Alcoholic @ MindSay

has drastically changed. at least, i'm crossing my fingers that it has. i'm pretty sure last night was one of those life-altering experiences. i know i sure as hell won't forget it anytime soon, if ever.

ok, so if any of you didn't know, my dad is an ass. he drinks and treats my mom like shit. he's never there for me or my sister. he's basically a piece of trash, and has been for as long as i can remember. well, a couple of months ago it got obviously worse. he kept going on about this female "pen pal" who he was always texting from work. so i got into his phone, because i know my mom had no idea how to check, and i found a lot of dirty pictures and texts. it was disgusting, and i showed my mom, and all she did was tell him he should move in with her, because he wasn't welcome here.

well, my mom pussed out, because by the time me and angie were celebrating the fact that she actually stood up to him, he had talked her out of it, saying give him a month and he'll stop drinking and hopefully we could be a better family. fat chance. he hid his drinking more for about 2 weeks, then it went up fom there until he was worse than ever. and the texting didn't stop, i know it didn't, because i'd see him sitting in his car, red faced and sweaty, texting away for half an hour at a time if not more, and when i pointed this out to my mom she said it was none of our business anyway.

and then i found some more solid proof he was playing her. on craigslist he was cruising personal ads. not the 'lets meet and be friends' kind of ads, either. there was a lot of very explicit content in those, and on the history bar online. because he's so subtle as to not think of at least clearing the history after he's setting up these internet flings. he's the least clever cheater in the history of the world, i think. borderline retarded.

and that's how it's been, texting and internet affairs, tons of porno recorded on tivo. not to mention his raging alcoholism. he has no respect for women, that's one of the things that really kill me. he only thinks women are for one thing, and that if my mom wasn't supplying that she wasn't being a wife, and his actions were justified. well, it just got a whole lot worse. he went to burning man, which is bad enough as it is. him and a bunch of high and drunk hippies, many of whom run around naked, of course he's not going to restrain his self. but this is the worst, without telling my mom, he brought a woman. a woman he slept with. a woman we knew personally, for crying out loud, i almost dated her son!!! how screwed up is that? he'd been having a thing with her for at least a few months, too. "geocaching trips" as fucking if!

i found this all out before i went to choir. on the bright side, i absolutely love singing and had a great time there. then when i got back, he's laying there on the couch. "hi sweetie." i tell him don't talk to me, in my most venemous voice. i even repeat it, for his benefit. then i go into angie's room to talk to her for a little, hoping that if i just avoid the living room i can avoid the conflict i can feel getting ready to explode into a full out fight. so i give it a little, but then eventually wander into the living room, to get online and blog and im like i need to. he started it. he talked to me when i told him not to.

and yea... i freaked out on him. i full out started yelling at him. some of what i said was get out, we don't want you, are you stupid for not seeing that we haven't wanted you around for a long time, you cheated on my mom, you are not my father, among many other lovely sentiments. every time i brought up his drinking, he brought up my mom's gambling. it's like excuse me, but we're not fucking talking about her, ok? we love her. we're now in debt because of her, but you know what, she realizes she has a problem and doesn't gamble anymore. my dad thinks his drinking is fine, and that he deserves to drink because of my mom not being a good wife. he thinks his sleeping around is justified.

but he kept blaming everything on my mom. apparently she has me "brainwashed" because i'm not smart enough to think for myself. apparently i'm only seeing one side of the story, and that i can't understand that a man has needs and that without a healthy physical relationship she's depriving him of a normal life. then it's like, get the fuck out, then. she doesn't want you, we don't want you. you're not my father.

and he left. he left last night and came back today to grab more stuff, and is staying at a friend's house. who is the best friend of the girl he slept with. ugh.

how am i supposed to react to this?

i'm glad he's gone, it felt good to get everything out. but my heart broke. this is worse than just about anything a guy has put me through, because all of a sudden i had to grow up. i knew my parents had a screwed up marriage for years, now. but somehow, it felt like maybe if i pretended enough we'd all get through it ok. forget love, they didn't even like eachother.

you know when you have a bad dream? you wake up and try to remember it, over even better, say it out loud? and it goes away, right? well part of me was hoping it'd be the same with this. i'd tell him how i felt, how screwed up he was and that none of us wanted him around. and he'd see the error of his ways and something would change in him for the better. i mean, he wasn't even drunk this time! he had had a drink, which for him counts as 2 anyways because his rum and cokes are like 3 parts rum, one part pepsi.

but he wasn't even drunk, or as drunk as usual, and he still didn't get it. he still thought he was right and my mom was wrong and those were the only two sides and we chose her because she brainwashed us and that everything was her fault. his drinking was because of her, and he deserved to sleep around and have internet and phone affairs because she wasn't being a good wife because she wouldn't sleep with him when he was drunk, although he never made that connection.

i don't believe in marriage anymore. i don't. i don't want to be in the same position as her, or if someone i end up having kids, i don't want them to have to grow up like i did and feel as bad as i do right now. at least my sister's a little to young to fully get it, a small blessing, but still.

my heart is broken in the way that matters more than anything. my belief in family is shattered. i know i'll get over it. i'm stronger than all this. but for now, i just feel lost and broken. i don't miss him, i know i won't, not for a long time because for forgiveness there has to be change.

i just have to find a way to make it past right now, my mom has me and my sister has me, and i have friends like jason and chelsea and even casey. i just feel really lost right now. relieved to have got it all out, but lost in my emotions. melodramatic, maybe, but it's how i feel.

ok. i'm done now.

Egads... I've come to discover that my stomach can't handle a day without rum anymore. I go a whole day (especially a rough, hard working sort of day) without rum and it begins to rumble accompanied by a few waves of nausea until I finally give in and pour myself a nice, tall glass.
Is this a sign of alcoholism? Mayhap, and as bad as it sounds... I'm to lazy to go digging around the information superhighway at the moment for the answers.
Maybe after a drink... HA!  Heheh, ehhh, maybe not that funny.

Today is my brother Hector's birthday, he's 48 years old and, at least for today, he is sober.  My brother is an alcoholic.  Generally, he is usually drunk rather than sober, but he has been trying harder to attend his AA meetings and there are briefs periods of time where he is the lovable, goofy brother that I remember from my childhood and not the lonely, depressed alcoholic man that I often see.  I like to imagine an alternate reality where my brother got the help he needed early on to deal with his depression (which I believe is the underlying cause for his alcoholism) and that instead of being a 48 year old man still living with our mother and unable to find a job, instead he is happily married to a wonderful woman who appreciates his sensitive artistic side and they have 2 kids and live in a cute little cottage where my brother makes a living as an artist. 

My brother had the cards stacked against him from the beginning.  I believe he had an undiagnosed reading disorder, and at the time he attended school, children just weren't given the help they needed.  They were called slow learners by the teachers, and stupid by the other kids.  The one thing that seemed to save my brother then was his out-going personality (he could make anyone laugh) and his artistic ability, so he had a lot of friends and he was generally well liked.  His teachers continued to promote him to the next grade up, so by the time he made it to high school he was functionally illiterate. 

I'm 9 years younger than my brother, I recall one day when he was around 16 and I was 7, and he just started grabbing books from a bookshelf and he handed them to me and just asked me to start reading.  I read through all of them, and I looked up at him when I was done, and though he never actually cried his eyes looked watery.  He smiled at me, and said he was very proud of me, and that he was so happy to know I was so smart and that I would never have to hear anyone tell me I was stupid.  I was too young to fully comprehend what was going on, but I just knew that I felt sad for him and that I loved him. 

One thing that made me proud of him though was his artwork.  Everyone that saw his work was in awe of his talent.  He could draw anything.  He loved drawing cars and I remember the designs he came up with seemed so futuristic and out of this world, but he was a visionary, because I see a lot of what he drew on the cars that are out today.  He also loved creating bizarre monsters and creatures.  The kind of stuff that you see on heavy metal albums and fantasy books, but his stuff was so much better.  But because of his reading problem he had little to no confidence in any of his abilities and he would always say, "I can't draw for a living, I can't even read, who would want my artwork."  He just didn't have enough faith in himself, regardless of what anyone told him. 

The real turning point in my brother's life happened on his 21st birthday.  He was going out for the night with his best friend Ray.  Ray was a great guy; handsome, sweet, a little shy and he was a good friend to my brother.  I think how the story goes, is that they were suppose to meet up with their other friends later that night, and in the meantime they decided they wanted to score some weed for the evening.  They walked around the corner to the local gang hangout (we lived in a real crappy neighborhood, but my brother and none of his friends were in any gangs) to buy some stuff.  They knew the guys in the gang well enough to stick around for a bit to bullshit and stuff, which is what they were doing when it happened.  A rival gang pulled up and did a driveby shooting.  Hector was fine.  Ray died in my brothers arms.  My brother has never recovered from that night, and I think in so many ways a big part of my brother's spirit died that day too. 

I mean he went on with life, as best he could.  He held a good job for many years, went out with his friends, enjoyed his art hobby, but he didn't date much and he often came home from work and planted himself in front of the tv and drank beer until it was time to go to sleep.  If anyone questioned him about his drinking he's always say the same thing, "As long as I can hold a job down, and can still draw, then what does it matter how much I drink."  Then one day he lost his job, it was the 80's and factory layoffs were commonplace.  His drinking increased, his depression became evident and his life just never turned around after that. 

I wish I could end this by saying things are great for him now, that he's in recovery and making progress, but I really can't give you that happy ending.  I'd love for my brother to make it to full recovery and stay sober for an extended period of time, but the odds are very much against him.  The day of his birthday is usually the hardest day for him to make it through without a drink, I can't recall a birthday were he wasn't drunk.  I'm not a praying type of person, but today I am praying, hoping, thinking, wanting that my brother will make it through the day without that drink.  Happy Birthday Hector, I love you.

I did not drink alcohol for about 10+ years of my "adult" life, from 21ish to 33ish... I did smoke a little, and the occasional (or when on Dead tour, very frequent) trip but aside from the one or two time a year blow out, no alcohol.

Things happened. My marriage (which was already unstable) began to unravel as I was forced to see what an abusive prick I was with, I hid under a wine bottle to soothe my fears and help me slow down to sleep each night... Weed didn't slow me down in the right way, it accentuated my pain and other emotions, alcohol dulled them.

The worse things got, as we moved in to Debbie's house (see old entries, the fat toothless whore he was fucking) I switched up to whiskey.

I went from 115 pounds (which was too skinny, I had dropped to that from 150 in a period of extreme nuttiness) to 165. I moved out here. I kept drinking. Not daily, but very regularly. I am now at 180.

Because my mind has been dulled, I have noticed some things but not others, not put them together until last night (OK, I'm slow...).. Since I've been drinking, even when it has been just one or two days a week, I've stopped writing regularly. I've stopped painting. I've stopped drawing. I've stopped doing much of anything.

My metabolism has slowed down even further with my lack of movement and my apathy. I have gotten fat, mentally slow, I have lost my creative edge. I have lost my wit. I have become a lump of flesh moving from day to day in a resigned survival mode.

I have the most wonderful boyfriend I could have ever imagined. He happened to me, it was an accident. I've spent the last year plus pretty much trying to figure out what his angle was and why he was with me instead of fully letting his inspiration delight me and make me whole. He's still here, and I don't know why. But I have to stop questioning.

I can't drink anymore. Even the one beer, I can't do it because it will turn into two, three, four.... and the next night and the next, and the time I am inebriated is not the only part of the time I lose... I lose the day afterwards to duller senses. I lose the evening afterwards to slower movement... I get depressed because I'm dull and slow, and then get duller and slower. It is a lose/lose proposition.

I didn't drink for years and I was happy. Not all the time, I still had massive depressive periods - but at least when I was depressed THEN, I created. At least I had the brightness of mind to enjoy the melancholy to some degree.

To lose weight, to regain my mind, to get back to the little matter of Living, I have to remove myself from the sense dulling things. There is more to me than this, than any of this that I have let live. I either must open up to rebirthing my self into the light, or check the fuck out and call it quits... This living in between, in the twilight world between waking and sleeping, is killing me and has made me so hazy and confused. I think I know why now.. I hope I know why...

And I want to have the intelligence left to change while change can bring me Life rather than mere survival.

it makes more sense if i wrote this in vernacular...

WALA na yata akong ibang natutunan sa trabaho kundi ang uminom, magmura nang malutong, at sumakay sa mga berdeng biro.  hindi na bago ang mabilis na pagsasalita ng ingles, dala ko na iyon noon pa.  pero ang pag-inom, nako hinde.  tila tuwing makalawang miyerkules ay umiinom kame.  kahapon lang yata ako nalasing talaga.  nung una, andami ko talagang nainom pero kahapon, hindi ganun karami pero ang dali knog tinamaan.  siguro ang kaya kong inumin ay kalahati lang ng iniinom ng mga pinakatomador sa amin, pero in fairness, kahit baguhan pa lang ako sa larangan, isa ako sa mga babaeng matagal bago tumanggi sa tagay.  sabi nga ni lalen, malaki na utak malaki pa ang kaha ko.  kahapon yung pinakamatindi kase masuka-suka na ko.  pero kahit pano, marunong naman ako kung kelan titigil sa pag-inom.  pag tinamaan na ng matinding antok, tama na.  pag nasusuka na, awat na.  sayang naman kase kung ilalabas ko yung ininom ko. hah.

siguro sa susunod na linggo may inuman na naman, kase aalis na yung boss ko.  lilipat ng ibang pagpuputahan.  kaya ayun.  baka may inuman na naman.  sa totoo lang, mukha naman din kaseng hayok sa inom yun eh.  pero mas hayok sa inom ang mga kaibigan kong lalake. haha. at sa kanila ako natuto.