Generational Alcoholism

There comes a stage for all recovering alcoholics to do the big reveal and share with the family that "I am indeed an alcoholic" (as if they already didn't know, but more on this later).  I imagine it will be a mighty humbling experience.  I have been rehearsing ways to do it and where to do it but so far have come up with not much.  I have thought of ways to do it where they might think I am coming out ("Dad, I guess you always sort of knew in the back of your mind, but didn't want to confront it - yes, I'm ....  alcoholic!").  They know anyway, it will be just me saying it that will be the big buzz.

Maybe just wait until Christmas Day and be sitting there without a drink and without some devil's-advocate-considered-yet-provocative-opinion and let them all notice for themselves.  That is the best case scenario I have at this stage, to say I have not had a drink for like 200 days will be pretty impressive and demonstrate my commitment.

In my family alcoholism is a generational curse and all the older members have clear memories of alcoholic parents themselves and grandparents have endured life with alcoholics and so on.  For them I hope my honesty and openness will be a sign of moving forward and that they can look at me through a different lens.  I appreciate how heartbreaking it must be to see grandchildren develop into alcoholics and display the behaviors they have all seen before.

For me there is the story of my own father - as a boy trying to lift his father up off the street where he had fallen down drunk, and not being able to.  Of rifling through his pockets for coins to give his mother to buy food whilst he lay blacked out.  Or the story of the drunken uncle and his inappropriate behaviors - the real reason why he was fed before everyone else and lived 'down the back' away from the rest of the family.

Or the current batch of alcoholics, me front and centre but not nearly so desperately without hope as a sister without a home and two children to an alcoholic father, a brother in law lost to meth addiction, a step brother's death, a family culture where drugs and alcohol are never the problem, just always there.  Like an episode of Brothers and Sisters, walking around with a glass of wine, arguing.

So it will not come as a big surprise to most of them that I am alcoholic, once word gets round that "B stopped drinking"  - more surprising that I admitted it and stopped.  They all knew quietly that I had chosen drink and deception and they would have seen the cracks appearing, and noticed me just as quickly struggling to maintain some impression that everything was normal and ok.  They all knew about my depression in my early twenties, and how I emerged more assertive and outspoken.  And how I have always 'loved' a drink...

One thing I do know is that I won't be revealing that I am writing all my progress down in a blog.  There is one sure fire way to trigger the self-censorship mode and that would be it for me, having to write and then edit for family reading purposes.  For sure it would be ok if they read it like you do and left a comment, but not if they are going to read and then expect to discuss face to face each thought and detail.  It would be exhausting.

So here's to sharing deep dark secrets with family, but only so far.  There's some things that they just don't need to know...