Remembering: Cinderella

Yesterday at my favorite meeting we were discussing the first step. I haven't sat at a first step table in a long time, and as people shared their drunk-a-logs I realized that I've been forgetting the damage I did while drinking, forgetting the awful ways I felt. I realized that I've been taking my sobriety for granted, and as long as I take it for granted I can't be secure in it. In other words, taking my sobriety for granted is the first step down that slippery slope to relapse, and I remember enough to know that I don't want to go there. So I decided that I need to consciously remember some of the worse incidents, so as not to repeat them. Ellie over at One Crafty Mother does this, and her stories are always a great inspiration to me. Now it's my turn.

"Cinderella dressed in yella, went upstairs to kiss a fella..." the girls are chanting this little ditty I've taught them in anticipation of our big movie night. Janet* is five and Janie* is two. My husband is gone for the evening, where I don't remember, and we are planning a girl's night. I'm excited, I'm making popcorn, a rare treat in our home, and I've purchased Cinderella 3 on DVD. We've been waiting for this movie to come out for months, maybe a year, and it's finally available. I of course am celebrating with some wine. There's a half bottle of red in the kitchen, more than enough for an evening alone with my two small children. I have a quick glass while making the popcorn, and then pour another and we settle in for the movie.

Somehow, the movie night is not going according to my expectations. Janie is bored, she wanders off to play. Or maybe she is nagging me to play with her, again, the memories are hazy. To settle my nerves I have another glass of wine. The bottle is empty now, and I want more. I don't think I have a problem. I am not a drunk. I just want one more glass. But if I open another bottle, my husband will know and despite justifying to myself that one more glass is no big deal there is clearly a part of myself that knows that it IS because I don't want him to know. So I get the idea to open another bottle and drink it down to the same line that the first bottle was at. I'll hide the first, empty bottle and my husband will think that I didn't have anything to drink at all. Brilliant! But something goes wrong. As the level in the bottle gets lower I start to feel sick. I'm stumbling around, slurring my words. I've completely forgotten about my kids, the movie, everything except the level in that bottle. I have to force the last glass down, I'm that drunk. I don't want any more, but I have to get the bottle to half full and it never, ever would occur to me to dump it out. That would be wasteful!

I don't remember the ending of the movie, or if we even watched the end. Somehow I manage to get my kids upstairs and into my bed. I don't know if we put on pajamas, or if we brushed teeth. We probably did, since I do remember trying to read a book to them, and if I was coherent enough to read a book I probably had them brush teeth, right? Except I wasn't coherent, I was slurring my words like mad. The pages were fading in and out, the print just a blur. I was fighting unconsciousness. The room was going black. I think it was only 8pm. I quit reading and told my kids mommy was 'sick.' Then I passed out.

I don't know if my kids went straight to sleep, or if they stayed awake, talking over their drunken, unconscious mother. I don't know if they felt afraid, all alone in that big house with no one to take care of them. I doubt they knew the danger they would have been in if something had happened, a fire, a burglary, a medical emergency.

I don't remember my husband coming home, but I can only imagine how it looked to him. His wife, sprawled on the bed, passed out, reeking of wine. His two innocent children beside her, sleeping (or perhaps not). Did he try to wake me, to talk to me? Did I slur my words? Did I try to justify myself? Or did he just shake his head and go, wondering why I keep doing this?

At some point I did wake, that point where I was sober enough to face the full horror of what I had done, and sick enough to want to die. Red wine was hard on my stomach (which is why I later switched to white) and I spent several hours not able to sleep from the waves of nausea and repeated runs to the bathroom to puke my guts out. What excuse did I give? Food poisoning? The flu? Did anyone ever believe that I was 'sick' that often? Somehow, I made it to morning. Somehow, I always seemed to finally sleep around 6am or so, and woke up feeling better albeit totally hungover. I looked around at the devastation I had caused, and swore to myself 'never again'. But it was just one of the million times I had said that, and there would be another million before I finally quit for good three years later.

Gratitude

As with spirituality, I find gratitude in the small things. This week my eldest was suffering due to a fight with a friend. As I lay in bed with her talking until nearly 10pm about relationships, friendships, forgiveness and communication I felt the most intense gratitude settle over me. 7 months ago I would not have been able to have this conversation with her. I would have either already been too drunk to communicate well, or I would have been too consumed with the thoughts of the drinks I was missing out on to take the time to talk to her. Even if I was sober, she wouldn't have wanted to talk to me about it. In the last year or so of my drinking, she had become distant, angry and waspish. I blamed it on her age (a ripe 7 years old) or my husband or anything else I could think of besides my drinking. I never thought she was even aware of my drunkenness. How would a 7 year old know what alcoholism is? Yet after I quit, the most amazing thing began to happen. She began to warm up to me. She started to hug me again, to say she loved me. To talk to me, to trust me. I began to learn to let God guide my words with her and we began to have deeper, more meaningful conversations on a regular basis. That we are now at a point where she trusts me with her pain, her issues, and her fears is an amazing thing. I have only my sobriety and my Higher Power to thank for that. I am so grateful.