The Unveiling

In the beginning; my knee-jerk reaction was, this sucks. Nothing new here. I felt just as alienated and estranged from everyone else as I always did in any kind of social situation A fancy renowned rehab sure as hell wasn't going to change that.

Orientation was a bit strange. They divided us up into smaller pods of seven or eight. We were as diverse a lot as members of the United Nations. They threw me in with a nurse; a dentist, who was an elderly man that oozed refinement and money; a female college student; a housewife; a teacher and an abused wife of a rageaholic. I wasn't quite sure where I fit into this conglomeration. Other than the fact that we all shared the common bond of either living with or being closely related to an alcoholic, we seemed to have little else in common.

We were quickly apprised of the house rules: No smoking; be prompt for meals; take turns at cleaning up and lights out at 10:00 p.m. We were then given explicit instructions by the therapists who would be facilitating our peculiar little group on the protocol for group interaction.

That ugly word intense in my mind kept bouncing off the walls of my apprehension. I wanted to bolt. Why the hell did I let Gerri talk me into this? To top it all off, at the end of the session, a photographer was brought in to capture the varying degrees of misery behind our masked bravado.

The therapists had all kinds of innovative tools up their sleeves. They ran the gamut from forced sharing in the group; to writing letters to someone or something we were afraid to confront; to role-playing. And last but not least, they gave us instruction on learning how to give and receive affirmations.

Recovery of any kind is not for sissies. I didn't realize it at the time, but it takes courage and a leap of faith not to bolt and run for higher ground. I was often tempted during that week to throw in the towel. The bruised forty-five-year-old child who filled out that form before stepping through the entrance door would have done exactly that.

Retrospect is the catalyst for truth. But one must be able to look back on reality from a rather detached perspective; the unvarnished version. For me, that took everything Chit-Chat had to offer.

The first day, while I was still wavering back and forth about whether I belonged there, three words printed on a chart hanging on the wall vanquished all doubt. It was a list of ten losses experienced by both the alcoholic and the co-dependent.

I skimmed over most on the list, allowing for several question marks; loss of pride, loss of hope, loss of faith, etc. But when it came to number ten, I crumbled: Loss of spirit.

There it was. The vast emptiness that had enveloped me all of my life, reduced to four syllables and tossed about for all to see. What if the others noticed that I stood accused? How dare they rip away my 'I'm okay' mask and leave me exposed. There was a hole in the dike. My vision was blurred by that one small eruption in an ocean of dammed up tears that I could no longer force back. Yes, I belonged here.

Loss of Spirit

Erased?
Maybe...
by life,
by being discounted,
by alcohol-isms?

Or...
diffused and deleted
while inside the womb--
before cognition;
siphoned
thru heredity's placenta?

A dilemma of dodging answers
in between
the lines not rendered.

Was it ever there to be retrieved,
or is it simply nonexistent?
And if indeed that be the case,
my grief weighs more insistent.

But perhaps another option
tucked in hope's horizon
whispers;
recreate me my spirit pleads,
lest your white flag
makes me wither.


Opening the door and letting the monster out to roam the corridors of my misconceptions was nothing short of terrifying. I remember wondering as we shared our stories in the group of whether or not everyone was totally honest. I seemed to be the only one drowning in three generations of alcoholism.

In that one short week, my perceptions about the disease of alcoholism were shattered and reconstructed from the ground up. The educational part went down the gullet rather easily. It was like sipping cough syrup through a cherry-flavored straw and realizing it was medicinal; it couldn't hurt me because it was absorbed intellectually.

But rubbing elbows with the emotional devastation that rips across the fabric of family unity and shreds it to pieces--that wasn't going down without a fight. In spite of my denial, the mask was stripped away and the misery that lurked beneath it was dressed in my pain; a pain denied for too many long years. It scraped the surface of my resistance like nails on a chalkboard, screaming to be released. God, I needed a drink.


The Awakening

Truth unravels of its own accord
Exposing pain yet unexplored.

Doesn't matter if we're unprepared
Or beg of it, so we might be spared;

Truth rips away our worn-out shield
Points to where we now must yield.

I will not harm you, truth reveals
Embrace me, take the hand that heals.


I had so much to learn.

My earliest concept of an alcoholic was Bud Jarvis, our next door neighbor. Every weekend, Bud would sit on his stoop with his homemade wine camouflaged in a greasy-looking paper bag and drink until he became incoherent. Never did figure out the paper bag.

During the week, Bud was stone-cold sober and went to work every day. I always thought it strange that Dad sympathized with him. "You have to give him credit," he used to say. "He never misses a day's work."

At six years old, the concept of that dichotomy was a real disconnect. All I saw was an embarrassment to his children and a thorn in his wife's side. Mary Jarvis would scream and rant all day, and their kids fled next door to our house. Jimmy masked his shame behind a boisterous laugh while his brother Ray attempted to rub away the nervous twitch in his left eye.

I remember thinking that Bud should drink with Dad and the other guys in the neighborhood down at the corner bar. Then, maybe he wouldn't get so drunk.


The Corner Bar


Relief from stress back in the day
Was bottled or on tap,

It magnified the moment,
Helped fill in lack's growing gap.

The working stiffs who filled the stools
At the corner bar each day,

Would tip their glass and toast their dreams,
Then swallow them away.



When Luke gave his first lead at an AA speaker meeting, I didn't know what to expect. But he nailed it. I'm not sure who was more anxious. Him, because it was his first lead and his mother was in the room, or me because I was anxious about what might be revealed. It was kind of like watching a scary movie as a child and holding my hands over my eyes, but still peeking through the cracks. His very first sentence said it all.

"Hi, I'm Luke, and I am an alcoholic." He looked directly at me. "And if you shake our family tree, every kind of alcoholic you can imagine will come tumbling out."

Alcoholism's legacy is bestowed on random victims. There is no common thread. Genetics plays a part; like most other diseases, there is a predisposition. The environment is often a factor, but not a determining one. It targets people from all walks of life; young and old; rich and poor; uneducated, and drunks with doctorates. It doesn't favor A type personalities over B types, and it is blind to gender. There are binge drinkers; blackout drinkers; maintenance drinkers; those who like to call themselves functional drinkers, and low-bottom drunks who end up as wet brains.

From the onset, Luke had little defense against the disease. His progression was rapid. By the time he left home at eighteen, he was already a blackout drinker. Unlike Gerri and I, who were functional, for the most part, and dad, who managed to maintain a sober persona via a few shots and a six pack a day, Luke went from 0 to 10 in a few short years. Hell donned the label addiction, and raked him over the coals, taking him on a ten-year roller coaster ride before it dropped him, maimed and broken, on the doorstep of recovery at age twenty-eight.


Our Gene Pool

Lurking behind that initial high
Often undetected--
Our rebel gene would spin its web
Till generations were affected.

Its tentacles reached far and wide
Consuming young and old alike,
Its puncture wounds bled shame and guilt,
Threatening to breach the dike.

Our combined regrets bear out the fact
That our story when dissected,
Reveals a truth that if denied
Can never be corrected.

A host of other ailments
Wear that word pre-disposition,
But none demands recovery,
Shuck denial as its one condition.


A few days into the program. I was gaining an understanding of how being raised in an alcoholic home affected much of my behaviors. I learned that Gerri and I had developed an arsenal of defense mechanisms to cope. I also discovered that children of alcoholics assume specific roles in the family structure.

***************

Sharon Wegsheider-Cruse developed a theory of alcoholic families which states that the children in such families tend to assume one of four roles.

The Family Hero

The Family Hero provides the moments of hope and pride that the family desperately needs. The Hero tries to bring self-worth to the family by excelling in various fields, such as sports, music, academics, art, military service, and so on. Te hero is often an inward winner in his or her chosen field, which brings reflected notoriety to the family. To the outside world, the Hero looks great, but on the inside, the Hero feels miserable. Inadequacy, loneliness, and fatigue contribute to feelings of worthlessness and of being overwhelmed.

The Scapegoat

Scapegoats aware of the dysfunction surrounding them, try to spend more and more time away from the family, yet take with them a hunger for belonging, and anger because they do not belong at home. This need for belonging and the pain of anger often leads the Scapegoat to dysfunctional peer groups and experimentation with chemicals. Chemical dependency, negative behavior, and suicide are often escapes for the Scapegoat. Since Scapegoats frequently draw negative attention to themselves by getting into trouble at school or with the law, the family often pins its collective dysfunction on the Scapegoat, who bears the burden at a cost to himself or herself.

The Lost Child

The Lost Child adapts. She becomes a loner who tries to survive her painful environment. In the midst of family chaos, the Lost Child withdraws into himself. This child is often forgotten to the degree that he or she is neglected by the family. As these children build walls of isolation, they miss out on how to develop relationships, they suffer from intense loneliness.

The Mascot

Mascots are filled with fear (of being left out) and loneliness (they are rarely taken seriously by the family.) To try to become included, Mascots turn to teasing, joking, or any agitating behavior to attract attention to themselves.

Excerpts taken from the book UNDERSTANDING CO-DEPENDENCY (the Science Behind It and How to Break the Cycle) by Sharon Wegscheider-Cruse and Joseph Cruse, MD Health Communications, Deerfield Beach, Florida.

I wasn't quite sure where I fit, but since I was always being blamed for everything, scapegoat seemed a good fit. I had no problem labeling my sister Gerri. Although she saw herself as the lost child, she definitely incorporated the characteristics of the hero. Her perfectionism and people-pleasing attributes had made her life much more difficult than it needed to be.

One of the most profound revelations that opened my eyes to see just exactly where my sister and I fit in all the craziness was during a role-playing session. The scene was to portray an argument transpiring between my mother and father. I was asked to place my sister and myself in positions relating to the situation. I curled Gerri up into a ball and put her in a corner where she remained  cowered, covering her face. I, on the other hand, was standing on a chair, smack dab in the middle of them, trying to keep the peace.

My sister was right. Back then, she was the lost child. But as she got a bit older, she developed her survival skills and transitioned into a super achiever and perfectionist. She became the hero. While I, on the other hand, honed my peacekeeping skills, always in the middle persona, and failed to move beyond it. I spent my entire life trying to fix everybody and everything that went wrong. After all, it was probably my fault in the first place.

Claudia Black, who has worked for over twenty years with children who live with alcoholism, believes that children of alcoholics learn three basic rules of life that help them survive in an alcoholic family: Don't Talk; Don't Trust; Don't Feel.

Not only did I hone these skills, but I wore them as a badge of courage.

***************
As the week progressed, there was an almost imperceptible shift in the therapy sessions. By the time I realized it, it was too late to crawl back into my shell. The textbook educational information about the disease and its residual effects on the family had morphed into one ugly ball of wax that had my name written all over it. And it was gathering momentum as it rolled down my own mountain of pain.

I found myself sharing things that were so deeply buried that I didn't even have a name for them. Who was this stranger purging her innermost secrets in front of total strangers?

I was a good girl, never caused any trouble. What was so strange about a child banging her head up against the wall, or breaking dishes over her head? And so what if she sat in a corner and tried to look sad so someone would pay attention to her? Who says out of body experiences and the illusion of shrinking till the ones you love are no longer within your grasp isn't natural? Sad little girl.

The Burial

I buried my child
At a tender young age,
I buried her
In every heartache.

I buried my child
Within the fresh open wounds,
In the folds
Of the guilt and the shame.

In the slights and the losses
In the unspoken grief,
In the depths
Of my own isolation.

And the loose, porous soil
Mounted higher and higher,
As the strike of the shovel
Resounded.

And she delved so deep
With a fervor she burrowed,
Just how deep
Dared the little child go?

She sunk to the innermost
Chamber of self,
To a crypt
Where she felt protection--

From a world
Out of reach
Out of touch
Just beyond
The grave of her own isolation.

That behavior of piling hurt upon hurt until it reached the boiling point had followed me into adulthood. I spent years honing my skills and became quite creative. I toned down the violence and resorted to more precise ways to release all of the crap that I had never learned to deal with over the years. It manifested itself in scenes of me hiding in the closet and methodically taking scissors to my wedding dress; to tossing hot spaghetti on the ceiling, one f#*@ing noodle at a time; to shutting myself in the bathroom and slowly releasing the gas in the antiquated space heater without using a match to ignite it. The preferred scenario was that my lying, cheating husband would realize how much he hurt me and break down the door to save me. (He never did.) And of course, I shut it off before becoming asphyxiated. Not exactly grown-up behaviors.

As an alcoholic, I began to use alcohol as a tool to avoid coping with life and stopped growing emotionally. My capacity to learn how to resolve issues became diminished.


Diminished

Diminished
the ability to absorb reality

Diminished
the desire to achieve

Diminished
the capacity to care for self and others

Diminished
the seal of self-respect

Diminished
the language of laughter

Diminished
the season of spirit

Diminished
All honor and hope.



By day four, I was willing to accept the fact that my childhood response to life was influenced by my dad's drinking and Mom's obsession to control it.
Those dynamics caused many of my sister's and my needs to be ignored, so I compensated the best I could. But why hadn't I evolved? Wrong question.

Before I left group that afternoon, one of my favorite counselors--one I trusted implicitly--asked me to stay behind.

"Dallas." She made a point to make eye contact. "This evening, I'd like for you to review your family history again. And this time, I want you to include your own drinking patterns. If you feel comfortable about it, I would like you to share it with me and the others tomorrow."

I was stunned. But being the people pleaser that I was, I couldn't refuse. Anyhow, I was sure my refusal would indict me. My drinking wasn't that bad, and I'd prove it.

After dinner, I went to my room, turned on the overhead fan, and pulled out a notebook. The thought of an ice cold beer flitted across my radar. But I sluffed it off, giving it little credence, and dove into the family tree.