Birthday

When I turned fifteen I had a small party. Veteran’s Day is after my birthday so we always had the day off from school. They used to have teen nights at an old club called Tuxedo Junction right off of Main Street. So a bunch of friends and I decided that was how we were going to celebrate my birthday.

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Leave Him

I remember the day I told my mom to leave my dad like it was yesterday. I remember what restaurant we were at, I remember the weather, and exactly where we sat. Which is funny because many things for me fade together sometimes. It’s not always easy to remember when each relapse was especially since there were so many over the years, and again they started when I was thirteen going on fourteen. Barely a teen, so when you have 11 years worth of slips, relapses, rehab stints, etc its hard to not blend them together or lose when what happened. 

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Coming Home

Before my parents separated, my Mom decided to go back to school. She wanted a career, and I think she knew she was going to eventually leave my Dad. She was also at the time very involved with being on town committees and political parties. I still wasn’t old enough to drive, and Dad was 80% of the time drunk. 

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Telling His Story

Sometimes writing about my dad makes me feel like I am betraying him. He never wanted people to know his story, so why do I have the right to share it? He was astonishingly good at hiding his “inner demons” from others. Of course he was. Why would you want people to see your flaws? None of us want that, but we all have our flaws. His story is my story, and as much as he needed to hide it, I need to shout it out loud. His story intertwined with mine the day my parents brought me into this world. 

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Scare Tactics

When I first started to experiment with smoking and drinking, my dad had brought me to a place he had once gone to for rehab. It was maybe an hour or so away from where we lived at the time. It wasn’t your classic rehab either; it kind of had a hippy vibe. He decided it was something that I should see. He wanted me to sit and listen to these people I’ve never met before and hear their stories. It wasn’t an AA meeting; it was more than that but very similar. 

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Do’s and Don’ts After Rehab

My dad always had his relapses. We always tried to get him into rehab centers, but most rehab centers won’t take you if your blood alcohol level is too high. They send you to detox, which will most likely be your local hospital or a hospital nearby, or a holding cell in a police station. So my dad would detox, come out sober and say he didn’t need to go into treatment. He had gone to rehabs, but it was mostly detox vs. rehab. Or it took calling the police when it got so bad to take him to detox because he wouldn’t go on his own. He would attend AA every now and again, but he just couldn’t find one that he “liked.” 

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All opinions and conclusions are my own. I am not a medical professional and I am not able to provide you with personalized medical recommendations. If you need help, there are many sources of information and places to get help.