Vomit on His Sweater Already - Mom's Spaghetti

I wonder what it must be like to grow up in a house where alcohol wasn't the enemy.


I feel like that's a funny thing to say, and if you didn't grow up with an alcoholic parent or a close friend/family member that abused alcohol, I don't think you could truly grasp the idea of fearing and feverishly detesting a substance.

Growing up, I hated alcohol. With the kind all encompassing hate that most eleven year-old girls would put toward a middle school nemesis or something of that nature. I blamed alcohol for why my dad was a crappy father, and why my childhood was so fucked up. I think it was easier for me to blame the alcohol, than to blame my dad. I wanted to love my dad, and I wanted to believe that he would be good to me if only he wasn't drinking.

Well, of course, I found out later on that drinking or not, BJ (yes, that's my dad's name) was always going to be a shitty father. It wasn't his fault really. My dad was just a kid that never grew up. I don't know a whole lot about him, or how he grew up. I don't know why he turned out the way that he did.

What I do know, the most prominent memory I have of him in my head, is the morning he called my step-mom from jail. He had gotten arrested for cocaine possession the night before. Amy (my step-mom), was storming around the house on the phone with BJ (I guess that was his one phone call), screaming and cursing. So, in true Amy-I don't give a shit about BJ's kids-fashion, she put me on the phone with my dad and screamed for him to tell me why he was in jail. I will never forget that moment. That moment right there, that moment that feels almost frozen in time, was the first moment I ever knew I was being lied to. He got on the phone and said something to the effect of "Hi Baby, I love you so much. Daddy didn't do anything wrong. His friend just lied to him about what he had in the car. I just got lied to baby. Daddy didn't do anything wrong."

Fucking lying bastard.

I'm not really sure what it must do to a kid to know that they are being lied to at such a young age. I really don't know what the repercussions of that moment were on my life. All I know is little me was sad, and scared, and that was possibly the loneliest moment of my life. Being lied to is a lonely feeling. Especially when the person lying is someone you would jump in front of a car for. Someone you would give anything in the world to be able to believe their lie. 

I always have such a problem tying these things up. My life isn't tied or cleaned up yet. So, for now, that's all I have for you. I don't really feel like this story or this portion of my life is a sad one. I know if you're reading this, and you don't know me (and I hope you don't - it's an an anonymous blog for a reason), this could sound like a sob story, but I don't see it that way. This moment helped make me who I am. It made me both strong and weak.

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Update * 

I realized recently that the very moment I stopped blaming alcohol and realized the issues really lied with my father, was the moment I had my first sip of alcohol.

I went to a party with some co-workers, and I had always promised myself that I would never drink, but I was going through a bit of a hard time and I just wanted to let lose. I had spent my life terrified that if I drank, I would become an alcoholic just like my father. Regardless of that fear, I did what everyone else was doing, and I had some cheap wine. It tasted terrible, but the dizzy sensation I started to detect within myself, was mildly entertaining. So, I had a bit more to drink, and I acted silly, but I was never really drunk. After that night I didn't have a single sip of alcohol for 6 months. Not because I was afraid of it or anything, I just didn't really see the need for it unless I went to another party. That fact was a huge revelation for me.

I didn't mutate into an alcoholic all of a sudden, and I realized that alcohol had no control over my actions. It was in that moment that I came to realize that alcohol wasn't the problem. My dad was.