This One's For You

Dear Mom,

When I first decided to do this blog, I thought, this blog’s for you. I wondered if that was a beer saying. It seemed rather appropriate since you drank beer. Not all these posts are going to be sweet and sugary. I recall after being in recovery a few years, a man who had known you back in the day, also in recovery said to me, “You know your mom was probably an alcoholic.”

“Oh yeah?” Luckily I understood or I may have been offended to hear something so raw about you. You had been gone about 20 years at that time.

“You would never know it though. She hid it well.” He chuckled. “She could drink anyone under the table.”

“Really?” I didn’t know if I should be impressed or disappointed.

“Yeah, really.”

I’m sure no one else thinks of you as being alcoholic and what do I really know, not really knowing you. I wonder what life would have been like had you lived. Would we both be in recovery together or drinking buds? Or would we have had a different kind of separation with you drinking and me not? Or you in recovery and me staggering around in a fog? All of the what if’s don’t matter, but I’m glad I quit drinking and understand the recovery process—it’s not just the NOT drinking, but the deep, inner work. Hopefully I’m weakening the cycle within my own family. Not that everyone agrees, but at least they have more knowledge than I did and that’s a start.