I’m grateful for a really great day. I’m grateful for some pretty delicious Indian food. I’m grateful to get to travel with two such lovely people. I’m grateful for realizing it’s okay to let go of things. I’m grateful again for Nescafe. I’m grateful for the lucky bounces. I’m grateful to be sober today.
Yesterday’s itinerary included a trip to Hampton Court—Henry VIII’s castle. Later substantially modified by William and Mary. It’s pretty amazing to walk the same corridors Henry VIII and all of the wives walked and to see the rooms where they ate, slept and lived. You can read about things, but being there definitely adds understanding and nuance. I sometimes wish there was a way to take people back to the bad, old days of my drinking and show them the other side. I have this idea that if they could only see the desperation, the fear, the grief, the loss, the guilt and shame, the unliveability of that life, that it might be easier to move on.
One of the assumptions that people make about alcoholics is that we are really just addicted to the fun and fast living. That we flit around, drunk, having a great time and not so subtly thumbing our noses at everyone who’s not drinking during the day, every day. There are still flashes of anger when I’m with my kids—those wounds are pretty deep and they were inflicted by someone they really trusted and loved. It’s easy to get frustrated: I have three years of sobriety, can’t they see how much I’ve changed?
Yes, they do. But it still hurts sometimes and that’s something I work to remember. One of the things I think is critical, and has been part of my 8th and 9th Step with them, is to really try to understand how it must have felt for them. To have the family suddenly disintegrate, the conflict, the emptiness and fear, the sadness and grief. A lot of that shows up as anger—when I fumble with things and am clumsy, my daughter can get pretty sharp. I realized one day, as I was commenting on the unfairness of her criticism of my natural clumsiness, that maybe it reminded her a little of when I was drunk and trying to hide it around her. Not stop around her, hide it around her. That could certainly explain it.
The problem is that she usually knew—and my attempts to conceal my condition just amplified my perfidy. That doesn’t just slide away with the ebbing tide. It doesn’t disappear or have less sting when I explain how terrible it was for me, too. What works is walking with them, showing them how things are today, letting them see and decide for themselves whether they should or could trust me. That’s very frustrating sometimes. I’d like things to move faster. I’d like for there to be less uncertainty. I’d like this to be fixed firmly in the rear view mirror.
But that’s not the way it works. It works with honesty and transparency and just showing up every day. I can’t make up for what happened to the kids because of my drinking, but I can show up and make today good. That’s what I’m doing. The more they see of me, the more they see that the change is not just talk, that it seems to be lasting, well, things start to get better. We had a great time walking around Hampton Court. I guess it shouldn’t surprise me that I produced two history-buff kids and my daughter married one, too. I think they are realizing that my drinking is history now, too and that’s a very good thing.
Thanks for Letting Me Share