Journal

Wingedwolf's thread in Alcohol Discussion asked, "What would your glamorous commercial for alcohol look like?" So I posted this:

Camera passes over the faces, beautiful, laughing, happy children, montage begins, showing these kids going to Jr. High everyday with a smile on their face (middle-schoolers who are NOT surly!!! most of the time...), doing their homework without prodding, willing, dilligent, contientious, fair-minded children, standing up for the underdog, chiding parents when parents use curse words, knowing right from wrong, where did they get this, who knows, they were born with it, just knowing the right way... But they also know how to be kids, they can be ornery, they can be rowdy, they can be rotten, their rooms are... ugh... disasters.. But these kids, they would't litter or speak a cuss word or try a cigarette for ANYTHING... They are dream children...

Camera pans to Mom, Mom is looking a little.. bleary... Mom's montage begins... Mom is breaking her own self-imposed rules, one by one... she's drinking in the MORNING now (she used to force herself to wait until kids were tucked in bed, 9 pm), she's drinking at noon, and she's drinking all evening... She doesn't fall down and she only slurs a little, most people don't even realize what she's doing.. camera pans over Dad, who clearly... doesn't have a clue... Sneaky sneaky mom, sneaking down to the skanky, dirty, spider-webbed, laundry/furnace room every half hour, to chug nasty cheap-ass wine, directly from a box, so very very glamorous!, isn't Mom pretty, she's so pretty down there with the rumbling furnace and the sloshing washing machine and the spiders and the lint and the self-wringing mop... and the enormous plastic tumbler of wine...

And then camera shows kids gathering sports equipment, most likely baseball and softball, and mom stumbling to gather shoes, purse, cell phone, and, SHUDDER, CAR KEYS... she gargles some mouth wash, sticks two pieces of gum in her mouth, spritzes with some smelly body splash, and hopes no one at practice will notice the blood-shot eyes, nothing can be done about the RED EYES OF DOOM... and out the door they all go...

Ugh... I don't even want to finish this... I'm better now. But I look around and I wonder how many other parents are living this way, secretly, their own secret little hell...

Actually, my commercial plays more like an episode of "Intervention".. har...

working on it. or am i? I don't go to meetings. I don't go to work. I'm painting the rental house, that's work, right? Eventually that will have a payoff, right? RIGHT? I hope.

I miss drinking. I miss going out with my husband and getting silly. We don't talk about anything but our problems, our kids, our problem-kids...

I'm eating too much. I am mindlessly eating, jamming things in my face constantly, especially sugar...

I am not using any of the tools at my disposal.

Mindfullness... meditation... self-hypnosis... letter writing... coping bank... candles... prayer.... laughter...

I have so much.

I have good friends, supportive family.

My daughter is ... where.... I can't sleep. I'm not doing anything for her. I need to reach out to her again. I'm tired of getting burned. I don't like the guy she lives with. He's 33, she's 21. She lied about his age. She lied about smoking in the house. She's dirty and foul-mouthed. She was honors student, National Honor Society, Band, scholarships, brilliant writer... she's so smart, and was such a good person... what the hell, how do I get back to HER.... I'm not in recovery right now... i'm just existing... i feel stagnant... i'm not working any program...

I need help.

God.

God, help me to help myself.

I want to be better for my kids, my family, my friends...

I want to be stronger.

 I want to be capable.

I want to have self-confidence.

I want to feel I can. I CAN.

Start now.

Start right this minute.

What needs done:

START.