It seems like the words just flow sometimes, other times I can't spit out a two word sentence. When you're a wind bag like me you can't let that stuff get bottled up. It's like that old joke about the monkey, the pig and the cork. It can get very messy inside and out if I keep the cork in too long.
I used to let life get bottled up inside me until I unplugged the bottle and sought liquid or chemical relief from my worries, fears and emotions I couldn't process. Booze was like letting the air out of the tire that was me. The more I drank the less pressure I felt until I felt nothing at all, was left flat and was of no use to anyone. I've always felt that God put nerve endings on the outside of me and that left an empty spot inside. I feel everything to the nth degree. Emotion is palpable to me whether their yours or mine.
When you get sober, you are faced with feelings and situations that the normal thinking mind takes for granted in its dealings. My addicted mind is baffled and amazed sometimes at new feelings I have never bared to face. Sometimes it's euphoric like that of a baby's first taste of ice cream. At other times it seems like a portal from my past is thrown open to a memory and feeling so oppressive I am paralyzed like that same child's first experience that leaves them frozen in their booties.
I now face what I spent years so desperately trying to escape from. I am grateful that my kids came out bright, polite and out of sight. I owe most of that to my wife. When they remind me of some logical piece of advice I gave them while they were growing up, I attribute it to God. I was always great at giving advice. If I listened to any of it that I dished out, I wouldn't be writing an addiction recovery book today. That is until lately.
My eldest daughter Hemi is in from Germany. She is madly in love with her husband. They truly are best friends. The culture shock of living in another country is far beyond what she imagined it would be. If you read my earlier chapters I drove her away at age 18 when I had stopped drinking and took up the pot cure for alcoholism. Being natural, endorsed by Native Americans and being part Cherokee myself this made perfect sense at the time.
Now we are in a good spot. Then, although I was not drinking, I just switched from booze to drugs to "prove" to myself I wasn't an alcoholic. I wasn't treating the source of my addiction. That problem was my inability to deal with life logically, "on life's terms" only emotionally. I was a dry drunk by recovery terms.
We are great friends now. We are daddy and daughter in the true sense of the definition and I admire her greatly. I see a lot of me in her. The artist, the adventurer, the in your face, ready to grab life by the short hair mentality that I instilled in her as a teenager is vibrant today. When it comes to advice on her situation with marriage and what to do about the whole thing, I tell her to talk to her husband and the father...leave daddy out of it. It's not because I don't care. It's because I don't know. I am mature enough to say I don't know now.
For years I felt the need to be right or have an answer or opinion on every subject. I felt compelled to take a side in all arguments even before I had all the facts. It was a part of my insecurity with myself. I didn't want to appear dumb. I also thought I knew what was right for everybody in the universe. I am comfortable with the words, "I don't know" spilling from my lips now. I am at ease with keeping my pie hole shut also. I will always support my children and will go to the ends of the earth to help them when they sincerely call for it. I will not call the plays and control their situations. I created a lot of resentment and made some wrong calls doing that for Hemi and lost her for a while. I will not do it again.
I did tell her that marriage is tough no matter where you're at. The first year can be the worst. There is no such thing as 50-50. One person is always giving in more or taking more. Balance is the key. The question I ask myself with Squeaky is "How important is it to me to fight this battle right now?" Do I want to ruin my day or hers? Is it that I truly disagree or just wish to disagree? Is it better to endure a little discomfort to make her happy, or give both of us a lot of discomfort by going against the grain? Things work out one way or the other.
Sunny is still out there doing things I did for all those years. It kills me. The drugs of choice today for young adults are legal and can be bought at age 18 from many cigarette or cigar stores. She thinks the world is against her, that no one knows pain like hers and she is running with some troubled people. At 18 there is little I can do. She lives with her donor father. That leaves me even more powerless. He seems to be oblivious. We pray, we call, we love. She makes up stories ad infinitum. I wonder if this is the come around from my go around.
You may think me cold for letting her go right now, like we do not care. It is quite the opposite my friend. I let her go because I do. I can no longer enable her to control my life and that of the rest of this family. She needs to hit her bottom. Then I will be there like the calvary, with arms wide open. Until then I pray and trust that God is looking after her. She is an adult. It was not until I lost everything that I reached my hand out for another to help me. It was not until I begged God for mercy, instead of a favor, that I found freedom from addiction.
I am at the point where I am stuck between a giggle and a sob. There is so much going on in that three and a half inches behind my eyes and my mouth. I am glad that I have a God who hears my prayers and angels earthly and ethereal who guide me and look out for her. I am grateful to feel everything even though at times I think I might explode. That empty spot is filled with love and faith, hope and growth, laughing and crying. I lost so many years to addiction and depression. My darkest day of sobriety is better than my sunniest day drunk. When Sunny comes back I'll be there to listen.
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