The Event: Getting Sober
It’s announced like an open house, an engagement, or a new
job. Announced as a self-published press release. The Ex is Trying to Get Sober.
This is celebrated, in some parts, as good news. It is, I suppose. It’s encouraging when someone decides to turn over a new leaf.
Proclaimed change is full of hope and promise.
My Handsome Man shared the status update with me. The Ex had
called or texted to inform him that she is now “working on getting sober,” or
“really focusing on her sobriety,” or something like that, conveyed with
conviction and with the attending qualifiers that “from now on everything is
going to be different.” Big news. Old news.
I should be excited, supportive, enthusiastic . . .
something other than skeptical. But I am . . . skeptical. The fanfare
accompanying the announcement – elated and energized kids, a panicked and
co-dependent Dear One who rushes off to stay with her mother because The Ex can’t
be alone when she’s trying to get sober – all indicates an expectation that
everyone will rejoice in this enticing turn of events.
I feel alone and isolated in my circumspect reaction. All
I’ve ever known is The Ex Getting Sober. That this is “NEWS” somehow eludes me.
I thought that was what she’d been doing during these many months of probation,
during the post-incarceration-electronic-ankle-bracelet-house-arrest summer,
throughout the 10 months in jail for multiple DUIs, during the repeated stints
in rehab, all those mornings after Little One called crying because mom was
passed out from drinking, sleeping pills, or some other pain-relieving escape-inducing
cocktail.
This idea, that an effort toward sobriety is just now being
launched, strikes me as odd and untrue. But the family marshals its resources,
mainly Dear One – the eldest, in support of this quest. It is the Great Hope of
Recovery. It is also the anticipation of The Ex’s snowbird parents returning
home to roost. The Snowbirds who have, approximately quarterly, threatened to
toss her out of their Northern nest where she has been residing for about a
year and a half. The timing of this renewed commitment to recovery, where any
disruption to her routine would be imminent cause for collapse does,
conveniently in my view, shift responsibility for her success to those around
her, and does so a few short weeks before the Snowbirds’ ETA. The Ex must not be
left to fend for herself and, Please! No one do or say anything that might
shatter her serenity, security, or support because that would surely tip the
scales against her.
And, though I’m skeptical of this bout of sobriety and
suspicious of her motives, I can’t actually cheer against it, nor do I want to.
Yet, I find my heart breaking in the shadow of that hope. Breaking for the enthusiasm that this proclamation gives rise to in the hearts of
the children. Breaking because it’s a wish that has been promised so many times
before and simply hasn’t come true. Breaking, also, because it comes with so
many devastating strings attached.
Mom can’t be alone if she’s ever to get sober. That means
when The Ex is not at AA meetings, or with her (award-winningly faithful,
truly!) sponsor, Dear One must be at the house. When The Ex gives up on
sobriety it’s always the fault of circumstance or someone else.
She drinks. Or uses, though drugs don’t really seem to be the confessed addiction. My outsider perspective hears admissions about alcoholism, but the sleeping pills are needed because she can’t sleep, the pain pills are needed because she hurts. I empathize, though it likely doesn’t appear that way, yet still I wonder, how can any of us recover from those demons we refuse to face?
She drinks when she misses the kids, when her parents threaten to kick her out of their house, when she takes a financial hit because of all the costs associated with her legal troubles. She drinks because she’s alone in the world with no one to take care of her and life is hard. When I think about it, I want to sit down and have a drink with her because life is hard, insufferable at times. Again, I sound as if I’m mocking her, but truly I’m not – very much. My life, too, is at times lonely, cruel and exhausting, so I recognize her toil and know that I also labor with how to cope.
She drinks. Or uses, though drugs don’t really seem to be the confessed addiction. My outsider perspective hears admissions about alcoholism, but the sleeping pills are needed because she can’t sleep, the pain pills are needed because she hurts. I empathize, though it likely doesn’t appear that way, yet still I wonder, how can any of us recover from those demons we refuse to face?
She drinks when she misses the kids, when her parents threaten to kick her out of their house, when she takes a financial hit because of all the costs associated with her legal troubles. She drinks because she’s alone in the world with no one to take care of her and life is hard. When I think about it, I want to sit down and have a drink with her because life is hard, insufferable at times. Again, I sound as if I’m mocking her, but truly I’m not – very much. My life, too, is at times lonely, cruel and exhausting, so I recognize her toil and know that I also labor with how to cope.
I simultaneously resent her struggles, because every time
she falls apart I see our kids struggle. I see them less trusting of the promise,
but still hopeful, and I anticipate their emotional crash when, once again, her
commitment to sobriety fails. Maybe this is just life though, because I see
them struggle with my moods and failings. Therein lies my resentment. When I
look out at the world as a limited pie, it feels like she eats up some of our piece,
My Handsome Man’s and mine, of the margin of error. When one parent is so in
need of caretaking from her own kids, the other parents get to shoulder more of
the responsible load. There’s less room for volatility and immaturity; less
room for being uptight, not being available, and dropping the ball. It feels
like there’s less room for being human.
But maybe if I wasn’t quite so nervous about whether she succeeds or fails, if I was more confident in the kids’ resiliency and less frightened that they will own her recovery, or the blame for its failure, maybe I’d be a sturdier partner for My Handsome Man and these lovely children. Maybe I’d worry less about how and whether The Ex is managing her life and be able to enjoy my own. Most of us don’t get it right on the first try, if ever, regardless of how sincere and earnest our desire is to do and be the right thing. Does that mean we shouldn’t make the effort, or that we should keep any aspiration to reform a secret?
But maybe if I wasn’t quite so nervous about whether she succeeds or fails, if I was more confident in the kids’ resiliency and less frightened that they will own her recovery, or the blame for its failure, maybe I’d be a sturdier partner for My Handsome Man and these lovely children. Maybe I’d worry less about how and whether The Ex is managing her life and be able to enjoy my own. Most of us don’t get it right on the first try, if ever, regardless of how sincere and earnest our desire is to do and be the right thing. Does that mean we shouldn’t make the effort, or that we should keep any aspiration to reform a secret?