My step dad is an alcoholic. I’ve heard stories of his wild drinking years. The vile things he’s done to other people, the drunk driving and totaled cars, my mom coming home to find him drunk with his friends and I had been crying in my crib for hours.
I lived those years but don’t remember them. What I remember is the desperate rollercoaster of him trying to get sober.
Six weeks dry, then suddenly the dam would break and he’d come home drunk, yelling and raging. In the aftermath came apologies, AA meetings, my willing forgiveness, and my hope would renew.
Maybe this time.
I loved AA. To me, it was—and is—the most noble of pursuits. To take responsibility for whatever baggage someone has inherited, be honest with themself, and have the courage to change behaviors so they don’t hurts others.
I went to some Alateen meetings, eager to do my part. After our meetings we’d sometimes stay while he chatted with people. He talked the talk of serenity and humility and tolerance. He was so calm and reasonable. When he laughed he seemed like a normal person. He’d look at me with kind eyes and on the drive home repeat concepts from the meetings. I saw glimpses the father I hoped for.
Maybe this time.
But over the weeks I’d sense irritation building. His old tone of voice, bizarre accusations, and unpredictable arguments crept back.
The dam would break again. And with each break, the flood was more destructive. When it was clear just AA wasn’t enough, he agreed to try rehab. He went for a weekend. Another time, for a week.
After each one, I thought:
Surely, this time.
One night, not even while drinking, he lathered himself into a rage that resulted in a fist fight with my uncle, who bested him (I wish I had seen that). It ended with my step dad crying on the floor, facing with how powerless he was over his problems. By dawn my mom and uncle were checking him into rehab. For a month.
After two weeks we could visit. We saw his bedroom. In the common room he introduced us and showed us around. There was a pop machine and TV and friendly people. He was talking the talk and this time he seemed to really be changing. He had a new Serenity Prayer bracelet. I took this, along with his prolonged stay, as a new commitment.
This was the most relaxed month I ever had in my own home. It felt like the greatest gift until I found out we were picking him up on my twelfth birthday.
My previous birthday was at an arcade. Total joy. This one was anxiety and disappointment. On the way to pick him up we stopped at the gas station. As a birthday treat I was allowed a Mountain Dew plus TWO cans of shredded beef jerky—the kind made to replicate cans of chewing tobacco. I felt sophisticated. It was nice. But still, I hated ending my month of bliss by picking him up on my fucking birthday.
He hugged us and said how much he loved us. He seemed renewed. Mild and warm and jovial. We had a cake for him and he loved it. He cried a little. In the car ride home he remarked about it.
That was a great cake, what a nice surprise. Thank you.
It was more than we usually got, this thankfulness. I felt obliged to return it.
Well, you gave us plenty of time to prepare.
He laughed. Then he laughed some more—a deep belly laugh.
That is funny, Nate. That is really funny.
It felt odd, him laughing so hard. It wasn’t that great of a joke. I took it as typical adult-underestimating of how sophisticated and observant kids actually are. And also, lack of knowing me—knowing I had wit. But, like this whole night, like his whole recovery path, I think he liked the joke because it was all about him. All on my Goddamned birthday.
Things truly seemed different after this. He was going to meetings. Many a week. He got involved with helping out. AA people started coming over socially. He seemed very serious about recovery this time.
But then he started directing his recovery slogans at us—when he thought were doing things wrong.
He was sober. And he now was paying attention. To our every move. Every week there were new rules.
Boy, I’ve had enough of you disrespecting our things. You just turn the channel dial as fast as you want, don’t you? You’re going to wear it out. Look, you turn it like this. One—channel—at—a—time.
Later, with the money we were saving from not buying beer and got we got a new TV. And I was not allowed to touch it.
Because kids don’t take care of things.
The VCR was off limits. And his stereo.
My grades went bad. Instead of helping me with homework he established a new rule, one he heard about in rehab.
I am putting you on academic probation. For the rest of the semester, every day you will come home from school and you will do homework. If you finish in under an hour you will read from encyclopedias for the remainder of the hour. If you have no homework, which you shouldn’t, you will read form encyclopedias.
At that age, instead of a daily show, I sometimes just washed my hair. From my knees I bent over the side of the tub to get under the faucet. One morning I left the shampoo bottle.
Boy, did you let the shampoo spill out in the bathtub?!
What?
Answer me.
I don’t know. I guess. I didn’t mean to.
You guess so? When are you going to take some responsibility? You’re not the only one who uses shampoo and you’re not the one paying for it. I’m sick of you just taking. You’re grounded and you are going to pay to replace that shampoo.
Not that I had money. Or an income. I was twelve. And did the cost of our cheap shampoo deserved this? I stayed quiet, not wanting to engage with the new tangled maze of slogans he now used to dissipate my attempts to defend myself.
During this period I still constantly worried about him drinking. Always on the anxious look out for signs. At a party, I saw him at the keg. My heart dropped. I mustered the courage to gently confronted him.
Daaad? What are you doing?
He didn’t look up at me, just continued pouring.
I’m getting this for your mother.
He brought it over to her, which I guess, proved his power over his drinking.
But eventually he wouldn’t allow her any habits that he had given up. He insisted she go to Alanon and work her own program.
One day he pulled me aside.
Now that I’m sober I see things clearly. Your mother is still engaging in old, sick way of doing things. Alcoholism is a family disease and your mother needs help. And I’m going to need your help when we have an intervention.
He listed the family members he would call on and how it all would happen.
He believed if something was a problem for him, it was a problem for everyone else. If he was going to work on it, so was everyone else. To his satisfaction.
The intervention fizzled and so did the warmth from when he first came home.
For the remaining years I lived with him, though I feared he’d drink again, I think he only did one or two more times.
“Maybe this time” turned into a “long period of time”, not of serenity, but of tension. Of sharp water lapping the top of the damn and the sounds of it cracking, always threatening a break. The pieces of debris constantly coming down were what I dealt with daily.
Maybe this is what it’s like inside him. Constant turmoil with how he feels about the world and himself. And now that alcohol wasn’t his distraction and reprieve from it, tormenting us took its place.
I never would have guessed that things would be worse after he got sober.