A Letter To My Mother: Being Completely Honest When There Are No Options Left

It’s day 3 of #NaBloPoMo and I’m going strong. I had no idea these prompts would cause such a stir in my personal life though. It’s been a tough week so far, writing about past events that I’ve been shoving down into the depths of my soul. Today’s prompt is: If you could be completely honest with no regrets, what would you say and to whom? This is another tough post to write, but I feel it’s better to release it than to hold it in. 

You would never know it by looking at her unless you went out to lunch with her or she had you over for dinner. Even then you might not notice the subtle signs or the way she drinks more than she eats. Or how she always has to order an alcoholic beverage. You many not even notice it after going out with her a few times. She dresses well, always smells good, wears lots of pretty jewelry and can hold a great conversation. You would never know it by looking at her, but my mother is what they pros call, “a functioning alcoholic.” Only some may notice it when she has to order a beer at lunch always or when she must have that second wine with dinner to get over a tough day. I’ve known all my life. Somehow at the tender age of 6, I knew something was off when she always purchased alcohol, brandy was her drink of choice back then. Now it’s wine, beer, sometimes bourbon. 

I learned as I got older that my mother was an alcoholic when she would start silly fights with my Dad or would pester me with the same questions over and over again, poking and prodding, searching for a fight. I always hate alcohol in our home, the smell, the taste of it in her cooking, the clicking of the ice in the glass. Those things still make me shudder today and I’m thirty now. She’s not the type of alcoholic passed out on the couch or the type who oversleeps for an appointment. That’s the worst part of it all is that to the general public she hides her addiction well. But it is an addition and it’s one that if I chose to continue to have a relationship with my Mother, it’s one I’ll have to endure over and over again. 

I tried being honest with her before, but if I could tell her the cold, harsh, truth with no regrets, no fear of her ever talking to me again, or an awful fight, this is what I would say. 

“Dear Mom, 

Why do you need to drink? You have a wonderful life with lots of great family and friends, why do you constantly chose alcohol over them? Why is it always at the top of your grocery list? What makes it so special over us? Over me? Why did you forget to pick me up from school multiple times? How come you chose a drink over a meal? It’s not healthy and the older you become, the more I fear of liver damage and other permanent damage of alcohol. How come you never decided to make a strong choice and give it up? What’s so great about it? It’s expensive, smells awful, and does nothing good for your body. Is it worth your relationship with me? I wish you could let your addiction to this awful substance go. I wish you could set it free and move on from it. I wish you would choose me over the alchohol and that you could live an alcohol free life and begin recovery. I wish you could come to terms with your additicion and admit you have an addiction. I wish you could be free….

Love, Genevieve