Living with Alcoholism

...strange life I had been living for a long time. Even now, I get edgy if I’m with an adult who has more than a couple of pints of beer, and have never drunk aside from a glass of champagne at weddings, much to many of my friends’ amazement. A couple know about what happened, but they don’t see how it could have any relevance to a little drink occasionally. It might seem odd, but it shows how the effects can easily carry on for so long.

...to shoulder. For example, on one particular day I knew that my mother and sister had gone out for the day, and were relying on my stepdad to pick them up. I found him asleep on the sofa, snoring, in the early afternoon when he should have already left to pick them both up. Of course, my first assumption was that this meant he’d had too much to drink, and as such would be unable to drive. However, my mum and sister wouldn’t be able to get home without ... more

This is a bit of a difficult piece to write, so please bear with me a little – I’ve never been very good at totally serious writing. The first thing I want to say, which is hugely important and I’ll explain in detail a bit later, is that I have in no way whatsoever seen the worst of this problem, some extents of which are easy to find by looking at some of the other reviews in this section. I feel it would be an insult to the millions who have no doubt suffered tremendously due to various consequences commonly associated with alcohol to claim that it was a particularly bad case. As such, I’m not writing this to show how awful it can be – worst case scenario and so forth, rather my goal is to show how bad its effects can be despite a considerably innocuous appearance to people on the outside.

The whole background to alcoholism is a foggy multitude of a clichés, myths and assumptions in my opinion, there are many stereotypes, like the guy who drinks like a fish, and then rolls around the town swearing until he’s arrested by police, or the man who goes out for the night, then comes back home in a stupor, hurling furniture around and attacking whoever gets in his way. The common factor is that all of them are recognised instantly by society, as they fit perfectly into the preset mould – as such they are easily labelled and familiar. Most people will say that they need to be removed from the family environment until they have recovered, and that they are unfit to meet their responsibilities. That in itself is not a problem; what is a problem however, is when people suffer from alcohol dependency, but don’t fit into the mould that is understood by society.

In fact, other stereotypes were quite prevalent when I was young – my mother had remarried and I had a new stepfather. Mates around me were a little shocked as very few had gone through the event while, as we were, midway through primary school, and there was an air of worry around some of them – in all those childhood stories stepparents never really came out in a good light, so it was presumed, naturally, that I was on the long slow road to inevitable disaster. Similarly with my school, a headmaster convinced that the victim of a bullying problem was the by-product of a broken home – something I never figured out, as having parents on good terms and a stepfather as well seemed like a pretty good deal – not to mention the extra presents at birthday and Christmas! As such, all rumours and common ideology were quashed, as my stepfather quickly became popular with all of my friends as a fun-loving guy who didn’t mind taking time to have a laugh with us after school or at a birthday party, popular with the local community in our town and church as a responsible, friendly and trustworthy person, ready to give his time and effort to help people when they needed assistance. And don’t be mistaken, this was all very true. The problem is to take this figure, and associate him with the stereotypes listed previously. It doesn’t fit. You might not consider that a problem in itself – and you’d be right. What is a problem is that because it doesn’t fit the stereotype, the underlying consensus that it isn’t really a problem at all. Let me explain.

Alcoholism is a dreadful thing to deal with in terms of a family situation, although as I explained previously, we never came close to dealing with any of the more severe effects. For example, my stepfather never reacted badly to alcohol: he didn’t become violent or abusive, he didn’t get angry, and the neighbours would never know. As I said, everybody thought he was wonderful, myself included, and that judgment was in no way misplaced. I was far too young to have any idea about the implications of the problem, or even that it was existent. As far as I could see, my mum didn’t like him to drink, but he liked to, so it was normal for him to hide bottles or cans where she wouldn’t find them. The problems for me didn’t really start until I was about eleven or twelve, in my first years of secondary school. One day we didn’t get picked up as we normally did, instead my dad was outside the gates, unusual as he would need to get special permission to leave work so early. On arriving home, my mum explained to me with great difficulty that she had been forced to steal and hide my stepfather’s car keys in order to prevent him from picking me and some friends up from school, also trying to explain that this was in fact a much bigger issue than I had ever truly imagined. That was, effectively, the beginning of my own personal ordeal.

Very few people actually knew about the problem at hand initially – it was purely an issue we dealt with internally as a family for a long while. The time that my dad had picked me up from school was not isolated, it started to become a regular event as on an increasingly regular basis, my stepfather would be completely drunk before 11am. I never really knew whether it was actually increasing in frequency, or whether it was just that I was learning the signs and could identify it more and more often. Regardless, while it started off as a somewhat strange idea to understand, it just kept growing and growing. Eventually I was filled with sheer terror on a daily basis. My mum had worked nights for a long time to look after us in the day, but took on a new job that paid her enough to be financially secure if and when the inevitable took place, and as such I was often left with just myself and my younger sister with my stepfather at home. It’s a difficult experience to describe, as obviously you are meant to feel safe in your own home and room, and I never thought that I’d suffer any physical harm, yet the fear grew more and more. It started really when I used to get picked up from school – the entire way home I would be sniffing the air and analysing every single thing he did. If he cracked a silly joke, pulled a stupid face, laughed, rubbed his eyes, anything, could it be an indication of being drunk? On several occasions I did indeed smell alcohol in the air, and just spent the entire journey clutching the bottom of the seat in absolute dread, just wishing that we’d reach home as quickly as possible. I never really said anything about it, my mother and I would just have occasional whispered conversations at home trying to discern if he had been drinking or was just tired – he did shift work, often nights, so it wasn’t an unusual thing. As you can see, this constant wondering and thinking never really helped anything, it just slowly expanded, and grew into complete paranoia. If he smiled, I would sink back, wondering silently whether that was a smile, or an early indication of him having had something to drink. If there was a glass in my room that wasn’t mine, did it hold spirits half an hour ago? Every car journey was spent trying to pick up on clues. I distinctly remember one day hiding in my room for about 5 hours after dinner because he cooked me pizza and sausages in the same meal, which I thought was an odd combination, and as such probably indicated that he’d had too much to drink. It sounds stupid, but it was inescapable, once it captured me, anything was a clue, a warning. That paranoia extended beyond even those realms, as my father could at times say some quite silly things for mine and my sister’s entertainment, but they soon came to frighten me, wondering if perhaps he was drunk as well. Obviously that was completely untrue, as he’s never had more than two or three glasses of wine in my presence, and would never do anything of the sort, but the clues were there, and even if there was no chance of them being linked to alcohol, I still made the connection. There was a massive blur between reality and the strange life I had been living for a long time. Even now, I get edgy if I’m with an adult who has more than a couple of pints of beer, and have never drunk aside from a glass of champagne at weddings, much to many of my friends’ amazement. A couple know about what happened, but they don’t see how it could have any relevance to a little drink occasionally. It might seem odd, but it shows how the effects can easily carry on for so long.

In addition to those worries, there was further stress to shoulder. For example, on one particular day I knew that my mother and sister had gone out for the day, and were relying on my stepdad to pick them up. I found him asleep on the sofa, snoring, in the early afternoon when he should have already left to pick them both up. Of course, my first assumption was that this meant he’d had too much to drink, and as such would be unable to drive. However, my mum and sister wouldn’t be able to get home without a lift. In the days before mobile phones were everywhere, I couldn’t call her, and I couldn’t get through to my dad. I just sat there in complete and utter confusion as to my options, alone. Did I leave my mum and sister alone without a lift in the middle of nowhere, or did I wake up my stepfather and risk him killing them both. Ultimately, my head piercing with pain, I couldn’t decide, and just woke him up, hoping everything would just be fine. After a very nervy hour, my terrified mum stepped through the door, having just woven over every lane on the roads on the way back, lucky to have made it back safely.

I’m assuming that after all of the things I’ve said, it’s hard to contemplate why this was all going on, and why we hadn’t simply got rid and begun to sort ourselves out. That however, is where all the stereotypes come in. This person was extremely kind and helpful, he wasn’t abusive, he regularly helped out at the local church, he wasn’t spending occasional nights down the local police station, he was relatively quiet most of the time, and gave no indication that there was a problem. As such, people often refused to accept that there was a problem whatsoever. It was always nullified; it would get better with some counselling and help from people in the community. It would be okay if we all supported him and helped him to get better. If he’d chucked a garden table and chairs over the fence into the neighbours’ properties, they’d all have their pitchforks out, but because it was easy to ignore from the outside, people constantly supported the idea of slow recovery. People offered to have a ‘man-to-man’ or a ‘serious sit-down talk’ and say they’d help, and received promises of improvement for their efforts, going home satisfied that they’d made a difference. Regrettably though, the hold was far too strong for any talking or arranging to make a difference.

Ultimately, my mother, father and I all met up and decided to talk about and finally solve the problem once and for all. I finally revealed that I was spending most days petrified in my bedroom, and that was the spark that marked the beginning of the end. We concluded that it was time to ignore all of these outside influences and get on with our lives finally. After being kicked out of the house, there was an initial show of sorrow and intention to sort out the problems, but they never materialised, as the addiction refused to release itself. As such, eventually all contact was lost, and despite complaints from various people that we’d not given sufficient chance and offered the support that we could have done, we got on phenomenally better, in a much more comfortable and enjoyable home environment.

What I really wanted to say here is that people always like to think that they understand, but a lot of the time they don’t. I was only young when I was going through all of this, and while on the outside it might’ve looked like a problem that wasn’t particularly serious and could be sorted, it did more damage to me than could ever be imagined by many people, I’m sure of it. It wasn’t as bad as other situations people have been in, and on some occasions the sufferer does indeed recover, but what I want to say is that you should never ever underestimate the effects that even a minor problem can bring. If someone has a problem with alcohol, regardless of how small it might appear, no child should ever have to try to deal with it – it’s not something that any person is ready to cope with, let alone a child, and if anyone thinks that it’s a good idea to try the slow recovery plan, then I feel very sympathetic to anyone trying to deal with the problems on the way to that. In my experience, the only true way to sort it out is to remove the person from the household, keep them away from the family, and see if they can prove themselves. I realise it’s a somewhat different situation, as I was had no grievances about never seeing him again, had it been a closer relation it would have been much more difficult, but the problem itself isn’t altered by being more closely related. If they can change, then you could all enjoy a happy future together, if they can’t change, you’ve managed to get rid of them before serious damage can be done.

The stereotypes don’t help anybody. A person’s personality is irrelevant. They might be kind, they might be caring and trustworthy, they might love their family, but ultimately the only important thing is whether they can kick the addiction, and whether the family is going to put up with the effects. I would hope that no-one reading this would come out and act like many of the people in our community did, as the total lack of support for doing the right thing prevented us from taking the action we eventually did much earlier, perhaps ridding ourselves of a long nightmare before it had even begun.

Thanks for reading. 

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