I suppose if I can talk about all of the anger poisoning my soul, I can somehow move on emotionally and spiritually. I can stop wallowing in the past. I can stop being the victim and take ownership of my past and my own sins.
I sat on my father’s lap with my hand on his chest. I remember touching a post surgical bandage of some sort. He hadn’t been around in while and some medical emergency cast upon his selfish mind a momentary revival of his conscious and he wanted to come be with his children. I remember hearing of his drinking, the words cocaine, which as a child meant nothing. I was just happy for the moments I’d have with him. Not too long after that, when he would come pick us up on sporadic weekends, I would go to AA meetings with him. I remember just thinking it was boring. The on and off presence of my father would continue this way. He would always say to let him know if any of my mom’s boyfriend’s would hurt me. I said I would, but I never did. What I wanted to tell him was that his cousin had done some shameful things to me since I could remember, many times, but I wouldn’t do that for a long time, and when I did, my father stood by my abuser.
I was around 16 in the backseat of the car on our way to Monticello, when I spotted my dad walking on the side of the road. We pulled over, stopping short and reversed. I ran out of the car and embraced my dad and cried. I had not seen or spoke to him in over a year and at one point thought he might be dead. His alcoholism was something I was aware of and I imagined it finally consumed him, so to see him healthy and handsome before me was a miracle. He told me he had devoted his life to God and was free of his addiction. It felt like a divine appointment, like the beginning of healing in this particular relationship. I was wrong. I had no idea the psychological condition of an addict, and that much of what I needed from him, was never coming.

I remember the first time I saw Brett have a drink. We were 19 and it was the first time visiting his parent’s home. I was an innocent and sober minded young woman and I wasn’t comfortable with the situation. He poured himself a tall cup of his mother’s wine. I remember hating the smell and trying a sip and recoiling. But I wanted to have fun with him. We played video games and snacked, listened to cool music, and he fiddled around on his guitar. He guzzled the wine in between activities and before the night was over, he was projectile vomiting in a small garbage can. The rest of his wine spilt onto the carpet and the room was filled with the acrid stench of alcohol laced vomit. A smell that would become a consistent staple in our lives during the end of our relationship. I didn’t know then that it was a warning. That I was headed down a path marked by incredible highs and lows. An adventure and a story one could only read about in books. The twin towers. War in Iraq. The death of our son. A career in policing that would consume him both mentally and physically and end tragically. River’s drowning. My affair with Ryan in my early twenties. And ultimately me leaving him at his worst for my high school love. The sadness I feel writing this is all consuming.

Alcohol does not make a bad man, what it does is bring out the worst parts of a man that he cannot face. I watched a healthy and beautiful man shrivel into the most primitive and dark parts of himself. I do not think my aggressive nature helped. I yelled. I set ultimatums. I slapped. I pushed. I did anything I could to get back what I thought was mine. I had my own selfishness. I remember the point that started this rise of me. I got sick. Really sick. I had always been sick but I was living with an alcoholic and when you live with one, they are the only person who matters. Their energy sucks up life. Their spirit is possessed by the darkest drug that exists and they will swallow you into their misery if you let them. I was swallowed. I ignored my symptoms for years, running to the emergency room when the flairs were the worst. No diagnosis but that I was stressed and perhaps needed to stop breast feeding. I talked about his addiction with friends here and there but there was this nagging feeling deep inside that those women just didn’t really believe me. I always had problems with women. I was beautiful and strong and a force with which not to be reckoned. I wasn’t a meek wall flower but a raging fire that said things as they were. I think it left a bad taste in people’s mouths and that maybe people were looking for other bad things in me that didn’t exist. I may be tough, I may have a mouth on me, but I was never a fucking liar or a threat to anyone. What I was, was angry and hungry for love and rescue. Desperate to be heard and helped. Whatever the fuck it was, I was alone in my despair. And of course, because I had a beautiful home and a nice pool and a great big yard and Brett had that winning toothy smile, I had no business complaining, especially when other people in my family “had it worse”. The cruelty that exists in those in survival mode, the lack of empathy, is bone chilling. So I stayed and I suffered quietly as every ounce of my being was folded into taking care of my home, managing Brett’s life, and homeschooling and leading my kids. And whatever I had left of my energy, was convincing him to help my family when they needed help. Pleading with him to allow me to give money here and there or to take them in when they needed help. All while trying to cover up a sinking ship. I had, so I gave. And I really didn’t want anything in return. But he did. I taught him to sacrifice and give, it was never willingly. His focus was his job and nothing else. And when he was home, it was the drink that powered him into the scary sleeps that forced me to move myself into the living room where I slept for years. I don’t know how no one smelled him at work. The booze. How no one could see him falling apart but me. Could not smell the toxic fumes sweating through his skin on Sunday morning as he worshipped God on guitar. I suppose that everyone was in survival mode. But when someone tells you their spouse is a fucking alcoholic, believe them.

The night I pushed him and he fell through the glass door of the basement bathroom and sliced up his arm was really the beginning of the end of us. I had enough at that point. I was barely a hundred pounds and couldn’t eat anything and there he was, in front of the basement utility sink, puking his brains out, standing beside the vomit on the floor he never cleaned up the week before. I was tired of it all. I hated everything and everyone but my kids. I pushed him angrily but gently, and he was so drunk, he lost his footing and crashed into the door. Because of his violent nature, I believed he would kill me for it so I ran outside into the dark cold and hid and wept. I thought that perhaps he would direct his rage to the kids so I ran back inside and faced him. He called me horrible things and I understood why. He told me he was calling the police and I told him that if he did I would reveal that he had shot his rifle through the house one night while he was drunk. It was settled and he walked himself to the emergency room and got stitches and came back home and went to sleep.

2020 hit and the downhill spiral continued. I was sicker and sicker and 90lbs. I was dying and was writing up a will, asking my family members to take my kids when I died. Brett was horrible. He drank to an oblivion and would sleep all day while I barely was able to walk a few steps. Everything inside me hurt. I know it was the same for him. He was so sick. I was so sick. But I couldn’t be sick. So I fought hard for my health. I fought hard for my diagnosis’s. He was immensely cruel. I began to deeply hate him. But I tried to do the right thing. One thing I can say is that I tried. Until I couldn’t. The nemesis of denial is one you cannot fight against.
Alcoholism has a denial like no other substance. An alcoholic, even when they are on a bed nearly dying from their alcoholism, never believes it’s the alcohol. The alcohol is designed to take over the brain and it profoundly damages the brain and body of it user. It swept him far away from himself, it destroyed our family, everything we had worked hard to achieve, and I had to pick up all the pieces myself. And the point I decided to walk away was far before I met Tom. I had an exit plan already but he became a light leading me out of darkness.

To be continued…