Alcoholism

Alcoholism is a subject that is personal to me. Alcoholism has affected me and my family. I know how miserable life becomes under its influence. And especially living in a 3rd world and facing alcoholism is worst nightmare ever.
I am not an alcoholic but my parents are. Wow, there you go. I admit it. And trust me its not that easy. It took me years to prepare for that. I have never discussed it publicly and here I am writing it on my blog. I know people who I don’t even know are going to go through this but I am not going to hold it back. I want people to read it and understand how alcoholism affects not only the one who is consuming but the people in their lives.

I am writing about how it has affected me and my family not because I am seeking attention or sympathy. I am writing this, exposing the bitter truth because I know how hard it is to live with it. So, whoever is suffering through similar phase i want them to read it and not to loose their faith and strength.

There are four members in my family, me, my elder sister, mom and dad. We are a middle class family. There is nothing extravagant about us. We have to work hard and the income is enough just to cover the basic needs. When people see us they think we are one small happy family but if you just care to see deep inside you will see how it is.

My father has been an alcoholic ever since I remember. And my mother got into alcoholism about 9/10 years ago. These days they both are alcoholics.
Its not like they are bad people or they do not realize their responsibility. Trust me when I say this, they are kind and helpful. I love to be around them when they are sober. They are awesome. And I am not saying this just because they are my parents. I mean it.

Both my parents are teachers. My father wanted to help people, so he has been living in one of the remote area of the country. He teaches in school where children come from families who cannot afford sending their children to the boarding schools in the cities. The school is a charity based school. Their income is very small but they have spent their whole life teaching those children so they could be able to get into university and get a good job be someone, be famous may be. However there are also some people who have taken advantage of what they have done, and have profited themselves in different ways like making their life much more luxurious. But my parents kept their focus on providing education to those people who were in need. They did same for us. The sent us to city so we could continue our high school. The living and study expenses were high but they did it with lots of effort and dedication. And this I can say with much pride!

But as every story has its dark side, alcoholism is the dark side of our story. Alcoholism not only destroys health, it destroys a home. One do not need to be a rocket scientist to understand that alcoholism affects not only health but economic condition, emotional stability, confidence and god knows everything one has. It’s like a devil inside you, encouraging you to destroy what you have got. And it has done same thing with my family. If I start writing every single thing about how it destroyed our family, I could write a novel. But anyway, I am leaving out minute details and only go for the bigger picture that is enough for you to get the outline and the message of course.

Being a middle class family, money is always an issue. Future always is uncertain. So, we had this issue at home as well. My father being alcoholic, mother in denial, and sister in the city with bills rising, my home would be filled with violence. My parents would fight. I had to witness those fights when I was not even 10. I would stop their fights and quiet them. I would cry alone, no one to comfort me, no one whom I could talk about it. I would do cooking, washing and almost all the household stuffs thinking may be if I do this they would be happy and not drink. I would read hard get good grades thinking this might make them happy. But it was not enough and they would drink anyhow.

Since we lived in a small village where every people knew everybody’s business it was hard people not knowing what was going on in our home. I would feel so bad, gutted just thinking about it. I would try pretending everything was fine. I didn’t like bringing friends home. I dreaded it. I prayed almost everyday. I prayed if god would be kind enough to take the problems away. And the Great God was indeed kind. He intervened; however the way he did was different, nevertheless he did take some of my problems away. I had to leave my parents and come to the city for my high school. I don’t know if I was happy to leave them behind or scared that if I leave them behind something terrible might happen since I won’t be available to take care of them. But I left anyway; well just to find out life never is easy, and the problems were not gone yet. The drinking game continued so did the quarreling. My parents would fight over the bills they had to pay, life that was not promising enough and the continuous financial scarcity. My parents would come visit us during vacations but as much I looked forward spending time with them I would start hating being with them. I felt like I was living in hell. So many times I wished I were orphan. Nights and days I would cry alone, made myself believe that some day everything’s going to be okay. But things hardly changed. With time my parents grew old. Now the fights were replaced with continuous quarreling. Instead of our bills, their hospital bills were stacking higher. But no the drinking never stopped. It still has not. I still pray and I still pray to God to stop this circus. And I still have not lost my faith. But it’s hard, hard to live with. It gets harder when you have no one to talk to about it. No one to guide you or look after you, chances are you might end up choosing wrong path. But no I stood strong; I did what I could do the best. I finished my high school with good grades, started working right after so my parents would no longer had to worry about me and my bills, but I haven’t seen the sign yet.

May be I should blame them for not being there when I needed them, not being there to guide us. May be I should blame them for the wrong choices my sister made in her life because there was no one to guide her and since she was not strong enough to hold on and ended up trusting wrong people. May be I should blame them for not being able to provide me with what my friends are provided with. I could blame them for lots of things. But, may be I should be just be thankful to them that their alcoholism made me a hard working person who looks forward parenting her own kids with much more difference, who believes in just being a good human is not sufficient but being good enough not to choose a wrong path is much more important. May be its the only reason that made me who I am today, god knows may be if they were just the normal parents I might have turned out to be a brat who take things for granted. Chances were, i could have turned out worst, I could have been still rotting at home doing nothing. But their problems turned on things those were best in me.

Sometimes I get so frustrated I feel like killing myself. I see no reason for me being alive. I just think another life ends here and there are not much people who would miss that life. It only will grant me peace forever. But, I think about my parents, yes my alcoholic parents, I think about their survival. They are getting old, they are getting fragile, if I won’t be here who is going to look after them? They have done what they could and what most people fail to do. It is my responsibility to look after them. So what if they chose to over look few of their responsibilities they had, it’s not necessary I do the same. And one thing I have learned from life is not to over look the responsibilities you are entitled to. If one does not fulfill ones responsibilities then one should not demand ones rights.

Yes there are problems, psychological problems, problems like being unable to trust people, being unable to do things I had intended to do when I grew up. But may be those things were not meant for me. I am not giving up because it took me hell of an effort and courage to be where I am today. I have been through hell and there is more of it coming. But am all geared up and ready to fight it off. If I could do it as a child, why can I not do it as adult? Yes I believe I have the strength, strength to fight whatever life has stored for me. I am a fighter and I am strong. I believe in me I believe in better days.

While reading this you might also wonder why I choose to live in such misery. Why not just walk away or get my parents into rehab. Well the answer to why I choose not to leave is definitely because I chose to look after my parents because I wanted to be there for them. I know how painful it is when you need someone to be there but they choose not to be there. And answer for rehab selection is as simple as it could be. I can’t afford a rehab for my parents.

Life is hard for everybody. We all have problems in our life and in our family. And I want people to understand there is no shortcut to happiness or achievement. You got to fight for it; you got to work hard for it.

Alcoholism is problem just about anywhere in the world. But I believe when you are a part of a society where people are still not giving up superstition, people who do not believe in gender equality and will gossip if a women walks down the alley with a man, it is going to be worst environment to live in ever. And I know this because I live in such society, in this society people try to ignore the fact that people with alcoholism need help, instead they try to sweep that problem under the carpet and just be quiet about it. There are some organizations in our country who are reaching out but alcoholism is over shadowed by drug addictions. Very few people realize drinking problem has to be treated the same way addiction is, alcoholics need help fighting off their alcoholism.

I want people with alcoholic family members to understand that alcoholism is not your fault; it’s a disease so have faith, be patient and be strong. There might never be an end to it but with those sufferings you learn lessons most people have to wait their whole life to learn.

The problem is the fact that when alcoholism is problem with our parents or some elder family member we somehow cannot gather enough courage to put them into rehab. Had it been our children we could put them into rehab but our parents! They are elder than us how are we supposed to tell them to go to the rehab? It’s like disrespecting them. And mostly it’s the other way round. Things get complicated in this situation and we feel trapped. We want them to come clean not only for us but also for their own sake.

It’s difficult. But we have to understand there is limit to everything, I had to give up my child hood being adult because I had to take care of the family, I had to be strong when all I wanted was to cry out loud on somebody’s shoulder, I had to work as hard as possible because there were bills to pay and still here I am still uncertain of future, without any fancy university degrees or a permanent job or a source to rely on because I had no time for it. I was simply concentrating in the present I could barely think about future. Life has been hard enough and it continues to be. My parents are alcoholic not because of me but they chose to be. My life is a mess but I know I can make through it.

I wish my country was what it is not today. I wish there were some rules or law which would let children get protection against such horrible phases. I wish there were more opportunities. Or maybe just people I could count onto!