SINS OF OMISSION…the sneaky foe

I started blogging in July and it’s been relatively easy up to now. I was blessed with a thirst for life and I think you can tell from my articles that I had a wonderful childhood, an exciting school and work record and a good marriage that produced three precious children. It has been a joy to remember and record the events of those days. So far I have posted an eclectic collection of thoughts that have taken me from my birth to about age 40.

Here’s where it gets difficult for me to continue. To capsulate: it is now 1973. I am married with 3 children (2 boys and a girl), ages 14, 13 & 12. Ten years earlier we moved from New York City to a small town in upstate New York. Dick’s health was too rocky for him to continue his life as a traveling photographer and he now is a Real Estate Broker and we run the office out of our home. I sell property also and manage the business end.

We never returned to the heavy socializing that we had done in the city, but we always retained our night-time ritual of cocktails before dinner. Without realizing it this had become of major importance to me. Our life was not easy, especially financially, and I found that a few drinks helped me to cope. I ran the household and our small business, made the meals, attended school functions and did whatever was required of me, but it was always with the aid of the anesthetic called alcohol.

I use the word “anesthetic” because that’s exactly what it did to me…it separated me from reality. I can look at photographs, or talk to my children about that time in our lives and it jolts my memory...but they are usually cloudy and distorted images. This is how alcohol affected me and it was so subtle and cunning that I didn’t even realize what was happening. For the next 16 years I was, as they say in AA, a “functioning alcoholic”.

When I look back upon those years I don’t beat myself up because of what I did. It’s what I DIDN’T DO that saddens me. I didn’t provide my children with emotional security, I didn’t give my husband the love and devotion that he so rightly deserved and I didn’t have the courage to face life head on.

Well, that has all changed. I learned, 17 years ago, that I have a treatable disease and that I can lead a full and rewarding life without the false courage of alcohol. The fog has lifted and I can clearly see the road ahead that beckons.