52.48... imbibing

Not a flattering photo of me I know, but it was hand held at a low-lit wine tasting and I thought it was interesting, so am posting it anyway.

 

I guess you can tell how much I've thought about this one by its excessive length.

 

. . . . . . . . . .

 

Both of my parents were extremely social creatures, and both could certainly hold their own in a conversation. The big difference between them was that my mom preferred her conversations to be intimate tete a tetes, while my dad needed a good sized audience. Not that he wouldn't share the stage with others, but any drama queen tendencies I have certainly came from him.

 

One way he assured himself of an adequate audience was to have parties. And since my mom enjoyed putting them together as much as he enjoyed throwing them, we had a lot of them. Parties with the neighbors. Parties with family. Parties with the poker buddies. Parties with the people from work. Parties with anyone, and on the pretext of any minor occasion. My mom made the food, and my dad was in charge of the liquor.

 

I have a vague recollection of beer being part of the proceedings-never wine- but in the 50s the big thing seemed to be the highball. Rum and Coke. Gin & Tonic. Bourbon & Soda. Sometimes a Manhattan or a Grasshopper "for the ladies". And the one I remember being most popular... the Seven & Seven. I don't actually remember what was in that last one, though I suspect the second seven stood for 7-Up, but I do remember how it tasted because as a precocious child I was allowed to take "sips" from the adults glasses. As they had suspected, I didn't much like it, so there are no lurid descriptions of tipsy six year olds in the family mythology.

 

Anyone who's spent significant time with young children will tell you what incredibly smart and observant little sponges they are. So I was certainly not the first child who figured out early on that daddy got just a wee bit too loud when he was drinking. That he refused to lose an argument when he had a drink in his hand. That mom was always mad at him after the parties. That he usually didn't feel tip top the next morning. By the time I finished grade school it was pretty clear to me-and anyone else who was sentient- that my father was over-fond of alcohol. Not that he wasn't a nice guy, he wasn't a nasty drunk or anything, but it was definitely more of a priority for him than was healthy.

 

There are even funny memories about it. Like the year he was off partying in some bar late on Christmas Eve with some co-workers and my mom was fuming at home because a bicycle had to be put together before it could be wrapped and put under the tree. I was not supposed to know that, of course, but my mom's angry whispering downstairs to the neighbor who came over to try to help her figure out the instructions carried up the stairs to the over-curious child listening for Santa. After an hour or so of them swearing and moaning and not figuring out the instructions, my dad comes home three sheets to the wind, sits down on the floor, and has it put together in about 10 minutes. From my clandestine perch upstairs I couldn't tell if afterward she was more mad because he'd been out drinking, or because he'd put the thing together drunk when they couldn't do it at all.

 

Luckily dad was a very functional drunk, so work and obligations were generally not a problem. Or if they were I didn't know about it. But the fights between him and my mom over it because more and more frequent, and by the time I was in junior high school it was clear to everyone that it was causing problems in my parents marriage, and affecting all of our lives. The best example I can think of was the time I was having friends in for a sleep-over and my dad was supposed to come home after work to take us all bowling or some such activity. We waited and waited and finally reluctantly gave up and disappointedly pulled out the board games and made popcorn. To add insult to injury, when we got up the next morning and everyone was leaving the house to head home, there was my dad asleep in the car in the attached garage; he'd made it home but not into the house. I was embarrassed and angry, but also, as always, just so incredibly sad for him. And, of course, seriously worried for years afterward that some night he'd make it into the garage but not turn off the car, and then we'd all be dead.

 

Despite it all, though, I loved him. We all did, but as his firstborn I was often his defender in the "alcohol fights". And as the oldest, the one my mom sent into town to the gin mill whenever he decided to celebrate on a Friday night with the guys before bringing her home the grocery money. In a funny way it made us even closer when I was in high school. By then he and my mom were getting along so badly that he stayed out either working or drinking-maybe both-until he knew she was in bed. I was usually the only one up, sitting at the kitchen table doing homework when he arrived, so we'd sit up and have late night chats about this that and everything. And even though I knew it was because of his drinking, I cherished the alone time we had those four years.

 

Knowing what I did about my dad, though, it kinda kept me on the straight and narrow when it came to high school drinking. I just avoided it altogether by avoiding the crowds and cliques who hung out behind the football field or in the soda shop parking lot drinking vodka out of thermoses. And by the time I left for college, I understood enough about addictive personalities to know that children of alcoholics have a pretty good chance of following in their footsteps,

 

I can hardly say I didn't drink in college, but I can absolutely say that I was petrified of becoming addicted. The first year I abstained, but that just made me seem like a freak to potential beaus, so I started nursing a single drink all evening at parties. Not only was there the fear factor, but there was also the fact that I hated being anything but hyper-responsible. And I didn't like all that much how the stuff tasted anyway. But then the other English majors-especialy the attractive upper class guys- started having those late night get-togethers at the local beer & pizza joint to wax poetic about writing, so there was nothing to do but tag along. I even had a couple of rare- and memorable- bouts with drunkenness.

 

The first time I had been answering phones for the college radio station's annual marathon fundraiser and, with my low tolerance for liquor ( I'm still a cheap date) and the fact that I'd not eaten much for two days, got so drunk on three shots of tequila that I a) woke up the next day on the couch in the basement of a dormitory I'd never been in next to a guy I'd never met (luckily with all our clothes on), b) was so sick from the alcohol I had to practically crawl to my nearby dorm and take to my bed for a week-missing mid-terms (a source of amusement to friends and faculty since I was always the GOOD girl), and c) couldn't even smell tequila for about 20 years after without retching.

 

The other incident was scarier. As a grad student in drama, there were all those opening night bashes, and since they happened when you were totally exhausted from getting the show up, a little liquor went a very long way. After one show where my design work had been the big hit of the night (the review in the local paper said something like "the acting leaves much to be desired but go anyway because you walk out of the theatre singing the costumes") I stayed longer than usual, and was so caught up in a moment of glory that I didn't pay attention to how much I was drinking. When I finally headed for my car I knew I shouldn't get behind that wheel. But I did. At least I knew enough to avoid the main drag in favor of the tiny winding rural back roads that led from campus to our farmhouse a few miles away, but those roads were treacherous when you were sober, and this was icy winter. So that ten minute drive took what seemed like an eternal half an hour, with me simultaneously gripping the wheel for my life, trying to subdue the nausea that came with every curve, and praying that I didn't encounter another car or kill some animal unlucky enough to cross my path, I wept with relief when I hit my driveway.

 

That latter incident was a real crisis for me because I'd spent a lifetime worrying that some night we'd get a call telling us that my dad had killed someone with his car, and now here I was no better than him. It was almost 30 years before I'd find myself drunk again.... and then it was an accident because I didn't notice the host refilling my wine glass all night. Before I tried to stand up I thought I'd been nursing a single drink all night. Surprise. Also surprising that it hadn't affected my speech or thought processes. I really am an incredibly cheap date... two drinks and I'm on my ass.

 

So, to sum up a couple of decades in a sentence or two, for most of my life I've barely been what you might call an occasional drinker. 10 drinks in a year was pretty typical. The more I watched my dad climb into that bottle, the less I wanted to join him. At one point he didn't talk to me for over a year because I was the first of his children-but hardly the last- to confront him about his problem, but eventually even he had to admit he drank too much. I don't know for sure, but I think he tried 12 step programs. Lost a couple of jobs. Lost a couple of girlfriends (he'd already lost the marriage). Finally he stopped arguing with me about the driving and handed me the keys whenever he'd meet me at the train station for a visit.

 

He travelled a bit but came back to help elderly parents, and then drowned those troubles with more vodka. But... and I know this is not always the case... he was still the father I loved unconditionally. He was funny. He worked hard. He shoveled snow for elderly neighbors, and fed the buddies who were out of work. Took in strangers who were down on their luck. Fed the birds in his backyard. He had a lot of friends. Everybody loved him. And we all worried about him. One time, at a graduation party when he'd had way too much to drink, I went to the bartender and asked if they could either shut him down or start watering his drinks. "Darlin', he said, we've known your dad a long time. We always water down his drinks."

 

And so it went. We all moved away and lived our lives and called him in the mornings so we wouldn't have to hear him drunk. Without being at all conscious about it, I chose men who didn't drink for relationships, so there was never alcohol at home. I fretted that friends who drank more than two drinks in a night might have a problem. I volunteered whenever practical to be the designated driver, and never got in a car with someone who'd had a few. I enjoyed the few drinks I had, and developed an inordinate fondness for wassail at christmas, but you could usually still count on two hands the number of drinks I had a year.

 

Then my dad got himself in a profound peck of trouble. I'm not going to go into it here, my siblings sometimes read these posts and it was pretty traumatic for all of us each in our own way, but because of it we learned about a deep dark secret my dad had held inside for a lifetime that, while it didn't cause the drinking, explained a lot about my dad to all of us. It also took him away from us for four years, and kept him off the bottle for the same amount of time. Just before then he'd unsurprisingly had a bout with liver problems, though he was otherwise shockingly trim and healthy his whole life, and for all the trauma of the situation, we were pleased he would be forced into abstinence, assuming that four years off the sauce would keep him off it forever. He came back to us at 70 and we expected he'd live 'till near 90 like his parents.

 

But human nature is human nature. Once he was back he fell into old habits, taking in folks who needed help, and one of them was a drinker. It wasn't two months after the drinking began again that he was rushed to the hospital with liver failure, and he died of cirrhosis a couple of weeks later. He was always such a funny man, and there was much laughter among us at his bedside... like it was his last party. When the smile left his face we knew he was gone.

 

So here is the weird twist to the story. Since my dad died it's as if a huge weight has been lifted from my shoulders, and I'm able to drink again. Not in an excessive way... I still don't like the out-of-control feeling of being drunk. But it's like somehow I no longer live in fear of becoming an addict like him. And I can see that the friends I worried about all those years are hardly alcoholics. And my relationship now is with someone who enjoys drinking in the same low-key way that I do. He's a connoisseur of beers, which I don't like at all, but I'm rekindling a love of hard cider that I developed when I worked in England all those years ago.

 

So for the first time in my life, I'm enjoying wine with dinner on a Saturday and I'm beginning to learn about wines. We're figuring out which bars in town make the best margaritas and gaining an appreciation for the better tequilas. I'm learning- very slowly- to sip scotch now and again. Will make that wassail at my brother's house at christmas. And I'm enjoying drinking in the way that most people have for years. Just one more small pleasure among many. I even, a few weeks ago did something I have never ever ever done... had a glass of wine by myself one night when Matt was out to a show with a friend. Drinking alone is one of those warning signs of alcoholism, so I spent most of 54 years never doing it. But I think by now I'm finally safe. And if I talk just a wee bit too much when I've had a drink? Well that part of the genetics I can handle. And I talk so much anyway that maybe my friends don't notice. (yeah, right!)

 

 

Done