The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
to exchange
information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
level.
When I was 10 years old, my parents were in the final stages of divorce although I probably wasn't aware of it. My mom had been going to Alanon for some time, and I only had a vague idea what it was for. Because she was good at keeping up a pretense of normalcy, I suppose my brother (then 7) and I knew less than we could have or should have. By this point my dad was not earning enough money to even pay for his own gin, and not even useful as a babysitter - that is when my mom decided that we'd be better off without him.
Right smack in the middle of this, dad came down with a ruptured appendix. He had emergency surgery, and spent some time in the hospital - I think it was at least two weeks. Some time in there, he was visited by an attorney friend, who happened to also be an AA member. After he got out of the hospital, he went to a few meetings but it was pretty obvious to all of us - even me - that he was still drinking, from his always nearby pint of gin.
One day after school, mom picked us up and we went on a two week adventure that to this day we refer to as the Great Bug Out. We hopped from various friends and relatives houses for a night or two, sometimes on the other side of town - each day being dropped off at school and picked up after school to be driven somewhere else, instructed NOT to go home. This I later learned was when my dad had finally been court ordered to move out... and had refused. I had never been "on the road" for any length of time before, the house we lived in was the only home I ever knew. This adventure was entertaining in its own way, but there was an element of uncertainty if we'd ever go back home.
In the middle of the Great Bug Out a major event occurred in the national news, which caused the schools to be closed for a whole week at spring break. We bugged out of town to our grandparents for another fun adventure and all of Easter week. We eventually returned home and my dad ended up spending the weekend in jail. I remember him coming by after that, wearing a suit -- and sober. He was in a very good mood... as if he had found something to give him hope. He had found a place to live and came by to get his stuff. This is one of my few memories of him sober and the person he really was.
Unfortunately, it was not to be. With very little sobriety, he expected his world to come back to him and things would return to normal as he knew it. When that didn't happen - the divorce proceeded forward, he pretty much gave up. He died 4 and a half years later.
I recently talked to my mom to see what details she remembered of this life-changing event... the Great Bug Out is one of those things that I've always defined my life by - Before the Bug Out, After the Bug Out... two different worlds.
The national news event that happened in the middle of the Great Bug Out was the assassination of Martin Luther King. The Bug Out, while some details are vague, always seemed like just a little while ago in my memory. Some time around next Easter, it will have been forty years. Yeah, time does heal a lot, if you let it work, and keep moving forward.
One of the things that's common in alcholic family dysfunction is that 1) each family member will see 1 event in completely different ways; the same one event will be remembered by different details, with a different chain of events, and different colorings; 2) the family member central to the event my not remember anything at all because of an alcholic black out, mental illness, or may be in complete denial and be refusing to own their role in this event.
As a result of learning these things, I work very very hard today to own my memories and validate myself in my memories. It is important to me to remember that I do not need to seek your approval for my memories. For example, my mother's mental illness has made it so that she genuinely does not remember many of the traumatic events that transpired in our home; it is only because her meds are balenced NOW that she has a functioning memory PERIOD. Additionally, my father's memory is completly blotto because many many many times in his rages he was in complete black out. He has absolutely NO memory of his violence, his insanity or his cruelty. Therefore, the two people who could most diligently help affirm me cannot because they are psychologically ill.
I encourage you to begin the process of making peace with your memories. They are valid and they are yours. They are trustworthy, too.
Thanks for the reply. Yes, it was harder to leave a spouse with kids back then. Looking back, I see that my mom was well prepared. She changed careers 5 years earlier, away from the home-based business that was somewhat dependent on my dad. The house was in her name - actually my grandfathers name - because when she bought it, the mortgage loan companies would not put a house in a woman's name and said as much. So in hindsight, we were never in any danger of losing the house because mom was already picking up the tab for the whole thing.
In my house growing up, mom was the reliable one - the rational one, the responsible one. She took care of everything so we were never without what we needed, and even gave us a lot of good times... even foot the bill for some good times with dad. In that trade off, she wasn't available as much in a traditional mother sense, but that's something else I've become aware of - and how it has impacted my "mother needs" in other relationships.
Thanks for your reply. As you can probably tell, I do have strong memories of my childhood, and as a family we talk about them a lot which keeps them fresh. The common thread up both sides of the family tree are strong and detailed memories, and the gift (or curse!) of storytelling.
That's one reason I've embarked on several different quests to piece the past together, just to set down a chronology of events. I do frequently remember things out of sequence, or perhaps connect events that weren't. I'm something of a family archaeologist in that regard. Mom will answer specific questions to the best of her recollection, but the information doesn't always flow. That has changed though, as she has gotten older she is more willing to talk about some of these things.
It just dawned on me last night that there was a "bug out" in my life much more recently. It was when I helped move my daughter and granddaughter across the country in a bug out of their own. My granddaughter is in 7th grade, and in just a few weeks she'll be attending her 8th different school, and this doesn't count the moves before she was of school age. She takes it all in stride, but through it all her mother has been there for her, and I have always been there and kept in touch and visited no matter where they were. There hasn't been any active alcoholism in her household for more than half her life, but the job situation these days for a young couple just seems to mandate the frequent moves. I have always felt very fortunate that I never had to live like that, as an adult or child - but for those who grew up that way, they don't know anything else. They keep it up, and pass it on. That's neither good nor bad, it's just different. I wish things would stabilize, and they could stay put for a while but they have the wanderlust, and they would probably become unhappy if they didn't keep moving. It will keep this grandpa hopping for years to come that's for sure!
