Dutch courage

As a mum, I'm always looking back on how I raised my kids and wondering what if…

And today I’m wondering what if… I overprotected my kids in a way I didn’t realise. And the title of this post is because it's taking courage to write it knowing how I will or could come across.

I am pretty much a “teetotaller”. I say that because I don’t drink alcohol….except. 

A few years back I did a wine studies course, and learnt to understand good wine and the science behind creating it. I have an appreciation for the subtleties and the dedication winemakers use to create their end product... So every now and then I have a sip of something that intrigues me. And yes it is a sip, I don’t even get it poured in a glass for me; if I can’t sip it from my husband’s glass, I don’t drink it.

And of course that’s the very second people who know I “don’t drink alcohol” chime in with comments and smart talk and so on. So to make them happy, I say “I am … except”

But once again, I digress.

Growing up, our house was occasionally used for some people “drying out” from alcohol. I saw people who I respected, who were strong, feisty, loving, humorous, leaders, attractive looking and just all round good people at their worst.

I saw them crying, yelling, throwing up, sobbing, trying to rip their skin off, holding onto blades of grass because the world was tipping them off, howling, sweating, wetting and crapping themselves oblivious to their scent and other’s thoughts, throwing things around, and generally just being vile.. 

I saw them ugly. 

I watched my parents, total abstainers, wash bedding, clothes and the floor and walls, making coffee and food at 2am, trying to calm the nonsensical screaming and sobbing, and trying to pacify the terror in our eyes while the drunken rages continued. 

I saw them love.

I then saw those same people humbled for a moment in time, thanking my parents, then…. back again for another bout of drying out.

Whatever else I knew, I knew I never wanted my children to see what I saw, to see the ugly broken side of humanity crawling through its own vomit and physical and personal messes.

As I up grew, I avoided friends who drank. I avoided parties where people drank, and I avoided alcohol totally. I watched normal people become alien creatures through alcohol. 

You THINK you’re cute and flirty, you’re looking ugly and slutty.

You think your magic is working on the ladies, you look like a wreck.

Alcohol helps you pull? It's helping you pull needy people who are willing to make out with a drunk person? Well done you.

I married a “social drinker” who knows my heart. We moved house, into an area of wine production (hence my study, I thought it would help me obtain work; it didn’t) In this community, alcohol is pretty much used as currency in some situations, and every raffle or prize contains alcohol in some form. In other words, it’s near on impossible to avoid it.

My children knew I was anti alcohol, but couldn’t work out why. 

They couldn’t work out why I rang and checked every party to see if there’d be alcohol supplied. Of course those parents couldn’t monitor how many (often underage) guests would bring their own. 

They couldn’t understand why I insisted on picking them up from every party so they didn’t have to be tempted to drive home with someone who may have drunk alcohol. 

They couldn’t understand my disdain for their “cool and funny” friends who did drink to the point of idiocy.

They couldn’t understand why I was the only dumb parent.

I’m not going to say my kids didn’t drink. They did.

I’m not going to say they didn’t do some stupid and awful stuff when they drank. They did and do.

And I’m certainly in no way holding them or myself up as perfect. 

I’m not a card carrying, picketing temperance member who wants to bring back prohibition. I just wish for informed common sense with alcohol use. 

And now, when someone I love is actually seeing from another side the ugliness I saw, I wonder if I overprotected them. Maybe people should be allowed to see the vile side.

Maybe I should have let them see that sensible young strong people become old ugly fools in a matter of hours.

Maybe I should have let them see how “cool and funny” isn’t that – that it’s beautiful people destroying their brain, their skin, their liver and their lives.

Maybe I should have let them see the absolute train wreck people can make of their lives –and that the

     rambling

               smelly

                       old

                            drunk

                                   homeless 

                                             muttering

                                                                                                        

person they walk past on the street may not be as old as they think, and may have several university degrees, have been a sports legend, have been a prodigy, a caring parent, a loving partner, materially rich, a funny friend or a smart business person who couldn’t say no to alcohol. Who made a mistake.

But would they have listened? Hardly likely. They were, as so many are, invincible. Unbreakable and unsinkable. 

Unlike our hearts.