We weren’t able to move back to my hometown, but Thomas’s company agreed to move us back to the Carolinas. We ended up living about 3 hours away from my parents, which actually wasn’t too bad. It was an easy car ride, and it was even possible to make a daytrip out of it if necessary. Luckily, I didn’t ever have much time or motivation to make that drive, because if I had, there’s a good chance I would have been drunk while doing it. But I still felt better being close to family if I ever needed help. Again, completely ironic considering how I felt about them growing up, but life is funny like that. We were also living about 20-30 minutes from Thomas’s family. I’m not sure if that was a good or a bad thing. I guess it depends on who you ask. They were not exactly helpful when it came to watching TJ. They are very nice people, and I love them now that I’m sober and thinking clearly. But at the time, my relationship with them was kind of strained.
I often wonder what things might have been like if I hadn’t started down the path I was on. After the move, I was honestly kind of happy. Or at least I should have been. I liked where we were living. I found a pretty good job. I felt like I was kind of getting the hang of being a mom. But at this point I was very much physically dependent on alcohol in addition to the mental component. I woke up every morning with the shakes. I would usually go downstairs to the closet where I kept my coats and purses and immediately take a few swigs of whatever it was that I had stashed away in my purse. Sometimes I would drink everything I had the night before, and drunk me didn’t realize how bad of an idea that was. That meant I had to somehow get TJ up and dressed and in the car to go buy more alcohol to get rid of the shakes and terrible hangover. There were plenty of times I had to pull to the side of the road to throw up. I’d pull myself back into the car and look in the rear view mirror and think to myself, “I can’t keep doing this. What am I doing?” Then I’d just keep on drinking.
I need to insert a side note about drinking and driving here. I cringe thinking about all the times I got behind the wheel. I usually had an open container in the center console or my purse and would regularly drink while driving. In my head, it wasn’t “drinking and driving.” It was just driving. And I just happened to always consume alcohol. But it honestly was just a normal thing for me. And that is so SO wrong. I know. The fact that I didn’t kill myself or someone else is only by the grace of God. It was beyond luck. Without God, my luck would have run out and it would have been inevitable that I hurt someone. God, for reasons I will never understand, spared me and everyone else on the road while I was driving. I can only think that it just wasn’t in God’s plan for me to die or kill someone else. I would face a different rock bottom, but that would not be it.
It literally brings tears to my eyes every time I think about the fact that my poor son had no choice but to ride around in the back seat with me, completely unaware of the constant danger he was in. He deserved so much better than that. And one day, I will have to tell him. That’s something I have to live with forever. The only thing that brings me peace is that I know I will never, ever put him in that danger again.
But I want everyone to know how sorry I am. So many people get killed by drunk drivers, and it is a completely avoidable act. It’s selfish. It’s beyond stupid. There is never an excuse. Never. It’s never worth the risk. And as you’ll find out soon enough, my brother would soon learn this lesson the hard way. Much more on that later.
Anyways, back to the story. Life went on, and I just kept riding the waves of alcoholism, still unaware of the fact that I was actually an alcoholic. I think it’s important for me to explain what was going on in my head at this time, because if you’re not an alcoholic, it’s probably hard to understand. Heck, if you are an alcoholic, it’s probably hard to understand. I think alcoholism is a very confusing disease, and none of it makes sense, even to me sometimes. But let me try to explain. Around this time, I would drink the equivalent of 2-3 bottles of wine a day, sometimes more. I am a small person. I’m a little over 5 feet tall and at that time had a weight in the double digits. Two or three bottles of wine in a 24 hour period would be enough to put 2 or 3 of me to bed, but my tolerance was of course very high. If you looked at me, I don’t think the average person would have suspected anything. I functioned pretty well. I carried on conversations (although forgot them later). I took care of a 1 year old. I had a good job. I was married to a good man. We were upper-middle class and lived in a nice 2400 square foot house. We both had nice cars. We went to church. I wore J. Crew clothes and had a Louis Vuitton purse and was your typical Southern Belle. Think the cast of Southern Charm, minus the fame and drama. In my mind, I didn’t fit the “mold” of an alcoholic. In fact, I kind of thought I was too good to be an alcoholic. That’s terrible to say, I know. But I had always assumed alcoholics were men who had lost half their teeth and were homeless. I wasn’t homeless. I had all of my teeth. No, there was no way I was an alcoholic.
So what was I thinking, then, you might ask? How can you drink that much on a daily basis and NOT think you’re an alcoholic? Well, as I heard so many times in AA, alcohol is a disease that tells you that you don’t have a disease. Your brain literally tricks you into thinking you’re fine. Was I drinking more than I should? Yeah, maybe. But I had an excuse list a mile long. “TJ wouldn’t stop crying all day. Thomas was being mean. It’s so nice outside. I need a glass of wine (or 4) with my steak. I just need to relax. I can’t sleep. Everyone in the mom’s group talks about drinking at 9am, so I’m not the only one (I didn’t understand that they were joking…). It’s the weekend. It’s Monday. It’s Thursday.”
Most days, I would wake up telling myself that I wasn’t going to drink that day. The problem was that I needed to drink at least a little bit to keep the shakes off. And as every alcoholic knows, that first sip is what does you in. Once you start, you just can’t stop. So I couldn’t just drink a little and then stop the rest of the day. It is nearly impossible for the alcoholic. And before I’d know it, I was on my 3rd bottle of wine and had forgotten all about the fact that I wasn’t going to drink that day.
Getting help was also never really something I thought about. I know that probably sounds strange. But again, I just didn’t fit the mold of someone who went to rehab. Plus, it was probably way too expensive. And I could never let TJ for that long. And what would I tell work? And there’s NO WAY I could tell Thomas. No, Thomas could NEVER know. So in my head, I wasn’t an alcoholic, I just needed to cut back on my drinking. I’d stop drinking, and no one would ever know, and we’d all live happily ever after.
I kept living in this delusion for a couple months. Christmas came, and I found out I was pregnant. No, we weren’t trying. But this was exactly what I needed to stop drinking, I thought. I just needed a reason to stop, and this was it. I hadn’t been expecting to have another kid so soon, but once I found out, I couldn’t wait! TJ was going to be a big brother! I went to the doctor, and since I didn’t know exactly what the timing was, they did some blood work to see how far along I probably was. The problem was that the hormone levels weren’t normal. After going back a few days later, they told me the hormone levels were still really low and something was wrong. I had an ultrasound, and there was no baby to be found. They told me it was a chemical pregnancy and that I needed to get an injection to make sure nothing was developing ectopically. I was devastated. Well, under normal circumstances I would have been devastated. But instead I just kept drinking and moved on. In hindsight, I’m so thankful that the pregnancy wasn’t viable, because that baby never would have stood a chance. I’m not sure any of us would have survived a second pregnancy.
But unfortunately, I no longer had a reason to stop drinking. In fact, I drank even more. Then one day, I went to the store to buy some wine for a dinner party we were planning that weekend. I parked in front of our house on the curb, which was where I normally parked, and started unloading everything from my car. I was rushing and accidentally dropped at least one wine bottle, possibly two. To this day, I still don’t remember the details. The bottle(s) shattered there on the curb. I didn’t think much of it (besides being mad that I wasted all of that perfectly good wine), cleaned up the big pieces of glass, and went about my day. Thomas later got home from work, and we both went outside to get the mail and enjoy the nice weather for a few minutes. He noticed the glass on the curb and asked me what happened. I never would have expected it, but that would be the beginning of the end. I had ignored the hurricane warnings. The hurricane was here.
Next stop – rock bottom.
To God be ALL the Glory!
Love, Grace
