Drunk-shaming is not my goal, because the underlying issue that creates the real disconnect isn't alcohol... but rather blinding denial that disengages logic. Denial justifies, and the pattern of over-drinking continues, motivated by a deep-seated and stuffed fear or worry, on steroids. For example, a shameful secret or deep insecurities. It is the reason why a PG-17 rating is given to this blog (meaning those who wish to stay in denial mode but read on might learn more than preferred about the topic).
Drinking one beer with dinner or pizza is a different matter. Instead, it is the teens, the 20-somethings, the frustrated bored, the distinguished but stressed professionals. The ones who drink with the deliberate intent to get buzzed, and go beyond. To the point of blackout. Where they are set free to let their inhibitions run wild... and not remember (and legitimately deny because from their perspective, experience, and reality nothing happened). Like pleasant sedation into a pain-free world during a wisdom tooth extraction. Or, like the unsophisticated drinking episodes that some children witness in their households: Hostile take-overs or alien possessions.
Over-drinkers don't remember the pent-up anger, insecurities, or sexual inhibitions unleashed during their stumbling stupors or inebriated tirades, at times on innocent sober victims. Victims who will never forget. The phrase, "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" is inaccurate: The ugly that happens while black-out drunk did happen, and is often glossed over with habitual trumpery.
1960's sweet and pudgy Town Drunk Otis knew his weakness and where he belonged... he locked himself up when he was soused, and most in Andy's Mayberry knew it. And too, Genesis 9 Noah wasn't disturbing others inebriated (DOI) or harassing his family. Noah was where he belonged... after over-sampling his vineyard, he slept in his own tent. Sadly, Son Ham turned the incident into an inappropriate show-and-tell.
Prudent discretion is a protective aspect of relationship, family life, and togetherness. Denial to preserve the family bond is legitimate. But when blinding alcoholism is involved, denial for the sake of the drinker's reputation avoids more than just the truth; it denies emotions of family members (the innocent victims) that get stuffed and do not vanish. If there is no closure within the family unit itself, genuineness and connection evaporate.
Events that happened decades ago should no longer matter, right? Unfortunately, much like after intense military service, delayed irrational responses to stimuli, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, as well as trust issues, can set in. Even the Bible in Leviticus 26:36 appears to acknowledge PTSD: "...You will live in such fear that the sound of a leaf driven by the wind will send you fleeing."
My parents have both passed, so now denial for their sake is toxic. It opposes being genuine, whole, and "knowing thyself." It also denies a key decade during which my identity should have formed. This adult-child-of-an-alcoholic knows dysfunction, and I have seen why people can and do cover-up. Many nights as a child our entire household was disrupted when Distinguished Jekyll transformed to Angry Hyde; feeling afraid and unsafe, because protection and any form of nurture evaporated. Our pseudo 1960's "Father Knows Best" household was turned inside out. During those uncertain middle-of-the night hours, my parents displayed just how polarized they were.
The world felt eerily unpredictable. The sober ones fully experienced it, meaning Mom and her six young children. But stubbornly self-reliant Mom was distracted, with a capital D (babies and basic necessities like laundry, dealing with cloth diapers, cooking, and errands kept her overwhelmed--to survive, cleaning ranked at the very bottom of the to-do list, as an optional). Two prime reasons why the enormous pink elephant (or deeply unsettling situation) in the room was overlooked, for over a decade: 1) To protect Dad's all-consuming and distinguished career; and, 2) something I have grasped in the last few years, Mom's fierce need for independence from her Mother. Dad's career is a logical argument, because he was the responsible sole breadwinner for a family of eight; and, he had no father-figure for back-up financial help or strength. In other words, the world felt eerily unpredictable for Dad, as well.
In hindsight, I am realizing the question now more painful than ever to face is why no related close mother-figure was permitted to step in from time-to-time to help fill the nurture-void, not even during mom's 1962 gallbladder surgery (in "olden" days, a four-week recovery time was the norm). Instead, a nearby oober mom, whose children were friends with my older two siblings, took the older three (or maybe four) of us six orphans in, during the daytime, for a day or two. I was the annoying younger "third-wheel" or tag-along. The foreign home had a dark and narrow "Harry Potter" staircase that led to the second floor and its amazing laundry chute, for sliding clothes and towels from the second floor way down to the basement's laundry area. Too many towels, and possibly toilet paper balls, were pushed down that chute by an exploring first-grader.
The indelibly stored-in-the-brain's-hippocampus (memory-banks) decade-of-chaos happened. I cannot remember any of the specific dates, but some of the more intense incidents and feelings will never vanish. Middle-of-the-night eruptions, that sometimes lasted on-and-off for hours, really did occur in our home. As a young observer with no control over the situation, it was rattling. The most difficult factor was the sporadic unpredictability of it all. Will inebriated Dad wake up, again? Will Mom be here in the morning, or forced to leave? And, there was no discussion after the incidents. Six of the direct witnesses or victims still survive, with unsung memories, and our perspectives are each unique.
In late 1972-73, after a decade of Mom stubbornly believing she could successfully tame Jekyll/Hyde, my parents (within a year of each other) finally turned to Jesus to save their marriage. Alcoholic dysfunction and their strained marital history became water under the bridge. No need to disrupt the cart or expose "Noah's" past. With no cues needed whatsoever, aged 13 to 23, we all knew our roles. After viewing a Baptist horror film that literally scared the "hell" out of me, naturally at age 17 I accepted Jesus. I wanted no part of being left behind or going to a place like hell. During that same time frame, the other siblings found Jesus in ways that I still long to learn.
Our newly-saved family seamlessly pivoted from alcoholic dysfunction to sober dysfunction. Studies indicate that an ingredient in many long-term healthy marriages is light-hearted teasing... to laugh at our own and each other's idiosyncrasies. We all have them! With my parents, hurt feelings could occur at any moment, for the littlest and most unpredictable reasons.
In other words, our parents' marital dance was awkward, like 24/7 walking on eggshells. Even 45 years ago, there was no doubt who the tempered denial activist would be... the middle child. In 1973, during the last, more lengthy, and greater distance apart of their three separations, I was the senior-high middle-sib who begged for asylum, and lived 5 months with a discrete bestie. Hers was the "real McCoy" family that modeled what stable could be.
Living with my bestie was during the same time-frame of the invitation from another high school acquaintance to view A Thief in the Night... the horror film mentioned above (in hindsight, secretly set up by Mom during my parent's long-distance separation). I confess, overwhelming fear was the selfish motivation for accepting Jesus into my life. Fear issues overpowered carefree rebellion and blatant sin during vulnerable teen years. Asking genuine forgiveness for sin was delayed, for about 25 years! It was actually during insecure mid-life that I faced, head-on, issues that were blocked from view because of fear. With blinded eyes finally opening, I fell to my knees and faced elusive denial, over and over and over again.
The seriousness of that decade and its lasting affects were denied, in subtle ways, with no organized meeting whatsoever for direct closure. It was treated like the chaos... Never.Ever.Occurred. Mom individually offered a typical ACOA book to us, but I brushed my copy off as unnecessary (plain and simple denial); otherwise, in Dad's mind traumatic incidents never did occur. He was numbed or soused during the most intense moments. Since compact recording devices were few in the mid-1960s, and cell phones to record videos were as imaginary as a Dick Tracey Facetime-like watch; in Dad's judicious mind, and others who deny, the horrible aspects of inebriated activities like door banging, sexual tensions, and chaos were over-exaggerated.
When a tree falls in the forest, and its landing is not heard, did the tree really make a sound? and did the ground really shake? To prove that the ground really did shake, I had the middle-school inspiration to secretly record from my upstairs bedroom, using a tech-y jam-box (a gift from my parents, that Mom maybe hoped I would use for that purpose... but never verbalized?) onto cassette the sounds that sporadically filled our night-time home. If Dad could be convinced to listen to the playback, he would understand and stop drinking. Brilliant! The next day's playback was muffled and faint, but still haunting. It scared the pubescent zits out of me. My fingers quickly fumbled to erase the evidence, as well as any potential visits into my bedroom from imagined boogeymen.
In our childhood home, "Noah" did not hide in his tent. Like a freight train plowing through in the middle of the night, we were emotionally lacerated, especially the younger three. Dysfunction and denial, plus a lack of timely nurturing, created lasting emotional weaknesses. I hear cries from my parents' graves: "We were caring parents with good intentions, and we did so many things right. But now we finally get it. Denial is the worst thing ever!"
Being quietly tucked or situated in the birth order's invisible middle (like an undercover mole), I was at the vulnerable point of impact, old enough to remember yet young enough to not understand. Located right where a whole egg normally hits the bowl's cracking rim. The place where fissure occurs, denial is unjustifiable, and impact goes beyond repair. Sometimes yesterday's lunch is a forgotten memory, but impacting events from childhood are forever stuck in my mind. Those who might have helped soften the blow, Mom and two older siblings, were distracted. Being "untrained," and the Least.Likely.Nurturer.Ever, I regret not being there emotionally for the younger siblings; but the thought never occurred to me.
It was like the memory of Mom too quickly vanished off the face of the planet, because Widower Dad was a fine catch and soon entered the dating world. Within 15 months he re-married, reluctantly squeezing Mom out of his essence to accommodate for a blended scenario (which, for older children, isn't easy-peesy-Brady-Bunch-ever-after). Any hope for delayed closure was lost with Mom's tragic and premature death. Life is stuck or stunted in reverberating ways.
Like a fractured wrist that heals a bit off, off enough to negatively impact handling overhand turns and overhead lifts, maneuvering in this world is not the same. Items can be dangerously dropped, and some movements create joint pain. And, too, for the innocent victims of a person's "harmless" drunken spree (or sprees), and for those who should be kindred but for one viable reason or another are not because of seductively distinguished and "saintly" denial, maneuvering in this unpredictable world is a bit off... with issues that create pain. Specifically, communication and trust/advocate issues that, to be frank, probably would have developed even if raised in the most perfect of homes (a revelation, post-mid-life. Many of my disassociated thoughts have already been shared in a plethora of blogs).
After writing through the wilderness, taking the longest route ever, and circling Jericho seven times, I am the one surrendering. Studying a stomach's navel is senseless, and totally figuring out our complicated past is, as well. I first-hand get how denial works and feel empathy for Blasey-Ford. I believe the incident happened the way she shared it, because I first-hand witnessed my father's black-outs, as well as the how and why of follow-up denial. Black-out allows a normally responsible and intelligent person to perform uncharacteristic acts; acts they are rarely required to own up to.
Hope for closure led Ford to bravely "come-out" in front of the world; to knowingly face ridicule and threats. For the sake of others, she decided it was worth the risk... no pain, no gain. Like a physical wound, emotional memories rarely magically disappear without proper closure, and so she tried. Ford is one of the braver people I know; because like Clinton's Lewinsky and Thomas' Hill, Ford now day-to-day faces a scary world that knows the deep and dark Kavanaugh part of her.
Ford is prettier than presented at the hearings. Maybe downplaying her appearance is a strategic form of protection? Her essence, and even those large, over-sized spectacles re-kindle memories of treasures lost as a result of family dysfunction and denial: Face-to-face interactions with my long-lost and still estranged younger sister. And also a younger brother.
... You see, we don't know how to interact, and we're afraid.
A 45-year relationship with Jesus Christ in e-ssence is now based more on love and trust rather than fear and rules. He gives reasons each day to trust and love larger. That safe relationship is why I live, learn, and continue to naively yearn for the remote possibility of connecting with all five siblings.
A middle-schooler's innocent hope 50 years ago was for that simple cassette recording of night-time happenings to heal Dad's addiction. The supernatural provided for Dad's physical sobriety, and we have come full-circle. Heritage bravery is needed, and the supernatural is again implored. We are no longer spring chickens. Time is tick - tick - ticking for follow-through closure... six siblings need to connect. Like Dad, we have honed the art of denial and still champion it. For reasons too complicated to explain, connection frightens the zits out of a few of us.
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| Sisters are different flowers grown in the same garden |
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