Small Steps Forward

it’s never that a person drinks. it’s how they drink that makes them an alcoholic. this particular person was drinking with her husband, then hiding the bottles because her family, who know the couple as teetotalers, “wouldn’t understand”.

that was really my first clue.

symptoms of a problem abounded… from the haphazard way she attacked a project, resisting all attempts at forethought and planning… from the way they constantly griped about their friends and family, never bringing up their concerns with the parties in question, always demeaning in private…

these were all part & parcel.

the reason i avoid people who drink isn’t the drinking itself — you could down a gallon of scotch while sitting beside me and i wouldn’t care. it’s all the crazy shit that goes with the person who needs to down a gallon of scotch. or the person who needs to hide empty wine bottles from non-understanding family members. it’s the crazy shit that goes with the drinking i want to avoid.

…

i am staring at a polaroid picture (read slower, you’re going to have to envision this to get it) placed inside a faux-gold-rimmed 5″x7″ picture frame. as i stare through the glass at the picture, i know that to mention it is to invite a backlash. something derisive, perhaps even scathing, from the person who placed the picture inside the frame. she’s not going to hear my observation as constructive; she’s not going to hear the inquiry. she’s going to hear a detraction, an insult.

and perhaps that’s fair. because i’m looking at this picture wondering “what the fuck was she thinking?”

and, i guess, that no matter how i say it, how eloquently or diplomatically i word my inquiry, that question will be at the heart of what i’m saying, and she’ll hear “what the fuck was she thinking?” as an insult. and respond from a wounded place.

what i really want to know is … how? how did she get to be 40-some-years-old with two children and think that the way to display polaroids was such? i mean… i believe in swimming against the current most of the time, but … well, what the fuck was she thinking?

and she is a crackhead. but still.

…

what grates me most is the emotional stuckness with alcoholics so much of the time is spent avoiding any depth or exploration of self or world. and that any attempts to do so is met with extreme resistance and hostility.

in short,

nothing is to be worked out

ever.

things are either worthy of praise or condemnation, and even then, either activity must only skim the surface; one is never to delve below the shallow waters.

ever.

so this is the role in my life which is continuously filled. as i open the door to allow some character to exit my life, i open another door for another character to enter.

i turned down a job with a stuck person only to accept a volunteer position with a stuck person.

what the fuck?

it’d be different if this was the first, or even the fifty-first time i’d done this. i can’t even count the number of people i’ve had filling this role.

what essential component in my makeup is missing which would this merry-go-round to cease?