Sobriety Please

Three pre-paid calls already from the jail early this morning, knowing from experience that collect jail calls send me over the edge.  I've had extreme financial challenges lately, seriously not a penny to spare, no one time pizza dinner this month at all is planned.  Next month is no better with all the cheerleading expenses due.  July will be my big back-to-school new shoes for everyone expenditure.

"Dude," I stressed to my captive phone caller, "I told you not to drink.  You have a genetic component that you have no control over, this is what alcoholism is."  I know his birth father is a homeless drunk according to the birth mom who lives in the same town.  This birth couple gifted my children with extremely good looks, yet burdened them with the scary genetic predisposition for aggression and alcoholism.

"You fell off the horse," I kept on, "I still love you, I'm still proud you are working.  This doesn't change anything between us, except now it's on you to pay the fines, pail the bail bondsman, get a lawyer, and do what you have to do to properly pay your dues to society."

"Yes ma'am," subdued, and deeply disappointed in his own self, now that he's sober.

"And he can take the damn court mandated class he was supposed to already have taken," snarled my 29 year old son from work where I'd called him.  He was doing a 6 a.m.- 6 p.m. shift, irritated at the phone calls regarding this incident.

That hard-working, grown son of mine had been very angry, had tried to prevent what happened last night, but had been rudely ignored, and now is needed to co-sign the bond, because I sure as heck can not, nor will not, do so.

Do I want CPS, my other children, professionals helping our family, or my own overly-Methodist, conservative conscience to ever think I am enabling these poor decisions?  No, I don't.

What would that teach my son if I rushed in to "help" when that kind of "help" would only translate in his mind as, "I can keep on drinking because Mom will help me do so."  I want my son sober. I want all my children to always be sober.

I want my son to learn from his mistakes and to go on to eventually be the awesome man he can, and should be.

Best book on the subject, Getting Them Sober, a three volume eye-opening must-read for anyone affected by alcoholism in any aspect of their lives.

He knows this doesn't change how I feel about him.  He knows it's on him.  He's going to be a father this year and I reminded him, "Honey, you never saw me drink to cope.  I garden, I water plants, I take a long walk, I stomp, I mow grass, there are a billion proper coping mechanisms, and now you have to learn this to model it for your own kid."

I hate alcohol.  I hate it with a passion.  It is destructive, dangerous, expensive, unhealthy, and vastly problematic for so many people.