“Your Fired” In a simple game of word association you probably relate that phrase with Donald Trump and his motionless hair. But for my father and our family it brings up a completely different memory. It was a tipping point from a life some could call cookie cutter with a wife and daughter to come home to with dinner on the table, to a life where uncertainty ruled the roost. After loosing three jobs in a two year period, it’s almost plausible to see where a recovering alcoholic could see the bottle as a valid option. He certainly did.
I often wonder what his thought process was when he took his first sip after so many years sober. Did he think of our trips to the beach or our long talks on the evolution of music as he touched the poisoned glass to his dry lips? I could drive my self crazy thinking about what I could have done to some how prevent that drink. How I may have been the butterfly that flapped the wings that caused the hurricane.
I know that at some point all of us out there have felt that there is something we could have done, that there was one moment that you could have stopped it all from happening. But something we all need to remember, although the lines of their disease may bleed over and begin to engulf us, is that it is their disease. The logical part of me knows that it’s not my fault that nothing I could have done would have been able to change the choices he has made. The emotional part of me still feels that I’ve let him down; I didn’t try hard enough or love him enough. But that’s where my head and my heart will always fight. Do you too have the external fight between yourself and the disease and the internal fight between your heart and your head?
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