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My Son Is Getting Sober And I’m Crying All Day
No alcoholic is created overnight, or on their own. No chronic drinker arrives at a bar one day and decides that today will be the day that they’ll develop a problem. We know this, we’ve established this. It’s old news. I’ve heard from a variety of sage, wise people that ‘it’s not your fault, you didn’t do this, he makes his own choices.’
Yeah, yeah…I’m not stupid. I know all of that stuff.
I’m crying all day because I feel like I lost something. I screwed this up. I knew he was suffering, but it looked like he was having a good time. People said he would grow out of it. His own father took him out for his 21st birthday drink, and I knew it was wrong. He was failing at life, and I watched him fail. I listened to him make excuses, drown in isolation, but I told myself I was out of line. When no one agreed with me, I convinced myself that I was wrong. I wasn’t wrong. I just didn’t want to be right.
We all grow up in a society that embraces alcohol, that gives us permission to love alcohol, to equate it with fun and joy and happiness. We go to weddings with open bars, we clink glasses and toast the new year, the new baby, the new couple, the new house. We pop champagne, we watch nearly every television show after 9PM display a grownup with a wine glass, we talk about craft cocktails and bespoke shakers. It’s an…
