Drunken Dad, Boozy Mom

Before I get into my topic tonight I want to say thank you to all who have been reading my blog. The posts have drawn some online comment. I'm grateful for every one. Several people have let me know in ways other than online comments that something I wrote meant something to them. That's incredibly gratifying and moving. Given the limited number of people who know this blog exists, a good number click onto the blog each time I post. (I can see how many. I can't see who!) I love being with you for a few! I hope something I've said has moved you or helped you or just made you laugh. Thanks!

A few posts ago - in "The Power of Addiction" - I mentioned a 14-year-old girl. She's not any particular individual I know, yet she is. She may be someone you know.

Alcoholism obviously affects parents. The two spouses have their routine. This week the husband is the alcoholic and the wife is the codependent. Next week the roles switch. Soon enough, they switch back. Sometimes both are drinking. Sometimes both are defending the other's habit. If this family ever gets into counseling it will be a challenging task for the counselor to determine who is the alcoholic and who is the codependent. For now. Trying to get a handle on this family is like trying to get a drink of water by using chopsticks.

Drinking water using chopsticks is an apt description of the effort by the children to define their own roles. What most 14-year-olds are doing is trying on new personalities, new looks, a new sense of style and of their place, and they try a new one every day, or so it seems. They eventually find the pattern that fits them best. As frustrating as it is for parents, it's all good and healthy. This 14-year-old has never had time for that. How can you even try to define yourself when the whole family around you is constantly playing - and shifting - roles?

So, this one had to grow up way. too. fast.

This daughter is the superkid. Ultra conscientious overachiever, typically a firstborn. She's is a people-pleaser. She's a straight-A student in school. She plays in the band and maybe holds down a job, too. No one could know that there are any issues at all with her. She puts on a "Nothing's wrong!" mask. Few, if any, would ever guess.

Few, if any, would ever guess that she had to get up early enough to see if Mom and Dad got home last night. They did, so the next thing she has to do is clean up the mess. Once she's gotten the vomit out of the carpet she calls Dad's work, pretending to be Mom, to let them know that he's sick. Again. She then calls Mom's work, pretending to be Mom. She hears the lecture that Mom's boss thinks he's giving to Mom. One more time - just one more time. . .

Then she got her younger siblings up, got them to get dressed, and fixed breakfast so they could all go to school, and so she can put that "Nothing's wrong with me!" mask on again.

This can't be the life of a 14-year-old. Almost inevitably the breakdown comes. Sooner or later - the breakdown comes. The form this breakdown takes is unpredictable, but the breakdown does come.

There are other roles that kids in an alcoholic family move into - The Clown, The Lost Child. They'll be the subject of other posts. Please bear in mind that the characteristics of which I'm writing are traits that appear in people who did not grow up in alcoholic homes. People who know me well know that I have a tendency toward the super-responsible, mixed with more than a little streak of the clown. I didn't grow up with alcoholic parents. We all have some combination of these traits.

But a child from an alcoholic home tends to exaggerate - responsible-on-steroids, so to speak, or clown-on-steroids, or really REALLY lost child.

Please also remember that we're speaking of tendencies, not universals. Homo sapiens is a very complex animal, and I would not want to oversimplify.

Thanks for hanging out for a few!