~ a story of co-dependence and alcoholism
I am the daughter of an alcoholic.
Until recently, I didn’t really understand the meaning behind those words because at age 13, 14, 15 and beyond, he was just Dad. A parent who loved me. Yes, he drank — but I was clueless.
How could I know that his biting criticisms were alcohol induced? Or that his cold disposition wasn’t rejection, but a countdown of minutes to his next drink. It was normal; arriving home from my after-school job, finding both Dad and my step-mother Grace deep in a bottle of Inver House Scotch Whisky, where night after night, they prepared me an evening meal of neglect, steeped in empty praise.
Could this be why I unwittingly married an alcoholic drug addict?
I didn’t recognize it as such back then…I was a sober nineteen year old girl, working two jobs to pay my own way through college. No one tried to protect my best interests — not even my narcissistic mother — and I fell prey to a dangerous, charismatic wolf, ten years my senior.
Out of a naïve belief that I could change the circumstances of my marriage for the better, I stayed married for twelve years, not understanding the cycle of abuse that alcoholics and drug offenders wield with such ease. I didn’t know he would force me to carry the blame for his drunken rages, where he twisted my words and created non-existent ulterior motives, until it fueled an explosion of torment and destruction.
I can still see his angry, red-faced glare looming over me; neck veins bulging as he beat me with hurtful words, a threat of violence crackling in the air. Afterwards, there would be no apology. Just an unreasonable insistence that he had done nothing wrong. “It’s all your fault! If you had just [fill in the blank], I wouldn’t have [fill in the blank]…
I didn’t know I was fighting a battle that couldn’t be won.
As with my father, I took my husband’s words to heart. He said he loved me. How could he lie and make such terribly untrue accusations? Why did he refuse to see reason? It was like having a nonsensical argument with a child. Was it my fault? Should I have done something different?
But in the end — it didn’t matter what I did or didn’t do — the outcome was always the same.
I could sit silent during the verbal assault, or attempt to defend myself. I could fight back, or quietly accept his blame-game just to keep the peace. I tried appeasement. I took on more burdens. I tip-toed around his mercurial moods. None of it mattered.
Not once, did he accept responsibility for his behavior.
Instead – I would be castigated as the villain in a brand new narrative of his own invention. He would assign to me any number of short-comings, modifying the facts as he saw fit, slandering me to friends and family. He’d cast me as the errant one because that’s what it always came down to: I had the problem, not him, and nothing I said or did could convince him otherwise.
Those were the downswings of the abuse cycle.
He must’ve been able to sense when he’d pushed me too far, when I’d reached my limits of tolerance, because suddenly he would “forgive” me — and once again, my charismatic, attentive husband would return from the abyss and shower me with love and affection. My heart would be tricked, it swelled with hope, wanting to believe his sweet promises of a rosy future. I’d tell myself, “Things will be better…this time.”
And things would be very good, for a while. Long enough for him to regain my trust. Until the long, downward spiral started all over again; it was insidious, the erosion so slow, I couldn’t see its trajectory until it was upon me. It could take two or more years for a cycle to complete. He’d wield Love like a weapon — offering and then withholding — to manipulate and control. It kept me off-balance, confused by his inconsistency and abject disloyalty.
This is what my three sons were born into.
I didn’t have the labels and words and explanations back then. I lived in a pre-Internet world where folks didn’t air their problems to friends and neighbors. I bore the burden alone.
It took me twelve years to realize he would never change. An epiphany that prompted me to find the courage and ingenuity it would take for me to divorce him — back in the days when children were ridiculed for having a different last name than their mothers.
Over time, I learned to read the signs of addiction and society would create terminology for things like “High Functioning Alcoholic” and identify a smorgasbord of personality disorders. The Internet showed me I wasn’t alone.
My abuser has since died, but his legacy lives on in the form of PTSD. It is only with a healed heart, that I can now proclaim my truth. The shame wasn’t mine to own. It was his.
I’m done ’tilting at windmills’. I’ve suffered more than my fair share battling the effects of someone else’s addictions. I can honestly say, with a full heart — NEVER AGAIN.
I deserve better. I demand better. I will settle for nothing less.
My Affirmations
I will not tolerate verbal abuse or temper tantrums.
I will be not be held hostage to a roller-coaster of shifting affection.
I refuse to be a scape-goat. I will not be held accountable for someone else’s toxic behavior or poor choices.
I refuse to be gas-lighted. I will not tolerate an accuser’s false narrative.
I am not a dump-sink. Don’t even try to “put the load right on me”.