking, I feel worse. I do still drink on occasion. There’s still some part of my brain that associates drinking with relaxation and good times. If I could relax, it might make a difference.
But I can’t.
If I drink, my husband will. He won’t be able to help himself. And then I’m still stuck in the position of authority, so I can’t let go. I have a four year old. God forbid something should happen and I need my faculties to handle it.
Alcoholism sucks.
