At 14 I got to test this theory. She was on her way to prison; a warrant was out for her arrest and it was only a matter of time. She knew it, so she took me on a summer long road trip from Texas to Oregon to meet the man I’d been dreaming about ever since I could remember. I was drinking every chance I got at this point. I had started the summer before when, in a vain attempt to get her to stop drinking, I chugged a bottle of liqueur thinking it would scare her. If it did, she didn’t show it.
I still remember the first time I saw him. It wasn’t what I was expecting. The fireworks weren’t there. There was no connection. He felt like a stranger… because he was. She was arrested the day after we arrived in Oregon, which made for hardly a smooth transition. I lived with him for the next year and a half, the whole time he felt like a stranger. We never connected. That longing to feel wanted and loved lingered still… maybe even grew deeper. I left when I was 15 after a huge falling out. He wanted me to be someone I wasn’t: a normal kid. He didn’t realize how broken I was and that lingering hole that I thought he could fill made me angry. So I left.
The partying took off from there and I became pregnant with my oldest daughter at 16. I dropped out of school and spent the next 3 years trying to fill that hole with my first husband… and alcohol, of course. It didn’t work and the rage continued. Thinking back to the love we shared when my daughter was born, we decided to have another baby. That would solve the distance that was widening between us… right? Wrong.
When our son was 6 months old, we separated and I joined the Army, where my alcoholism flourished and evolved into a pill addiction. It’s a shame, really, because I would have truly loved the Army had I been sober during that time. It offered so many of the things I craved: structure, family, security. But instead it became an enabler. If I was hurt, I got pills. If I was anxious, I got pills. If I was sad, I got pills. Pills, pills, and more pills to stop whatever ailment I claimed to have. I quickly learned to manipulate the doctors and get what I wanted. Drinking was widely accepted and no one in the company ever even suggested that I may have a problem or that I should get help. Ironically, my mother was the only one to voice any concern about my drinking and using… and I certainly wasn’t going to listen to her. ‘Well isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black?’
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