The first time I got drunk, I was in the eighth grade. On a Thursday evening, a gallon of Carlo Rossi Chianti sat in its usual place on our kitchen table. While my family lounged in the living room mesmerized by the television set, I pilfered sips from this seemingly endless supply. I still have the image of the red vomit stained wall next to my bed in the early morning hours.
Even though it made me sick, I didn’t stop getting drunk until I was 41, when my middle-aged body started to rebel in a language I could finally understand. Torrential night sweats and heart palpitations made it clear that this stuff would kill me. The mother of a five-year-old daughter at the time, I couldn’t let that happen.
Fast-forward three years and I’m feeling grounded in my sobriety, smug in the perception that I had narrowly escaped disaster when the phone call came. My beloved 20-year-old nephew was killed in a car crash at one in the morning. When I heard the time of the crash, I instinctively asked, “Was he drinking?” The answer was yes.
Ironically, I spent the next four months battling the urge to numb the unbearable pain of grief with alcohol. Not only had our family lost this beautiful child, but I also nursed the guilt that my own example of alcoholic indulgence and carelessness had helped put Daniel on that rural road at 1 a.m.
He and his family had been experiencing hard times and his mother told me that a few months before Daniel’s death, she said to him, “What doesn’t kill you will make you stronger.” Until Daniel died, I didn’t pay much attention to the first four words of that phrase. My assumption was that hard times would always lead to strength. Now I know that those words represent a choice. The way I choose to respond to pain, grief, boredom, and frustration—will put me on a road toward life or death. And the odds are 50-50
The Essay on Family Matters Families Children Years
Family Matters The definitions of a family today and a family in the past are far from similar. The definitions may have some similarities but they have changed dramatically in many more ways. 50 years ago, families had rules that were stricter and families were closer in the sense of a relationship. Although some families today are more distant from each other and have fewer rules to maintain ...
Minute by minute, I managed to fight the urge to drink through the first few months of my grief and emerged a more compassionate, more empathetic person. Now, when someone tells me they’ve had a loss, I ask what happened. I let them tell me all about the person they loved because that’s what grieving people want to do. I listen and smile and laugh and sometimes my eyes fill with tears. And I don’t try to hide it.
Daniel’s death has also strengthened my conviction to stay sober and be a different example for the children who remain in my life. Every once in awhile, I have the good fortune to catch a glimpse of Daniel in my now 10-year-old daughter’s face and I remember, “What doesn’t kill you will make you stronger.” This I believe.
