I am not posting to start an argument nor am i posting to combat another post. what i want to convey is what it is like for us kids with parents, spouses, or loved ones of alcoholics.
my mom was an alcoholic and addicted to drugs from since before i was born. i was raised by my grandma until i was 8 and then i went to live with my mom. when i lived with my gma i saw my mom whenever she could come and wasnt high or drunk. she would stay awhile then leave and i would cry not understanding why my mom was leaving. sometimes i would wrap my body around her when i slept hoping that if she went to leave i would wake up and she would stay yet it never worked. as a baby i didnt understand why i would watch for her and she not come and i didnt understand what i was feeling. when i was in elementary school i was now thinking of my gma as my mom and my mom just as a person who came to visit. i once had an ear infection while with my mom and my gma came to pick me up and my mom offered me to stay with her and miss school but i chose to go with my gma and go to school after the doctors which hurt my mom. t he next day she called for my gma but hung up on me when she wasnt there. it hurt, so i asked her about it and she said the phone hung up on her end but i didnt believe that. when i was 8 she cleaned up and decided to put me and my sister first. i had to leave my gma and go live with my mom which i didnt want to. i didnt trust her and i didnt want to be with her. i loved her but i wanted my stability and i was afraid she would hurt me.
for 7 or 8 years she stayed clean and she was the best mom that i could hope for. she took us places, made us good food, bought what we could ever imagine that we needed. made sure we were housed and that our grades were good. she taught us values and about boys that we needed to watch out for. she was everything that i hoped for in a mother. yes when she was drunk she loved us but not like she did sober. she put us first. made sure no men hurt us in fact she put her love life on hold to make sure we were safe.she made sure we had a room which meant her sleeping on the couch or in bed with me or my sister. so when i was sixteen i got a job and bought her a bed that she could sleep on for t he first time in 8 years. i loved that woman.
when i was 17 she started drinking and doing crack and then she started stealing money from me and jewelry. i didnt see it at first but then i did. so i was crushed. i had went to florida with my husband, then boyfriend, to meet his dad and when i came back she and my sister had fled to athens to escape drug dealers. she would deny it but we all heard the stories. i moved in with my gma again and finished high school. my mom had come back a couple months later and she still was hooked on alcohol and drugs. after my grandparents died she went into a deeper depression and started doing drugs and alcohol heavier. she stole my hubbys car and left a crackpipe in it and when hubby found it he forbade her from coming into our house. when he gave her another chance years later she got drunk and even snuck some alcohol in my car while driving. i had it then. we got into a huge fight and i told her that if she was drunk whenever i was around i would leave and not see her until she was sober.
she got so bad she lost her job and was homeless. she did get other jobs but she was getting sicker. so finally after years of trying to quit, several rehabs and several times in maryhaven she was diagnosed with bipolar and they put her on antidepressants and she started to quit the drugs and alcohol. but by then she was sick. she couldnt keep a job and she was diagnosed with hep c and cirrhosis of the liver and the rest you know.
as the kid of the alcoholic i felt hurt and unloved, betrayed, felt like it was my fault. i was in the middle of it between her and my hubby. yet i seen the good part of her and that is what i held onto the years that she was bad. i never did trust her again, i limited my time and my kids time around her. she never got to keep my daughter overnight or do the things alot of gma's do but i loved my mom very much. i held onto the good mom or i would have gone insane. i often wondered if i made her who she was but i know in my heart i couldnt have. alot of people told me over the years i should have walked away but no one could understand the pain and heartache we go through yet the love we have. when you are not in our shoes its hard to understand why we stay and why we keep going through the life but its because we know the person they are before the disease, we have seen what they could be and what they once were and we keep hoping that our love would change them.
it took me a long time to understand that i couldnt change my mom, no matter how much i tried or loved her, unless she wanted to change herself. and even her wanting to change couldnt work unless she had the willpower and the determination and help to do so. when my mom was sober she had a contagious laugh and could make you laugh on a whim. she was funny, smart, beautiful and loving. the disease, the addiction made her an ugly person and mean but even when she was addicted she never stopped loving us and was always there for us no matter how drunk or high she was. she did preach to us never to get addicted like she did. so please dont think that we could have made them change and we could have helped them because believe me we tried to help them, tried to make them quit and in the end had to make the decision whether to continue to be there for them or walk away. and believe me both decisions are t he hardest decisions you could ever think of. i chose to stay because i knew i would feel guilty for walking away and i wanted no regrets. i also knew from experience that people can quit. my gpa was alcoholic for 30 years and quit one day because of doctors saying if he didnt quit he would kill my gma who was a diabetic and his love for her was soo strong that he quit. so i knew change was possible it was only waiting for it to happen.