Blood is Thicker than Liquor

I have been in a relationship for the last seven years with a man who is both beautiful inside, and out. Our relationship has been an interesting flux between intense pleasure, and amplified misery, woven together by an incredibly strong spiritual connection. Although I could always see the vast potential inside the eyes of this person, he has been for as long as I have known him… a tormented soul. He has also been, for the previous duration of our relationship, and alcoholic.

I have never personally known anyone else who was really an alcoholic, or at least not anyone I was this incredibly close with, so it took me a while to figure out what was going on… and even when I did figure it out, I didn’t know what to do with him. His whole family was (is) in denial, and so was he. It took seven years for him to admit to himself that he had the disease. Mind you he was drinking hard LONG before he met me.

Regardless of the path that either of us choose, we are bound. Two years ago, I gave birth to our beautiful son. (Anything but naturally, but that’s another story…) Absolutely beautiful, and precious, and perfect in every way… except for that selective 2 yr. old hearing thing… sheesh. If my hair isn’t turning gray under that brunette dye, I will be amazed.

Looking into my sons HUGE blue eyes does two things for me… 1.) It melts my cold little, winter born, Capricorn heart… and 2.) It makes me REALLY pissed off about human consciousness… Or really, the lack there of. I take certain things very personally such as… drunk drivers, child abusers…etc…

Truth be told, a few weeks ago, I was on my way out of town with my son, to (*cough*escape the family*cough*) visit some friends. When on my way I found myself stuck behind a driver that was driving pretty erratically. I won’t make the judgement of saying that this person was drunk… But, they sure were having a problem staying between the lines. I followed behind this person for about 15 minutes observing at a good distance, before I decided to called 911. I described the vehicle to the state patrol dispatch, and then once I got off the phone, I passed them, and went on my way. About 5 miles or so down the road I passed a state police car on the right side with his lights on who was just sitting with no one pulled over, and then another mile or so, an unmarked car on the left. I can only hope that either the person wasn’t actually driving drunk, or that they saw them. I had never done that before, but what if the person driving had been drunk, and hit someone. At one point this person was driving right across the center lines on a two lane stretch of highway, through a construction zone with cement barriers and no shoulder. That was what did it for me. Even before the construction zone, the driver who was in the left lane at the time driving WAY under the speed limit, kept drifting over into the right lane as people would pass, causing them to break, and drive on the shoulder to pass them. Scary stuff…

So now after 7 years of living with someone with alcoholism, it is very personal. It affects me, and maybe even more so, our son. Children are always the unintentional victims of such disaster. Luckily he has only seen visually little bits and pieces of the ugliness, and drama, and I have physically removed him from the situation on many occasions. However he has felt with his keen perceptions, the repercussions of the tension, and the unhappiness.

Thankfully, this person who I am bonded to by the common blood of our son, (…and of course, a profoundly deep love, and blossoming friendship) has taken it upon himself to begin his journey down the road of recovery… and he’s looking good so far. He’s been in a treatment center for the last 29 days, starting with detox, and then entering into an in-patient facility. He’s very happy to discover the parts of himself that he used to mask, or hide in shame. He’s had some heavy childhood issues to deal with (some of which I knew nothing about until recently) as well as having very little positive influence from his family. His mother has been denying (quite the enabler) the addiction since I first noticed how bad it was, and tried to get him some help from his family. She of course blames me… (That is also another LOOOOONG story).

No matter what the outcome may be for our romantic relationship, I know we will be able to set aside the bullshit, and be great friends, and make it work somehow for our child. In so many ways, blood is indeed thicker than liquor.

~ by starrgrrrl on December 14, 2007.