Coming Face to Face With Me

I'm no stranger to a good time. I'm no stranger to a nice glass of Pino Gris or a cocktail. Hell, I was a lawyer, drinking was practically an occupational requirement. So when my son got old enough, it didn't surprise me that he liked to party. What did surprise me is that he's an alcoholic. What surprised me, even more, is so am I.

My son, we'll call him J, moved in with me a few months ago after having hit a rough patch in his life. He'd been doing well before that, or so I thought. I hadn't seen him in 7 years. He had been living on the east coast and I am in the middle of the country.

The first few weeks were great. We'd have a few beers, laugh, play board games and act silly. We had an awesome time. Until we didn't. I noticed something in his drinking. The party didn't stop with him. Way after I was done, he was still going, to the point of being sloppy. When the beer was gone at home, he'd go out, waste money and bring home all sorts of strange people. He was loud, obnoxious and belligerent. Not once or twice, every time he got paid.

I was done. I'm too old to live in a frat house. I gave him an ultimatum, get rid of the drink or get gone. He agreed to try. I, on the other hand, continued to enjoy a couple of cocktails or glasses of wine each day. After all, I'd been doing it for well over 20 years without issue.

I don't get sloppy. I don't even get drunk. I can function day to day. I work and do all the things I need to do. I'm not like him, therefore, I can still drink. That's what I told myself.

Soon, my booze started to go missing. The wine I thought I had left disappeared. It seemed that the 2 beer I had the night before turned into 4 without me noticing. I confronted the likely culprit. He admitted his misdeeds, but then HE confronted ME. Imagine the nerve, he, an admitted alcoholic, confronting me! I was pissed! And not the fun kind; I was pissed off!

He told me that while he was more self-destructive in his drinking behaviour, he was concerned with the fact that I drank every day or nearly every day. He challenged me to join him on his alcohol-free journey, reminding me that it wasn't fair to have booze in the house when he was trying not to drink.

I didn't like it. Not one bit, but I agreed. For him. I didn't admit it to him, but I had been concerned about my drinking for quite some time anyway. I knew I'd been using it as a crutch and as a way to cover up past trauma and the PTSD that came with it.

It's been about a month since he and I had that chat and we both swore off the bottle. I've had to accept the fact that I'm as much of an alcoholic as he is even though our methodology differs.

I've had to accept that I'm not as together and as fearless as I thought I was. I've had to accept that I'm not over being stalked and terrorized. I've had to accept that all those times I felt stressed and "needed a drink", I was covering up what was really going on. I've had to accept that I need help with all of it.

And I've had to accept that in forcing him into facing his problem, he forced me to face myself.